The Compass Players
1955-1958 · Chicago, IL / St. Louis, MO
First improvisational theater in the United States — the laboratory where Nichols, May, Close and others turned Spolin's games into a performance idiom.
Known for
- Opened July 8, 1955 at 1152 E. 55th St. near the University of Chicago; cofounded by David Shepherd and Paul Sills.
- Nichols & May developed many of their signature scenes here, later expanded into their Broadway two-hander.
- St. Louis offshoot at the Crystal Palace is where Theodore J. Flicker, Nichols, May and Del Close articulated the earliest formal improv principles — Close's '11 Commandments for Improv' began here.
- Sills used the Compass template to co-found The Second City in 1959; Shepherd returned to New York and later created the ImprovOlympic tournament concept that seeded iO.
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