Cult of the Stage Monkey (Founded 1998)

Cult of the Stage Monkey is an improvisational theater organization founded in Lafayette, Louisiana in October 1998 that now has improv troupes across the United States. Though each member troupe has it’s own philosophies and performance styles, the overarching organization has a philosophy of experimenting with new long and shortform styles as well as the implementation of music, visual art, and performance art in it’s shows.

Origin

Started by a few students at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then known as The University of Southwestern Louisiana), Cult of the Stage Monkey was created for the purpose of providing free entertainment for poor college students. The founding members (Zachariah Walls, Steve Benelli, and Ian Kennedy), poor college students themselves, had little improv experience; but they had seen a troupe in New Orleans and simply thought it looked like fun.

Open auditions were held and rehearsals began with a cast of six performers. Cult of the Stage Monkey’s first public performance was October 8th, 1998 in Maxim Doucet Hall on the campus of the University of Southwestern Lousiana. By the following year, Cult of the Stage Monkey was performing weekly shows in the Student Union and had been recognized and chartered as an official Student Organization at USL.

Expansion

In 2000, John Allen, one of the original cast members, moved to Vicksburg, Missisippi and started Cult of the Stage Monkey’s first branch troupe. Dubbed the Stage Monkeys, the troupe relocated to Hattiesburg, Mississippi shortly thereafter when Allen moved there and has been performing in and around Hattiesburg ever since.

Henri Dugas, a longtime member of the Lafayette troupe, moved to Chicago in 2006 and began performing with several troupes and training in several improv schools. Dugas later formed Cult of the Stage Monkey in Chicago (COSMiC) which had it’s premiere run in April 2007.

Shortly thereafter, Cult of the Stage Monkey’s fourth member troupe was founded in Carbondale, Illinois by Nicholas Zaunbrecher, another former Lafayette troupe member. Zaunbrecher started this branch while pursuing a doctorate degree in Experimental Improv Theory at Southern Illinois University.

Everything came full circle in 2008 when Zachariah Walls, the founder and first Director of the Lafayette troupe, founded Cult of the Stage Monkey – Washington, D.C. Walls had moved to D.C. and had been taking classes in Washington Improv Theater’s training program. COSM-D.C. was unleashed on the improv community in August 2008.

The latest addition to the ranks of Cult of the Stage Monkey brought COSM to the West Coast in late 2008. Christopher George and Michael Rucker, formerly of the Hattiesburg troupe (George also was a member of the Chicago troupe), founded Stage Monkeys – San Diego.