Chicago comics’ ‘Teachers’ series gets TV Land sneak peek tonight

America is about to get its first extended look at the cable version of “Teachers,” the web series from a Chicago improv team that is being revamped for TV Land.

The pilot episode will air tonight at roughly 10:15 p.m. Chicago time on TV Land, after the channel’s simulcast of the live MTV Video Music Awards. That’s more than four months before “Teachers” makes its formal debut in January.

The six stars of “Teachers” come from the Katydids, a six-member troupe that got its start at Chicago’s iO Theatre. They made 24 two-minute web episodes of “Teachers,” focusing on the professional and personal foibles of a grade school’s staff, that ended up a calling card for the TV sitcom version.

“With the Web, we didn’t have much backstory or arc,” group member Katy Culloton told the Sun-Times in April. “The show gives us a chance to focus on what it really means to be a teacher in your 20s.”

Alison Brie of “Community” and “Mad Men” fame is one of the series’ executive producers, and the show runners come from the same job at “Key & Peele”: Jay Martel and former Chicago improviser Ian Roberts.

Teachers

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Darel JevensFollow me on Twitter @djjevens Email: djevens@suntimes.com Currently Trending

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