ABOUT
WiCo at 2112 is the first and only women in comedy accelerator of its kind. Each selected member receives over $10k worth of educational and programming support that is completely free to cohort participants. Located in Chicago, IL, USA, WiCo operates in partnership with 2112 and Satira. 2112 is Chicago’s first business incubator focused on the development of entrepreneurs in music, film/video and creative industry-focused technologies. Satira is an online comedy coaching platform that provides tailored feedback from comedy pros in the art, science, and business of comedy.
THE ACCELERATOR PROGRAM
The WiCo accelerator is a free 6 month program providing access to education and community. WiCo propels women to finally produce that script they've been sitting on. Whether it's been a lack of resources or feeling overwhelmed at getting started - WiCo is here to accelerate the process. The goal of this program is to empower and support funny women to produce their comedic short/pilot script. We select A group of talented women (writing teams of up to 2 are eligible to apply) to accelerate their comedic short or comedy pilot script into a produced short film. The curriculum consists of honing their voice, crafting their production team, being a boss, and producing. The graduation of the cohort culminates in a film screening with invited audience and curated industry professionals.
WiCo At 2112
PROGRAM PARTNERS
AND SPONSORS
Ana Breton
Anna Hozian
Angie gaffney
Alida Miranda Wolff
anthony leblanc
Dorian Connelly
Joey Tuccio
John Yaworsky
Kaleigh Herter
Kimberly Robb BakeR
LynnE Parker
Mary Kennedy
Michael Flores
Nikki Kanter
Raymond Lambert
Scott Dikkers
Nikolina Vulkovic
Winter Davis
Meet The 2018 WiCo Cohort
Allison Leigh Schier is a Chicago based actress, writer, and improviser. A graduate of Second City's Improv program, she's been contributing to small projects over the years. Finally getting serious about being a starving artist, Allison is now working on her first solo project, "Bloody Show". Which she hopes people won't be terrified of based on the title. She's currently studying Meisner at The Green Shirt Studio so she can pretend more good.
Andrea Vicunia is an actress, comedienne and filmmaker from Spain. She has performed stand up at The Comedy Store, The Ice House, Flappers Comedy and more.
She has worked constantly as an actress for Telemundo ("La Fan"), Lionsgate ("Devil May Call"), TLC ("Medical Lies"), Amazon ("Bosch"), Lifetime ("My Crazy Ex"), Youtube Red ("Libres"), Funny or Die ("50 Shades of Girls") etc. Also done commercials for Proactiv, AXE, Snapchat, Soul Pancake, etc. Her directing and film work has been featured on WhoHAHA, Directed By Women, and At&T's Create-a-thon.
Claire Kane received her B.A. in Theatre Arts from Rowan University in New Jersey, where she is originally from. Shortly after, she migrated to Chicago to study and perform comedy. She is a graduate of Second City's Conservatory and iO's improv program. You can find Claire performing solo sketch and improvising with her indie team Vane around the city of Chicago.
Katie Norregaard is a Chicago-based performer, musician, and content creator. She regularly performs musical improv with "This Just Mint" at the Annoyance Theater and in "Dirty Bars" at Westside Improv. She is a singer-songwriter, having played at the TEDx Naperville conference, with the Fender Corp., and in several international venues. She is also the co-creator of the web series, AH, MAN, which was filmed in Amman, Jordan, screened at the 2016 Brooklyn Web Fest, and featured in the Huffington Post. She is grateful for this opportunity to grow her craft in the WiCo cohort alongside other talented women.
Kellye Howard is a writer, speaker, actress, and stand up comedian that has been featured on Comedy Central, TBS, NBC, FOX, WGN, as well as several other media outlets.
Kellye's one woman shows have been featured at the WICF. She is a previous member of the Severn Darden Graduate Program and Second City Training Center's House Ensemble ‘Madcap’. Kellye co-hosts and co-produces ‘Two Queens 1 Mic’, which has been featured in the Chicago Reader and the Columbia Chronicle. She hosts a monthly podcast, ‘Kellye Talks’ (now on iTunes and Soundcloud).
