Fat Ugly Nasty Un-Funny Female Comedian Want-to-be's in improv comedy detail a culture of sexual harassment, silence

These wildebeest trolls should be lucky anybody paid attention to them!

At  a bar one night after an improv class several years ago, performer Angie McMahon remembers socializing with a teacher who, without warning, crossed a line.

"He shoved his face into my chest and bit the side of my breast in a very playful, cutesy, aren't-I-being-funny way.

"It wasn't funny."

Sexual harassment in Chicago's improv comedy community has, until now, been a problem kept under wraps, current and former performers told the Tribune — discussed by women only in private among themselves. But that changed earlier this week when a Facebook post from Charna Halpern, founder and owner of iO Theater, opened a floodgate of impassioned responses. In them, women recounted unwanted sexual advances, inappropriate remarks and a persistent fear of retaliation if they spoke up. The comments have prompted the community to reexamine the status quo and, in iO's case, update its policies and move to offer more training.

Halpern's original post concerned an accusation that she "put off" a young woman who had purportedly called to complain about an incident of harassment. Halpern wrote that the "issue of sexual harassment is very important to me" but also said that the call never happened. A Facebook thread (which has since been deleted) was sparked by Halpern's speculation that "there are times when there are women who just like to either cause trouble or get revenge or just want attention so they make up stories. … It's people like this who make it difficult when a woman really has a problem."

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