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Mick Napier

Biography

Mick Napier (born December 12, 1962) is an American director and improvisational theater teacher. He is the founder and artistic director of the Annoyance Theatre and a director at The Second City. He has directed Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, Nia Vardalos, Andy Richter, Jeff Garlin, and David Sedaris

Napier directed the Comedy Central Cable Ace nominated show Exit 57 and the Troma film Fatty Drives the Bus which also featured notable Chicago improvisers and actors still living and working there today, including Susan Messing, Joe Bill and Mark Sutton. In 2008, Fatty Drives the Bus landed on several cult top ten lists such as Liberal Dead which wrote, "...a weird cross of 70’s era exploitation and comedy rolled up in a nice little blasphemy laced package."

He founded The Annoyance with the philosophy that training improvisers to be individually powerful is the best way to support those with whom one improvises, an answer to the Yes, And philosophy, which he found led to weak, polite improvisation more often than powerful, good improvisation, a subject that he elaborates on in his book, Improvise: Scene from the Inside Out.

In August, 1999, Napier contributed to R. O’Donnell’s TV show R. Rated, which aired midnights on Fox, Chicago. It included several of his animated shorts and other video works from the Annoyance Theater featuring himself, Rachel Dratch (Saturday Night Live), and Stephnie Weir (MADtv).

Napier's wrote his handbook guide for students of improvisation, Improvise:Scene from the Inside Out in 2002. In it, he challenges 'The Rules' of improv that many students first learn. Napier argues that these 'Rules' are not only not helpful, but actually destructive to the process of creating good improv. Adhering to 'The Rules' can leave improvisers powerless to play, and as such, does not necessarily mean that it will lead to a good scene. In this book, Napier suggests that a different approach is essential to creating good improv. Napier argues, rather, that improvisers should 1) Do something, 2) Check out what you did, and 3)Hold onto what you did.

In 2008, he directed a revival of the classic Annoyance show Co-Ed Prison Sluts: The Musical, the longest running musical in Chicago. Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones expressed the cultural impact of the show stating, "A lot of people, the very same people who now dominate comedy, television and even how many Americans get their politics, took comfort in how “Co-Ed Prison Sluts” attracted nightly lines that stretched for a full Chicago block. For 11 consecutive years (take that, “Wicked”). And so they stuck around here, and built a scene."