“Wicke is terrific…”
– Newcity

“Wicke is superb…”
– Chicago Theatre Review

“A guy worth knowing…”
– Chicago Sun-Times

Guy Wicke is an actor, improviser, and voiceover-er who has been performing in his hometown of Chicago since the turn of the century. Theatre credits include Life on Paper (Jackalope Theatre Company); Tres Bandidos (The Agency Theater Collective); A Murder Most Novel, The Basement Company (Death & Pretzels); Noises Off, The Mousetrap (Metropolis Performing Arts Centre); The Explorers Club, Don’t Dress For Dinner (Citadel Theatre); as well as work with the International Voices Project; NoMads Art Collective; and the Continuum, Intrinsic, Genesis, Clockwise, and Spartan theatre companies. Film credits include Dubious Ruffians, The Courtship, In the Dark, Screens, Águila del Sol, Lifelines, and Blood Moon. He has acted in a dozen television commercials and a variety of industrial films for regional and national companies. Guy has been performing improv comedy for 20 years, appearing on stages around Chicago and at comedy festivals in the Midwest and Canada. He has taught and directed improvisation as well, and has had the privilege of directing improv troupe The Queen Bs for over 5 years. He has also written and performed material for sketch, stand-up, and storytelling events.

 

The origin story…

A native Chicagoan, I didn’t have to go very far to find myself in a world-class comedy and theater scene. When I discovered improv around the turn of the century, it changed my life, and I’ve been performing ever since.

It just so happened that my introduction to improvisational comedy was through the infamous, self-proclaimed “badasses of Chicago improv,” Low Sodium Entertainment. That now long-defunct company had a terrible reputation and its owner succeeded in antagonizing people, burning bridges, and getting LSE kicked out of most theaters in Chicago. He also succeeded in producing some damn incredible comedy shows, including Improvisers Must Be Punished!, Holy Shit!, and “the most disgusting, offensive, graphic improv comedy show in the world,” The Evil Show! I was a devoted fan and soon an enthusiastic student in the Low Sodium Entertainment Improv Comedy and Performance Conservatory. After becoming a graduate of that prestigious training center, I was immediately cast as an LSE ensemble member and began performing alongside the very improvisers I’d idolized and been taught by. I was there right up until Low Sodium’s dramatic dissolution in 2002, but I have no regrets. That company and the experiences I had there were an enormous gift.

Soon afterward, I was among the ex-LSE cast members who formed pH Productions, which went on to be a significant pillar of the improv community for over a decade. From 2002-2008, I performed constantly with pH in a variety of sketch and improv shows across Chicago and in a handful of comedy festivals in the U.S. and Canada. An incredible chapter of my life, very fondly remembered.

From 2007 to 2015, I was an ensemble member of Laugh Out Loud Theater, in which Chicago improv is exported out to Schaumburg. I also occasionally taught classes there and coached a couple of independent improv teams. One of those teams, the Queen Bs, continues to thrive today. When Sheridan Road Magazine saw me performing in the LOL mainstage shows, they described me as having “well honed skills,” “pleasing everyman qualities” and “a jovial approach to creating material on the spot.” To which I say, “Pshaw.”

 

Training as an Actor

In 2011, I finally satisfied my yearning to try dramatic theater and enrolled at Act One Studios, where I studied in a series of classes and was eventually invited by Act One Director Steve Merle to become a founding member of The Group, his exclusive, ongoing advanced scene study class. When I auditioned for a play for the first time, I was cast and starred alongside Richard Pryor Jr. in Lipstick Goes On Last at the Den Theatre. When I auditioned next, I was again cast and starred as the nerd in Black Fox Theatre’s The Nerd at the Athenaeum. Since then, I’ve acted in numerous theater productions, films, and commercials. Clearly, Act One was doing something right. I’m immensely grateful to the fine folks there, especially Steve Merle, Stesha Merle, Anne Jacque, and Susan Monts-Bologna, the woman who sized me up in my initial interview and saw something in that nervous improv guy.

Now I am living my dream and pursuing opportunities in acting, comedy, and voiceover.

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