Need a laugh? Check out these 12 fresh comic talents—the best of the scene right now
BY ROBERT BUSCEMI
Chicago supports a vast, roiling population of young comics tearing up stages around town every night of the week. But for anyone who’s ever gambled on a night of comedy and lost, we identify a dozen who rise above the pack but are mostly still flying under the radar. (We steered away from comedians recently profiled in this magazine, including Hannibal Burress, Susan Messing, and Nick Vatterott, as well as perennial headliners such as the regular casts for The Second City’s Mainstage and e.t.c., the sketch quintet Schadenfreude, and the beloved comedy duos T. J. and Dave and Bassprov.) All five of the Second City performers listed here travel with the Touring Company but appear at the Old Town venue on Saturday matinees and Monday evenings; the box office can tell you when.
MARZ TIMMS, 35
Chicago Improv/sketch/standup
Timms, a Dadaist in sensibility and “nerdy, yet urban,” will stop at nothing for a laugh. In the coat-and-tie-wearing percussive duo Tony Symbals and Cocoa, the baby-faced Timms plays only a tiny set of cymbals, accompanied by the imposing Keith Smitherman bashing away at a drum kit made for a child. The two take absurdly long, silent onstage bottled-water breaks between numbers. Timms elicits even more squeals with Pimprov, a dressed-to-kill, so-wrong-they’re-right all-black quartet so funny you’ll shoot beer through your nose. NOW PLAYING: Timms is a member of The Annoyance Theatre. Also, catch Pimprov in an open run Fridays at 10:30 p.m. at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater.
