Annoyance Theatre takes its punk comedy ethos into corporate America
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Mick Napier runs an improv workshop. Photo: Courtesy of Annoyance Theatre
Chicago's famously irreverent Annoyance Theatre is taking its brand of punk rock comedy to the boardroom.
The latest: The Annoyance has relaunched its corporate improv training program with workshops designed for today's workplace.
How it works: Improv theaters like The Second City have long made money teaching businesses how to communicate, collaborate and think on their feet.
- Programs range from team-building workshops to customized performances for retreats and annual meetings.
- Second City's corporate curriculum isn't foreign to Annoyance co-founders Mick Napier and Jennifer Estlin — they helped write it.
What they're saying: "As we've grown at The Annoyance, we wanted to take a real hard look at what the world is now, and what the corporate sentiment is, and sensibility is now," Napier tells Axios.
Flashback: The Annoyance opened in East Lakeview in the late 1980s, earning a reputation for boundary-pushing shows like "Co-Ed Prison Sluts," "Splatter Theater" and "The Real Live Brady Bunch," which helped launch performers like Andy Richter and Jane Lynch.
- Despite multiple moves, ownership changes across Chicago's comedy scene, and the pandemic, Napier and Estlin have kept the theater alive. At the same time, similar spaces like iO closed and Second City changed ownership.
Reality check: Corporate improv isn't new for The Annoyance. Napier and Estlin say they're simply redesigning the program for a workplace shaped by social media, remote work, AI and increasingly polarized conversations.
- "We haven't addressed what the world is right now, as far as the way people communicate and the difficulty in communicating," Estlin tells Axios. "Because of the way people see clips on the internet, people aren't talking and instead arguing."
- "We're all here to create something. How can we do that together and have opinions, but also keep the collaboration going?"
The bottom line: The irony of a theater famous for pushing boundaries now teaching corporate collaboration isn't lost on Napier.
- "Our shows made it very difficult for us to enter the corporate environment, but we did," Napier says. "A lot of the people who drank a six-pack and saw 'Co-Ed Prison Sluts' are now working for ad companies and whatnot, so they have no problem with us taking that chance," Napier adds.
- "It's ironic that a punk-ass subversive theater company wants to spread kindness, respect, thoughtfulness, and authenticity in a corporate environment. We feel that we have to do it."