"Improv Comedy and Community Service are both about giving and supporting. It's like a match made in Heaven.
Welcome to Cherub Improv."
Jonathan Evan Goldberg
President and Co-Founder
Cherub Improv partners with numerous organizations throughout New York City and its surrounding areas to bring interactive comedy shows and educational workshops to adults and children for whom laughter is healing and who may benefit from the study and practice of improv skills, including heightened listening, confidence, team building, creativity, and public speaking. Click on the calendar to see our upcoming events. A few of our partners, and our relationships with them, are featured below.
communities we serve and calendar of events
ACS, Hope Lodge
Hope Lodge of the American Cancer Society is a temporary "home away from home" for people undergoing cancer treatment in and around NYC. At Hope Lodge, Cherub Improv regularly performs monthly improv comedy shows (and sometimes improvised musicals) to bring laughter and cheer to the patients and their families.
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Friends House NYC
Friends House provides supportive housing for formerly homeless adults living with AIDS/HIV. The Cherubs, accompanied by a talented pianist for hire, rehearse and perform completely improvised musicals for the residents and staff in the dining room/community space and always look forward to our return visits.
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Big Brothers Big Sisters
During the school year, Cherub Improv leads numerous educational workshops throughout New York City at various companies and law firms, teaching -- through improv exercises and games -- both the "Bigs" and the "Littles" the values of listening, team work, acceptance of others' ideas, and giving back.
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The Children's Village
For over 6 years, Cherub Improv has traveled once a month to this runaway and homeless teen shelter in Westchester County to lead workshops for the kids and the social worker staff. Without exception, these workshops always help bring big laughter to help relieve sadness and stress.
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Gilda's Club NYC/Westchester
Cherub Improv's relationship with Gilda's Club is multi-dimensional. Travelling to both the New York City and Westchester clubhouses, we have performed family-friendly comedy shows during various holidays, and we regularly provide workshops for adults and separataely for children at Noogieland. What organization knows greater the medicinal qualities of laughter and community than one founded in honor of the great comedienne, Gilda Radner? It has been a wonderful and long-lasting partnership.
Girl Scouts of New York
For several years we have provided workshops for girl scouts and staff at the GS Summer Camp. This year, Cherub Improv led day-long workshops, and were honored to be one of only two "on-stage" performance groups, during the Randall's Island Bridge Crossing Event celebrating 100 years of Girl Scouts in New York. We also provided workshops this past Summer as part of the Girl Scouts Leadership Institute led by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College.
Kessler Institute for Rehab
In early 2009, the Cherubs traveled by car to Kessler Rehab in West Orange, New Jersey to provide a special "one time" performance in honor of a young girl who became seriously injured as a result of a car accident. Since that event, a team of New York and New Jersey based Cherubs have returned to Kessler nearly every single month to help lift the spirits of other patients, families, and staff.
Kittay House of JHH
Kittay House of The Jewish Home and Hospital was, for several years, the host to monthly Cherub Improv shows. However, several of the seniors requested that we change the format from "show" to "workshop" so that they could "get in on the act." Of course we said "Yes!" Now, septuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians -- who have been studying improv with us for over a year -- are preparing for their first ever improv comedy show to be performed in early 2014. Stay tuned!
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House
As with Kittay House, the seniors who form part of the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House community have consistently enjoyed Cherub Improv's monthly shows and workshops. Indeed, even those who attend Lenox primarily to play Scrabble have been known to shout out suggestions for Cherub Improv's skits and songs (for example, "tripple word score!" and "blank tile").
NYU Medical Center, RUSK
Since 2007 -- the year Cherub Improv was born -- we have been providing monthly shows for the patients, families, and staff at RUSK Rehab at NYU Langone Medical Center, one of the best hospitals in the country. To our delight, the relationship has continued and is stronger than ever!
other places we have performed
Atria Senior Living (various sites)
Beatrice Lewis Senior Center
The Buckingham at Norwood
Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation
Children's Hospital at Montefiore
Creative Arts Workshops for Kids
Harlem YMCA
The Hebrew Home
Isabella
JASA Senior Center (various sites)
JCC on the Hudson
Jewish Home and Hospital
Kateri Residence
Project ORE, Educational Alliance
Since 1987, Project ORE -- a homeless outreach program -- has served more than 400,000 emergency kosher meals and provided counseling, case management, and other supportive services to isolated, poor, homeless, mentally ill, elderly Jews (including Holocaust survivors). Since our earliest days, Cherub Improv has been providing monthly improv workshops for this creative and often forgotten community.
Lott Assisted Living Residence
Marbel Collegiate Church
Mount Sinai Children's Hospital
New Alternatives for Children
New York City Hemophilia Chapter
Phoenix House
Rivington House
Safe Horizon
Saint Rose's Home
Sirovich Senior Center
Sarah Neuman Center for Healthcare & Rehab
Senior Center at St. Peter's Church
Senior Umbrella Network of Suffolk
Ronald McDonald House
Once a month on Sunday evenings you will find Cherubs running workshops for the children with pediatric cancer and their families at this "home away from home." These events remind us how wonderful it is to hear and see children laughing, especially when they have been living through fear, illness, and pain.
Shabbat ORE
Soul Arts Academy
Sterling Glen of Roslyn
St. Theresa's Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
Sunrise of Holbrook Senior Living Center
Temple Beth Abraham
Veterans of Foreign Wars
Village Nursing Home
Volunteers of America
The Wartburg Adult Day Care Facility
West Point
Whittaker Senior Center
Willow Towers Assisted Living