In a nutshell, she loves to share her experiences as a mother, a woman, a daughter, a wife, a comedian, a writer and all the in betweens.
Kellye is currently represented by Big Mouth Talent and Brooke Shoemaker at Principato Young and resides in Chicago, IL.
Michelle Risacher is a comedian from the small town of North Vernon, IN. She was raised in a bilingual household by her Spanish mother and American father. As a child, Michelle delighted in making up goofy stories in her head that were then dramatically enacted by her barbies.
In high school, Michelle starred in several theatrical productions and was a member of the show choir. She then attended Grinnell College, graduating in 2017 with a degree in Film and Visual Culture. There she became interested in comedy's ability to teach others to understand life through a different perspective. This led her to found and direct her own longform improv troupe, as well as a Stand-Up Comedy Club.
After college, she moved to Chicago to pursue her passion for comedy. She is currently studying improv at iO and Second City. She has performed improv as part of The Co-op at the Crowd Theater, as well as Girl Gang and the La-Di-Dah music program at iO.
Rachel escaped the nice Midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio, to move to the other, nicer Midwestern city of Chicago in 2012. In May 2016 she graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelors of Arts in comedy writing and performance, and a minor in television writing. Rachel has many Chicago comedy credits including pH Comedy Theatre’s original productions Yes, Andersonville! and Centralia. She was a featured writer for Columbia College’s Freq Out Live, where her sketch was filmed in front of a live studio audience and streamed online for 10,000 viewers. In February 2017 she was featured in the Mary Scruggs Works By Women festival at The Second City. She has performed stand up at Salonathon, The Shithole, The Kiki and the You Joke Like A Girl Showcase, all in Chicago.
Shelbie was first acquainted with sketch writing and performance in her home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She moved to Chicago to continue her comedy journey and has since completed The Second City writing program and is a drop out of almost every improv curriculum the city has to offer. She is dedicated to writing and producing content that she finds truth in and wants to create stories that provide platforms for voices that usually must scream to be heard.
Shelbie just recently wrapped her first web series which was written, directed, and produced by her and her writing partner, Vicky Wang.
Terah Jené, grew up in a small town called Florissant, MO and was raised by two amazing parents that loved all things creative, which as a result, she became a Midwest unicorn flower child.
She attended Columbia College Chicago and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater.
After graduation she had the opportunity to book national and international commercials as well as work with amazing companies such as Disney and Universal Studios.
While making a quick visit to New York, she immediately fell in love with the dollar pizza and decided to move there where she found her comedic voice in sketch writing and storytelling. As time passed she realized that her one true love was Chicago deep dish pizza, and moved right back to Chicago.
Victoria grew up in New Jersey (but not the shore okay there is farmland involved). but has lived in a handful of different places since then, including Boston, Palo Alto, Shanghai, and Athens. She graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in International Business and a minor in Chinese Language. She has studied at The Second City and The Annoyance. You can see her performing with Stir Friday Night, a long running Asian American comedy group. Upcoming projects and shows includes the web series ‘National Woke Service’ created with Shelbie Anderson and ‘ImproviSEXation’ at the Annoyance. She loves national parks and facetiming her mom everyday.
Priyanka Bose is a Fulbright scholar and Northwestern graduate with an unquenchable sense of wanderlust and a keen passion for storytelling. As a queer, nerdy, and curly haired South Asian American 27 year old born and brought up in the Midwest, she is adept at navigating and negotiating wildly different cultural and narrative spaces and adapting them for her creative endeavors.Priyanka likes to explore female relationships, cultural intersectionality, online fandom, and the complexities of life as a woman of color through fiction, poetry, nonfiction essays, photography, and most recently, through screenwriting, at classes at the Second City Training Center.She is currently working on her first novel and an anthology of short stories in addition to developing scripts for a web series and for a short film.As the recipient of the WICO Apprentice Award for her sketch The Right Place, part of the 7th Annual Mary Scruggs Works by Women Festival at Second City, Priyanka is excited and honored to shadow the inaugural 2018 Women in Comedy cohort as the first WICO Apprentice.