Online Improv Elective: Messing & Mason Master Class

Rachael Mason began her career in improvisation at Skidmore College, home of the National College Comedy Festival, with the Ad-Liberal Artists. After graduating with a degree in English Literature, concentrating on Shakespearean Studies, she moved to Chicago to study improv comedy with Del Close. She is now the head of Advanced Improvisation for The Second City where she created the Scenic Improv and Dramatic Improv programs as well as The History of Satire Series for The Second City Training Center. She has performed musical improv with Baby Wants Candy at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, directed and performed at The Annoyance, played with The Hot Karl at ComedySportz, and had almost every job at iO (where she was Training Center Director for 8 years), done The Spoletto Festival with The Second City National Touring Company, and is currently in the cast of The Second City Improv All-Stars at The Up Comedy Club as well as with Second City’s first resident improv show, The Boys. She is most happy when she is teaching improv.

Susan Messing, a New Jersey native, is a graduate of Northwestern University. She has performed for over 20 years with Chicago’s iO Theatre, and created and teaches their Level 2 Curriculum which is used in Chicago and LA’s iO West.

At the legendary Second City, Messing wrote and performed in two mainstage revues and directed their National Touring Company. Messing is a founding member of the infamous Annoyance Theatre where she has created roles in over thirty original productions, including “Co-Ed Prison Sluts”, “The Miss Vagina Pageant”, and “Your Butt”. In addition, she conceived, co-adapted (with Mary Scruggs) and directed the critically acclaimed “What Every Girl Should Know…An Ode to Judy Blume” for the Annoyance stage, where she also continues to teach.

You can see Messing’s critically-acclaimed show, “Messing with a Friend” every Thursday night at The Annoyance. Messing has been an adjunct professor for Loyola University, DePaul University’s Theatre School, and The University of Chicago, and The School of Steppenwolf. Her standup act with her puppet, Jolly, has been featured at the HBO/US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and NBC’s Late Fridays. You can hear her voice on radio and tv ads. Susan has been cut from several blockbuster films, but her recent movie role in “Let’s Go to Prison!” as a bad stripper in a halo brace, made her very happy. Her daughter, Sofia Mia, is very twelve, very ridiculous, and very awesome.

£70