Meet Our Instructors
Stacey Hallal
Stacey has been performing, teaching, and directing improv and sketch comedy in Portland and Chicago over the past ten years and has appeared and taught at over 25 comedy festivals across the United States and Canada. While in Chicago, Stacey completed the iO Chicago, Annoyance, and Second City training centers. She went on to complete the prestigious Directing Program at Second City where she also taught improv and writing to adults and kids as a member of the Second City Training Faculty. Stacey assistant directed the smash hit Second City mainstage production, Between Barack and A Hard Place. In Portland, Stacey was a member of the critically acclaimed comedy duo All Jane No Dick and debuted her one-woman show, The Humperdink Family Reunion, to rave reviews. Stacey uses improv to help corporations better understand and tell their brand stories with Character, LLC, a Portland-based company she helped start up in 2001.
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Bob Ladewig
Bob Ladewig – Director, Teacher, Performer, Man about Town. Bob Ladewig has made comedy a big part of his life since 1997, when he took his first improv class with Joe Bill at Chicago’s Annoyance Theater. Since then he has been a part of many teams at iO Chicago (Space Mountain and the Washington Generals to name two), played with ComedySportz Chicago from 2000 to 2006, performed and directed shows at the Second City Skybox theater and so much more. In late 2007 Bob made the cross country move from Chicago to Portland to co-found the Curious Comedy Theater with the lovely and talented Stacey Hallal. He has been a part of every mainstage production at the theater and has been teaching improv and sketch writing classes there since we were ready to offer them. You can google his name if you don’t believe this bio. The internet doesn’t lie.
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Laura James
Laura has been performing and teaching improv since 1995. After receiving her BFA in Acting from Southern Oregon University, she went to Los Angeles where she trained with Bob Koherr & Kathy Kinney at the Cosmo Street Theater. She worked on the Drew Carey Show and performed short form improv with the popular Comic Ozzies at Spaceland for 5 years. She produced an award winning short film and has produced and directed many improv and sketch shows in Los Angeles. She continues to perform in and around Portland, recently performing at OCT in The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Laura is a Life Coach and draws on her experience with improv in her work with her clients.
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Gabe Dinger
Gabe won the Portland Comedy Competition in 2006, the CBS Radio Laff Off in 2007, and was the first comedian in Oregon state history to perform at the maximum security prison. Gabe has studied long-form improv at the Curious Comedy Academy and is currently a cast member in the main stage ensemble. Gabe was born to make people laugh, why else would he have been born a Dinger?
