Chicago improvisers came out in droves Monday night to celebrate (and lovingly rib) late iO Theater teacher and performer Jason Chin, who died last Thursday at age 46.
The line to enter iO’s Del Close Theater, where a capacity crowd gathered for Chin’s memorial, began at the front door, wrapped around the perimeter of an expansive rectangular bar and continued down a long hallway. Overflow traffic was accommodated in the nearby Mission Theater, where a live video feed was projected on a large screen.
Before a steady stream of speakers (including iO owner Charna Halpern) took to the dais during a special version of the weekly, monologue-centric “Armando Diaz” show to recall Chin’s good cheer, welcoming nature, prodigious memory for obscure pop culture facts, unabashed nerdism and numerous other qualities both laudable and laugh-eliciting, attendees watched a photo slide show of scenes from Chin’s life.
If you didn’t have a chance to attend the event or missed the live feed and want to check out the proceedings — which spanned roughly three hours and were by turns touching, biting and hilarious — they’re posted here.
Above all, as Chin’s close friend and improv colleague Noah Gregoropoulos said, it was “a night for laughter.”
