The Katydids first performed together eight years ago for a simple reason: all six women had variations on the same first name. Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien, and Kathryn Renée Thomas started out as an improv group, then moved to sketch, then created the webseries Teachers, now a TV Land sitcom produced by Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men).
Colloton: iO is our home, but we have a relationship with almost every theater in Chicago. Our first show was at the Playground, our first run was at Studio Be [now MCL Chicago], and then we did a run at the Annoyance, we did a run at Second City’s Donny’s Skybox, we did a show at ComedySportz. We really did have show at every single theater.
Colloton: I think TV Land called looking for an all-female workplace comedy by unknowns, something edgy and new, and it’s like, “Well, well, well—we might have something for you.”
O’Brien: I think our show—we’re just going to claim it—is the only show to ever be on television that is predominantly female. Our writers’ room was almost exclusively female except for our two show runners, Ian [Roberts] and Jay [Martel].
Thomas: You really get to cut your teeth in Chicago. I’ve heard people in LA say, “Wow, Chicago improvisers and Chicago comedians are really hard-core and intense.”
So how does it feel to premiere your show in the city and the theater where you all started? Lambert: We’ll have to wear waterproof mascara, I’m sure. It’s incredibly special that we’ll get to go to iO and be with the community that taught us so much. To be able to be with all those people who taught us and loved us and encouraged us and performed with us, it’s really profound and very moving to all of us.
