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A QUICK HISTORY From the early eighties to the mid ninties, The Illegitimate Players held a stunning presence in Chicago theater. One of the very first Second City trained Improv groups to tear up the cabaret scene in Chicago. Their first cabaret revue, "Near North Side Story" played over a year at the north side venue The Roxy to sold out audiences. Later taped by Group W Cable of Chicago and aired countless times, it garnered them their first award, a Chicago Emmy. This led to a partnership with Group W Cable and together they produced "The Illegitimate Players Live on TV", a twenty-six week series featuring improv and sketches poking fun at the medium that supported them. They continued playing live with another well received revue, "Out On a Whim" again combining sharp social satire, whimsical musical numbers and improvised games and scenes. Along with live revues at the Roxy and the television series, The IllGits made several appearances on local radio and television, including Q101, NPR, WGN Morning News. They also played host weekly at Chicago's "Catch a Rising Star." By this time the cabaret scene in Chicago was getting very crowded and newspapers no longer had the space to see all the new shows and groups that had sprouted like mushrooms under a shady tree. And the grueling writing schedule of the television show had led the Players to longer form pieces that naturally evolved into full length original plays. It was around this time that they incorporated into a separate but equally comedic group for industrial shows called "The Comedy Option." The corporate offspring consisted of the same players and producers as The Illegitimate Players and offered a genuine fresh outlook on Corporate America. From product rollouts to seminars to year-end sales meetings, The Comedy Option offered completely original material hand tailored for each and every client. Several fortune 500 companies called on The Comedy Option time and time again to breathe life in an otherwise droll meeting or rollout. Among these clients; Ameritech, Illinois Bell, Chicago Bar Assoc, Boston Mass Mutual, Abbott Labs, St. Paul Federal. Others, including Chicago's First National Bank exclusively contracted with The Comedy Option for all their in-house video and live presentations. But outside of the corporate venue The Illegitimate Players were venturing into legitimate theater ... of sorts. Their first full length play "The Glass Mendacity" was a send up of Tennesee Williams' body of work. A blend of Williams' characters from classics "The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" rolled into a Williams styled original story and premeired at Chicago's prestigeous Victory Gardens Theater on Lincoln Avenue. This led to a string of well received parodies and the respect of legitimate theater and critics alike. Following "The Glass Mendacity" came "All My Spite", an hour special exclusively taped for TCI of Illinois, a send-up of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", "Death of a Salesman" and "The Crucible." Then came John Steinbeck's turn with "Of Grapes and Nuts" which skewered "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath.

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