Laugh 'Brigade' Edgy Upright Citizens bring reality-based TV show to fest.(Time Out!)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), May, 2001 | by Helbig, Jack

Byline: Jack Helbig Daily Herald Correspondent When Rudolph Guiliani decided to clean up New York, closing down strip clubs and adult bookstores, he probably wasn't thinking it would give the edgy improv group, the Upright Citizens Brigade, a place to work. But that's exactly what happened when he closed a tacky little strip club in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Sometime last year, the plucky folks at the Upright Citizens Brigade, in Chicago this weekend for the city's annual Improv Festival, took over the space. At the time they still had a TV show on Comedy Central but things were clearly not going well. Their expenses, though low by network TV standards, were too high for the low-rent Comedy Central. By the time I saw their latest live show,...