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15 Facts About Charna Halpern

1.

Charna Halpern was born on June 1,1952 and is an American comedian who is co-founder of the ImprovOlympic, now known as iO.

2.

Charna Halpern published Group Improvisation in 2003 and Art by Committee in 2006.

3.

Charna Halpern graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1974 with a major in English and Speech.

4.

Charna Halpern continued to work at the school for three years until her programs grant finished.

5.

Not long after the interview questions began, Charna Halpern was offered a job on the radio show.

6.

Charna Halpern worked on the radio for a year before embarking on a separate journey to pursue live improvisation.

7.

Charna Halpern first met Close at an art gallery on Halloween.

8.

Charna Halpern took offense to this, scolding him on the way out the door.

9.

Charna Halpern offered him 200 dollars and some pot in return for a three-hour improvisation lesson.

10.

Two years later, in 1983, Charna Halpern made a massive change in how the iO would operate.

11.

Some say that Charna Halpern adopting Close into the iO world saved him from a long-standing battle with substance abuse.

12.

On one end of the relationship, Charna Halpern offered Close a refuge by which he could pass down his passions for improvisation.

13.

Charna Halpern claimed that when Chicago mandated all theaters to be closed due to the pandemic, she knew that the theater was doomed.

14.

On top of the insurmountable amount of debt that the theater took on, Charna Halpern was criticized by the QBIPOC community pretty heavily.

15.

Charna Halpern had said in an interview that closing down the iO had nothing to do with criticism in respect to QBIPOC inclusion.