INSTRUCTORS
Adrian Frimpong
Adrian “Frimmy” Frimpong has written and performed at San Francisco Sketchfest, Portland Sketchfest, and Out of Bounds in Austin. UCB NY alum featured in ComedyCentral’s Mini Mocks, NBC’s Bring the Funny, and regularly voices NFL and NBA athletes for Bleacher Report’s animated series. When he’s not performing with musical improv group, Baby Wants Candy, he co-hosts the variety show, 100%, at Pete’s Candy Store every 4th Friday.
Alex Gonzalez
Alex Gonzalez is a WGA screenwriter, author, and instructor. He teaches fiction writing at Catapult.co and teaches MFA level screenwriting at Long Island University. He is one of the creators of PoC satire site Flexx Magazine, horror-zine youarenotalone, and has been published in various magazines and anthologies, with his novel "Land Shark" debuting in 2020. He was recently a private consultant for novelist Honni van Rijswijk and has been a consultant on various pitches, treatments, and projects across several production companies in television, audio, and film. His feature script "Negative Space" is currently in development with Extra A Productions (The Giant, Little Woods) and his novel REKT is on submission through FinePrint Lit.
Andy Junk
Andy Junk, a Chicagoland native, performed for over 10 years on house teams with Chicago’s iO Theater (formerly the Improv Olympic), and is a member of the lauded Improvised Shakespeare Company. He has a BFA in Acting from Illinois Wesleyan University, has studied at the iO Theater, and is also a graduate of the Second City Conservatory.
Before moving to New York, Andy was an instructor at the iO Theater, and has led master classes throughout the United States. As an actor, he can be seen on television in Joe Pera Talks with You, Shameless, The Patriot, Chicago PD, and is currently the spokesperson for AmericanEagle.com
Carly Ciarrocchi
Carly Ciarrocchi (she/her) is an Emmy-nominated host, writer, musician, and producer. She has spent most of her career in children's media, making and hosting TV shows and podcasts with collaborators like Universal Kids, Disney+, Nick Jr, Tinkercast, Sesame Workshop and the LEGO Foundation. In everything she does, she hopes to create the conditions for humans of all ages to connect to wonder, possibility and resilience. Carly has trained with iO, Second City, 500 Clown, Philipe Gaulier, Paola Coletto and holds a theatre degree from Northwestern University. She's a Moth Story Slam winner, and the promotional voice of Southwest Airlines. Let's bounce!
Chris Manley
Chris Manley (he/they) is an American writer, performer and clown. He is best known for his character Buttons. He was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for his performance in "The Nosebleed," has performed with Cirque du Soleil and is honored to be listed in Le Petit Clown August Alphabetique alongside Abbott & Costello. He has performed at Lincoln Center, Ars Nova, The Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, The People’s Improv Theater, the Toronto Sketch Fest and the Chicago Sketch Fest. You can see him in several national commercials and award winning films.
Colin Rourke
Colin Rourke is a Brooklyn-based improviser, writer, actor. As a Chicago native, Colin has trained under and performed for The iO Theater, The Second City House Company, Logan Square Improv and CIC Theater. He's been featured in Buzzfeed and The Gag, and was selected as one of the Content Creators to watch at the 2022 NY Comedy Festival, along with his sketch team "Please Stop Crying". You can catch him improvising every Thursday at 7PM at BCC with "The Good Time", or monthly at Club Cumming as part of the duo, "The Critically Acclaimed Husbands". Follow him on social @ballin_rourke
Dave Quiñones
Dave Quiñones of Albany, NY has degrees in Theatre Arts and Communication from SUNY Fredonia. These days he gets into acting, improvisation, story telling, poetry, directing, coaching, stand-up, puppetry, and the study and safe presentation of violence and intimacy. He wrote for and performed in the first Brooklyn Comedy Collective Mainstage Residency, played on multiple Harold Teams at iO Chicago, and received The Second City Bob Curry Fellowship on his first audition. Currently, Dave plays with the house team Detention! through The Armory and teaches in all of the programs at The Second City New York. He thanks his mother, partner, friends, family, and cat for their unending love and support. Fuck the police. Venmo @davey-q IG @jamaica_squeeze
Devin Bockrath
Devin Bockrath is a New York based improviser, actor, writer and sketch comedian. As a Chicago native, she trained with the Annoyance and iO Theaters. During her time in Chicago she was lucky to perform with some amazing Harold and independent groups including The Other Other Guys, Superhuman, DMNK, The Holy Fuck Comedy Hour, Invisible World, an original sketch show directed by Mick Napier; and NBC Universal’s Sketch Showcase, directed by Mick Napier and produced by Lou Wallach (The Chappelle Show). Upon moving to New York, she continued her training as an actor with The Atlantic Theater School’s Professional Conservatory. And began teaching sketch and improv for the Annoyance Theater’s NY location, where she developed a uniquely female driven improv workshop, Set Bitch Free, inspired by the powerful women of her girl group Superhuman. She currently teaches for the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, and continues to perform as an actor and comedian in New York. Devin has appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, and has been featured in comedic shorts on IFC and Comedy Central. Most recently she was cast in a short film, To The Moon, alongside John Reynolds (Netflix’s Stranger Things, TBS Search Party, Hulu’s Four Weddings and a Funeral). And co-starred in a comedic drama, Amazing Bagel, playing opposite Tim Baltz (NBC’s Shrink, Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones).
