Ithamar Enriquez is an alum of The Second City Chicago and has been a guest performer at The Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade and as a puppeteer and guest host of The Jim Henson Company’s Puppet Up! His TV and film appearances include: WandaVision, Miracle Workers, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lady Bird, The Conners, Arrested Development, 9-1-1, The Office and A Series of Unfortunate Events. His voice can also be heard on American Dad, Netflix’s Chicago Party Aunt and Nick Jr.’s Pop Up Problem Solvers. His live solo show, Ithamar Has Nothing To Say, has played all over the country and became a series produced by Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele.

Ithamar will be teaching Improv Deconstructed

Inessa Frantowski is a Canadian comedian living in Los Angeles. And I do mean LIVING! She is a Canadian Screen and Canadian Comedy Award winner. An alumni of The Second City Mainstage in Toronto, UCB Maude in Los Angeles and Just For Laughs: New Faces in Montreal and currently in the Groundlings’ Sunday Company. Inessa is known for her fearless approach to stand-up comedy that blends wit, physicality, and original character work. She was a writer/performer on Canada's longest running sketch comedy television series, This Hour has 22 Minutes and plays a deranged Shopping Channel Host on the International Emmy nominated series, The Amazing Gayl Pile. Additional film/TV credits include: Cosmopolis, Greener Grass, American Princess, The Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town and the upcoming David Spade film Busboys. She has also been teaching comedy internationally for 15 years crafting specific curriculum for various institutions including the National Ballet School of Canada. Her stand up album, Help me, help ME is available on itunes/Spotify. @inessacomedy everywhere! She also hosts “SuperBloom” at the Elysian Vault.

Inessa is currently teaching Organic Standup

Corey Podell is an actor, director, and teacher. Most recently, she directed the stage shows Mr. Chonkers, Vanessa 5000, Gutterplum, Queen of Fishtown, and The Underground Monk Show.

Corey is a founding member of ‘Clown Zoo’ and has years of experience performing and teaching at The Groundlings Theater and UCB. As an actor, Corey can be seen in The Joe Shmo Show Reboot, The Comeback, Two Broke Girls, Transparent, and The Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Corey is a sought after instructor who has taught across the United States but is overjoyed to be teaching this class at what she considers her home base, The Elysian Theater! She is also directing “Ungerground Monk Show”

Corey is currently teaching Clown Fundamentals

Jacquelyn Landgraf is the Artistic Director of the Elysian. She is a director, performer, writer, and teacher, with a focus on new and developing work, and supporting artists-in-process. Alum of the experimental comedy collective The New York Neo-Futurists, the writer/performers of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, The Infinite Wrench, and a long roster of downtown performance pieces. For over fifteen years, she was on the acting faculty at NYU Tisch School of the Arts/Atlantic Acting School, teaching scene study for Atlantic’s NYU Studio and Professional Conservatory. For those programs, she also created the class Moment Lab, a study of chasing the sincere and unplanned moment in performance and deepening connection between actors and audience. She teaches performance and writing workshops across the country and internationally, including at the Williamstown Theater Festival, Austin Film Festival, London’s Central Film School, Hollins University MFA program in Berlin, On Time Productions in Mexico City, Brave Studios in Melbourne, Australia, and the U.S. State Department. As an actor, Jacquelyn was in the original cast of the U.S. premieres of Deaf West’s Orpheé, Anna Nicole the Opera directed by Richard Jones at BAM/New York City Opera, John Guare’s 3 Kinds of Exile directed by Neil Pepe at the Atlantic Theater, Suzan Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays at The Public, and The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill, vol. 1, which was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for “Unique Theatrical Experience.” She created the two-season musical fiction podcast It Makes A Sound, and produced its original soundtrack album, Wim Faros: the Attic Tape.

Jacquelyn will be teaching Playing Yourself

Cassie Ahiers is a director, writer and educator originally from Minnesota. She holds a degree in Theater Directing from Columbia College Chicago. Recent Elysian directing credits include, Shipping, Fanny: A Classical Punk Musical and Widdle Women, an original play she wrote for the Elysian’s Spaghetti Festival. For the past decade, Cassie has been developing her dark comedy musical, The Mountain Digby, which has had readings and workshop productions in Chicago and Los Angeles. It was also a finalist for the Stellar Emerging Artist in Theatre Grant and the National Alliance of Musical Theatre Festival. Cassie has over 15 years of experience teaching improv, sketch writing, and theater, to students ages 4 to 80. Cassie is a former director of The Second City’s National Touring Company- leading 100+ productions that toured theaters nationwide. As an acting coach, she worked on over 50 episodes of Nickelodeon productions, including Side Hustle, The Thundermans Return, That Girl Lay Lay, Danger Force, and Aaron & Erin. In 2024, Cassie piloted The Blast Zone, an original podcast with Atlas Obscura and NPR, which is currently in development. Her newest short film, Aloneness, is in post-production, while Boy Band in a Haunted Hotel—a short she created with a group of artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities—is set to premiere at festivals later this year. Learn more about her film and theater work at www.cassieahiers.com

Cassie will be teaching Directing Lab

Conor Hanney is the founder & director of THEE Improvised Musical, the show BroadwayWorld calls a "powerhouse" with over 200 performances over 10 years in 14 festivals & 12 straight cagematch wins. He's worked in 9 writers rooms for Netflix, Disney, & Paramount, freelanced 6 scripts, sold 12 songs, and sold Disney his first series pitch along with the rights to his first novel manuscript. He's currently developing two series for Paramount, two features for Broken Road & Oops Doughnuts, and did punch-ups on James Gunn's recently unshelved Coyote vs. Acme for Warner Bros. In theater, Conor was licensed by Princeton, a Finalist for both The O'Neill National Playwrights Conference & Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, and is currently adapting The Partridge Family musical for Broadway. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame, plays piano at Darren Criss's Tramp Stamp Granny's, performed a musical best man speech with the Austin Children’s Choir, runs a special needs improv company & little league, and a feature article was written on his work here.

Connor will be teaching Musical Improv: Making Up Songs