“I think that with comedy you have some comedians who can make the back of the room laugh and you have some comedians who can make the front of the room laugh,” says comedian Dan White, sitting onstage in the Jason Chin Harold Cabaret space on the second floor of the iO Theater on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-November. “And the goal, I think, for us, is that the best can do both.”
That night, White — along with fellow improvisers Damian Anaya and Tim Lyons — would take to that same stage they’ve been taking to for years now to attempt just that, as the improv troupe Fudge. The trio — fourth Fudge team member Vince Portacci recently moved to Seattle — puts on a weekly variety show, named after the troupe, that features stand-up comics, a rotating iO Harold team and even an occasional musician. Each show closes out with a performance from Fudge.
This weekly show has been going strong for half a decade now and it’s worth noting that although they’re both popular forms of comedy, combining improv and stand-up in the same line-up isn’t as common a formula as it might sound. In fact, Fudge is one of the only shows at an established venue that consistently puts the two on the same stage. On Tuesday, the team will celebrate their fifth anniversary with an impressive stand-up/improv/music line-up.
“We just wanted to put on the funniest show possible and the most comedically interesting show possible,” says White of their variety-show format. “So you get a little of this, a little of that. And I think our guiding principle with the show has always been, ‘Let’s do the funniest show we can.'”
After originally forming under the short-lived name “Grunge” with White and Lyons at the center of a loose and rotating group of performers at CiC Theater that performed on Friday nights, the troupe solidified and moved to iO and — after a brief stint continuing their Friday night tradition — moved permanently to their current Tuesday night slot, an unconventional move to a less popular time slot that the guys now credit with helping their long-term success.
“It gave us a lot of time to figure out what the show was, who we were, how we were playing,” says Lyons. “There were only one or two people here most of the time and we were like, ‘Well, we’ll just do the show, have a good time, and see what happens.'”
What happened is that word started to spread. Over the years Fudge has become one of the most highly regarded improv teams at iO and their Tuesday night show has become a real draw. “We’ve had the option to go to weekends, but we’ve always wanted to stick on Tuesdays,” says White. “Tuesday nights plays into the ethos of the show a bit because when we were coming up your more comedy savvy audiences tended to be weeknight audiences — comedy fans or comedy students or young comedians — as opposed to the weekend, which is more …”
“Date night,” Anaya continues seamlessly. “People looking for something to do.”
Comedian Caleb Hearon has performed on Fudge three times and will be part of the five year anniversary show. Hearon says he likes how Fudge includes stand-up and improv together. He doesn’t think the two comedy forms are as far apart as people sometimes make them out to be.
“I feel like it’s a false dichotomy,” he says. “There’s a big conversation I noticed when I moved here about stand-ups vs. improvisers and I haven’t noticed it that much. Most people do a lot of different things. I don’t know an improviser that only does improv. Most improvisers are visual artists or musicians and the same with stand-ups. I don’t really know a stand-up that just does set-up/punch-line/jokes into a mic.”
It’s on Twitter that you can see the various forms of comedy coming together; check out Hearon at @calebsaysthings, Chelsea Holmes at @_holmes_holmes and (recently relocated) Megan Stalter at @megstalter.
The members of Fudge agree that more and more comedians are breaking down the silos between the various forms and they’re excited to be on the forefront of showcasing various comedic styles together. “It almost feels like it’s kind of becoming a natural progression as people move through Chicago a little bit faster than they used to,” says Lyons. “People used to come here, incubate for 10 years and then move forward, but now you’re here and you’re like, ‘What else can I do outside of improv?’ So people are doing improv and then jumping to stand-up and vice-versa.”
“Whether there are two people or 150 people here — and we’ve had shows with both of those — we always just show up and approach it like, ‘Let’s just do as good of a show as we can,'” says White. “And I think in time people respond to that if you’re doing good work.” That sentiment, like Fudge, is all Chicago comedy work ethic. And that cuts across all comedy genres.
Zach Freeman is a freelance writer.