Jamie Linn Watson
Jamie Linn Watson is an actress and comedian who frequently performs at the BCC. She received a BFA in acting from NYU Tisch (aka the hospital where Anne Hathaway was born) and has since worked professionally in commercials (Sprint), TV (What We Do In The Shadows), and film (upcoming Judd Apatow feature). She's taught comedy classes at Long Island University and Columbia. You can catch her with the improv team A Crazy Amazing Friendship, the sketch group LISA, or in her monthly solo show More Than Just A Friend. Jamie is great at generating and rehearsing character sets, creating online content, and making dips!
You can find her on tiktok and instagram as jamie.linn.watson.
Jose Acevedo
Jose Acevedo is a writer, director and producer from the west side of Chicago. Most recently, he was an executive producer on Everything’s Trash for Freeform. His short film Eagle screened at festivals all over the country and won the Vimeo Award at the Urbanworld festival.
Previously, he served as Head of Development at Tiny Reparations, Phoebe Robinson’s production company. Before that, he was a Director of Development at Comedy Central where he developed the shows Alternatino, The President Show and Ronny Chieng: International Student, to name a few. He currently lives in Brooklyn.
Julian Hernandez
Julian Hernandez is a regular boy from Clearwater, FL. He’s studied improv in Chicago and New York at iO, UCB, and The Annoyance. Julian has studied clown and physical comedy with Virginia Scott (blow at him and see what happens). He’s performed experimental theatre at St. Ann’s Warehouse & The 14th Street Y. He’s been on shows like Search Party (TBS) and has taught comedy students in New York and Tallahassee, FL. He writes, directs, and acts in jooby, and also hosts the monthly variety show Jooby & Friends. Julian hopes to explore new forms and performance styles to help make comedy that is entertaining, pejorative to none, and out of its fucking mind. Julian likes to do other things too: laugh, piss, etc. How can you describe the actions of a real human being doing their best? Follow him on Twitter: @thethongsong. Follow him in real life if you can.
Katy Berry
Katy Berry is a New York based comedian, writer, teacher, and musical improviser. Her screenplay POPCORN earned her a place in the 2020 Black List X Women in Film Feature Residency and is now being produced by Gunpowder & Sky and packaged by ICM, along with her second feature, CLICK CLICK PLAY.
As a musical comedian, Katy has traveled the world performing at venues including The Kennedy Center and multiple sold out Edinburgh Fringe Fest runs, and was featured in Time Out New York and the New York Times for her improvised cabaret show, Electric Bitch. Her original writing and videos have been featured in Vulture, Studio360, Bustle, Reductress, NYC Web Fest, Chain Film Festival and more. She currently teaches screenwriting and improv at the New York Film Academy and you can catch her performing musical improv in venues around NYC with Baby Wants Candy.
Lou Gonzalez Jr.
Lou Gonzalez Jr (all pronouns) is a comedian born and raised in the Bronx. They have been in some tv shows and movies (Black Bear, The Other Two, Search Party) but they mostly perform around NYC doing improv and stand-up.
Having taught and performed improv comedy for 12 years, Lou created platforms for diverse performers in New York and abroad with class experiences and shows that celebrated marginalized voices. His teaching has taken him to various comedy theaters and training centers around the globe celebrating diverse voices. They were even featured on NPR saying “Taking Classes with Lou felt like more than just taking classes” . So she’s that gurl.
