NORTH CENTER — Improv veterans are trained to act and react on the fly, but when it came to opening a Chicago location of her Schaumburg-based Laugh Out Loud improv theater, owner Lillie Frances deliberated for the better part of a year.
She and husband Scott McMillin, a co-owner in the new enterprise, looked up and down Lincoln Avenue before settling on a storefront at 3851 N. Lincoln Ave., near the couple's Ravenswood home.
"I wanted it to be in my neck of the woods," said Frances, a Northwestern theater alum and former faculty member at the Second City Training Center.
Laugh Out Loud fits in well with new neighbors Martyrs' and American Theater Company, forming a "little theater district," she said, and fills a niche not met by any other improv troupe in the city.
Where iO Theater (formerly ImprovOlympic) specializes in long-form improv and Second City uses improv to generate scripted skits, Laugh Out Loud's specialty is rapid-fire comedy based on audience suggestions, Frances said.
"We're very fast and very funny," she said. "We're more like ComedySportz or 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' without the competition or point system."
Laugh Out Loud's specialty is rapid-fire comedy based on audience suggestions. [Facebook/Laugh Out Loud Theater]
After running Laugh Out Loud in Schaumburg for the past eight years, Frances is excited to give her 30-plus ensemble members an opportunity to strut their stuff on a Chicago stage, where the majority of the actors trained and live.
She anticipates they'll encounter "savvier" patrons more familiar with improv.
"We still get audiences in Schaumburg saying, 'Who's playing?' and think we do stand-up," Frances said.
Once up and running, the North Center outpost of Laugh Out Loud will mount performances Thursdays-Saturdays, with Sundays also probable, and will offer improv classes as well, she said.
A liquor license is pending, and Frances has already bought a 1930s-era bar from a seller in Wisconsin.
"So we have this big piece of furniture ... hopefully some day we'll fill it," she said.
If, unlike improv, all goes according to plan, Laugh Out Loud will hold a soft opening in December and make a bigger splash in the new year.
Turns out, January makes for perfect comedic timing, Frances said.
"Winter time is actually really busy, people have cabin fever," she said. "In Schaumburg, that's when we sell out."
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