The Compass Players

The Compass Players (or Compass Theater) was an improvisational cabaret revue active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago and St. Louis. Several members went on to form The Second City Theater in 1959.

Founded by David Shepherd, the original idea was to produce a new play derived through improvisation from outlines (in the tradition of the Italian commedia dell'arte) or scenarios written by members of the ensemble. Shepherd turned to director Paul Sills to head this venture based on his experience working with Sills on an earlier Chicago theater effort, the Playwrights' Theatre Company. He noticed that Sills in rehearsal employed improvisational theater forms called Theater Games, structures designed to create spontaneous theatrical play between actors that had been developed and named by Sills' mother, Viola Spolin. (Spolin would later author the "bible" of Theater Games, Improvisation for the Theater, published by Northwestern Press.)

Originally, for the first several weeks, the company presented original improvised plays from outlines they had already created in a space in the back room of The Compass, a bar near the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park, on the present site of the Engine 60 fire station at the northeast corner of 55th Street and University Avenue.

Initially, scenes were presented only once, but some of the players grew interested in polishing material into finished pieces. Mike Nichols and Elaine May created many of their signature scenes in this manner. Shelley Berman found that he could create solo routines by showing one half of telephone conversations.

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