Maggie Crane
Maggie Crane is a double Aquarius, a lapsed Catholic, a 34 DD, an organ donor, and unfortunately, a Brooklyn based stand up comedian. Maggie regularly features at clubs, cabarets and dive bars all over New York City. In 2017 and 2018 she featured at High Mud Comedy Festival and in 2019 she toured all over the U.S with Dan LaMorte on the Infect Me Once tour. In 2021 she was featured in the New York Comedy festival and hosts various shows around New York (Soup of the Day, Sacred Heart Middle and High School Talent Show). Maggie is also a writer (who isn't!) who’s plays have been featured at Dixon Place and The Brick Theatre and won the 2019 Fade in Award for best comedy pilot.
Maria Randazzo
Maria is a WGA Award-nominated writer, comedian, and actor. She was most recently a staff writer on the Emmy-nominated Apple Orignal series The Problem with Jon Stewart. She's a contributor for Reductress, and you can catch her performing sketch and improv around NYC. From time to time she also performs as a drag king named Sal MarscarBone who is horny for sandwiches.
Prior to NYC, Maria was an actor and writer with The Second City in Chicago. She was a member of The Second City Touring Company and a cast member of the Second City revue "She The People." She also trained and performed at Chicago's iO Theater and The Annoyance Theater.
Maya Sharma
Maya Sharma is a Brooklyn-based comedian, writer, and improviser. Since graduating from Oberlin, Maya has studied comedy at The Annoyance, UCB, Second City, and The Brooklyn Comedy Collective, and performs her absurd semi-standup all around Brooklyn. She is a member of The Ladies Who Ranch (LWR), a comedy group that has been written up in Vulture, Buzzfeed, TimeOut and more. LWR have been developing a half-hour animated sitcom with the production company Cowboy Bear Ninja for the past year. In 2019, Maya wrote for and co-hosted The Chris Gethard Presents Podcast (Earwolf). She has co-starred in Tony Zaret’s Relatable Content, as well as Sophie Zucker’s short film Best All Around. She’s also the Programming Director for The Brooklyn Comedy Collective.
Micah Sterenberg
Micah started improvising over a decade ago in Chicago and is a veteran of Second City, Annoyance, and iO, where he was a member of house teams Meridian and Tone. He's in the new season of That Damn Michael Che and was the creator of the long-running live show Bit Tank and the cult-hit Global Influencer SummitCon. He can be seen improvising at the BCC with WMYL and Olestra.
Michael Lukk Litwak
MICHAEL LUKK LITWAK Is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and cartoonist that was born and raised in Los Angeles. He likes to tell character-driven stories that embrace the absurd, often through a lens of classic genre-filmmaking. His first feature was ‘MOLLI AND MAX IN THE FUTURE’ a sci-fi romantic comedy often described as ‘When Harry Met Sally’ meets ‘Futurama.’ ‘MOLLI AND MAX’ had its world premiere at SXSW 2023, was Certified Fresh (w/ 98%) on Rotten Tomatoes, was a NYT Critic’s Pick, and was featured on Late Night w/Seth Meyers. It was distributed theatrically on Feb 9th 2024 by Level 33 Entertainment and stars Zosia Mamet (Girls, The Flight Attendant), Aristotle Athari (SNL, Silicon Valley), Arturo Castro (Broad City), Michael Chernus (Severance) and Aparna Nancherla (BoJack Horseman), among others.
He’s spoken as a guest lecturer at NYFA, SVA, NYU, taught classes at 'The Gotham' and would consider doing birthday parties if asked!
Miranda Rozas
Miranda Rozas is a Brooklyn-based improviser, musician, and actress. Originally from Louisiana, Miranda moved to Chicago where she trained and performed with the iO Theater, The Second City, Logan Square Improv, and CIC Theater for 6 years. You can catch her improvising every Thursday night with “The Good Time” at 7pm at BCC, or around the city singing and jamming original songs with her band “Spare Room.” Follow her on instagram @sexydragonbuttmuncher or Tiktok @thesexydragon. She accepts any and all discussions about crawfish and how good it is.
Nick Mestad
Nick Mestad is a New York City based writer and performer. An alumnus of iO and The Annoyance Theaters in Chicago, he can be seen all around NYC performing his highly physical style of comedy. He was a Just For Laughs New Face in 2022 and has recently appeared on The Tonight Show as well as NBC’s Chicago Fire and Seeso’s Shrink. He can next be seen on Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal and the upcoming independent feature Molli & Max In The Future opposite Zosia Mamet. His work has been featured in Vulture and Clickhole, and he has amassed millions of views online with his characters.
Onyi Okoli
Onyi Okoli is an actress, comedienne, and writer born and raised in Baltimore, MD. After college, she produced and performed her one woman show to sold out audiences in Baltimore, MD and later toured it to other cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Her acting credits include FBI: Most Wanted, Hack My Life, a VH1 project, and more. She is one third of the improv trio, Branded Silk. Branded Silk has a monthly show at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective and if you haven't seen it yet, then she feels truely sorry for you. Visit www.onyiokoli.com and follow @onyiokoli on IG for the latest.
Philip Markle
Philip Markle is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Brooklyn Comedy Collective. Philip trained in improv in Chicago at The Annoyance, iO, and Second City before moving to NYC in 2013 to launch The Annoyance Theater NY, where he acted as its Director for four years. He was named “Top 5 Queer Business Leaders” by Time Out NY in 2023 and a “Power Player in Arts in Culture” by AMNY in 2024 (amongst prominent leaders at arts organizations like Carnegie Hall and MOMA PS1).
Performance highlights include musically improvising with Baby Wants Candy in Chicago and BLANK: The Musical Off-Broadway. As a storyteller, he has performed at The Moth and The Paper Machete - and is a writer on Medium.com with 400k+ reads. He executive produced, wrote, and acted in the digital shorts series "The Annoyance Presents" on IFC's Comedy Crib. Philip first performed his show SPARKLE HOUR to rave reviews in the 2013 NY International Fringe Festival and has regularly produced it since, including multiple runs at Joe's Pub and as part of the 2021 and 2022 NY Comedy Festival. You can listen to his album of queer comedy songs “AT THE GAY BATHHOUSE” on your favorite streaming music platform.
Riley Soloner
Riley Soloner (he/him) is an actor, writer and clown living in Queens. As his character Vacation Jason, Riley has performed in venues across the country, on The Chris Gethard Show (TruTV) and for five straight days aboard The Norwegian Pearl for a cruise on which he was not booked to perform. Riley has performed in and produced comedy shows in New York City since 2008 for shows like Harold Night and Cage Match (UCB Theater), Xtremely Serious Wrestling (People’s Improv Theater) and C.L.O.N., (Manhattan Public Access TV). Riley grew up spending summers as a camper, counselor and teacher at Camp Winnarainbow, a Northern California circus arts summer camp for children of groovyhippies. Riley is excited to bring his eclectic mix of theatrical, circus, and humanitarian clown experience to the students of BCC!
Sara Hennessey
Sara Hennessey is an acclaimed Toronto comedian who now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Sara has performed at Just For Laughs Montreal multiple times, and has 3 comedy albums available: Huge Bitch, They Know Too Much & Trouble in Saradise. Sara writes and performs for television when possible, and has a whirling affinity for live comedy & making indie projects with her incredibly talented friends.
Shalewa Sharpe
Shalewa Sharpe is a Brooklyn-based comedian. She developed her sly yet goofy style in Atlanta, where she was raised. She has appeared on HBO’s “2 Dope Queens” and Comedy Central’s “The New Negroes.” In 2019 she played the role of Yvette in John Cameron Mitchell's musical podcast "Anthem: Homunculus" and was named one of Vulture’s Comics To Watch. She is currently a co-host of the weekly podcast, “The War Report with Gastor and Shalewa.” She has two albums of jokes: “Stay Eating Cookies” (2016) and “So You Just Out Here?” (2019). She can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @silkyjumbo.
Steven Castillo
Steven Castillo is a performer/writer currently based in NYC. He got his start doing improv and stand-up in Chicago. Most famously, he's known for writing on "Saturday Night Live" for 5 seasons. Some of his best sketches he's known for is "Weezer," "Stu," and "Tiny Horse." He has been interviewed countless times on Vulture.com and Billboard.com. On top of also working on a new movie with Adam Sandler, He has also been seen in HBO's "Love Life" and "Game Theory with Bomani Jones."
Taylor Gonzalez
Taylor Gonzalez has been producing and performing multimedia comedy for over a decade. He is one of the creators and now editor-in-chief of POC satire site FLEXX Magazine and is the Rican half of the duo Havana Club Y Bacardí. He is one of the founding members of the Diverse As Fuck Comedy Festival, Lo-Fi NYC, and youarenotalone, a Latine-themed horror-lit zine. Over the years, he's created and produced many influential comedy shows such as deadass and the Character Clash and has studied extensively at the UCB and PIT. He has been teaching improv since 2012 and specializes in playing to the top of your intelligence, gift-giving, and object work.
Tallie Medel
Tallie Medel (all pronouns) is a multidisciplinary performer and educator in New York City. Medel is one third of Cocoon Central Dance Team alongside Sunita Mani and Eleanore Pienta. Recent work includes the role of Becky in A24’s EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE which makes them very happy. Tallie's from Alaska and has big, juicy eyeballs. They're also a gif.