SUMMER INTENSIVE 2025

Joe Whelski is an award winning NYC Director, Writer, Producer, Instructor & SAG-AFTRA and Equity Actor. His feature indie comedy “Yellow Scare” (director and co-producer), won best “Best Comedy” at the Golden Door International Film Festival (NJ), and his darkly comedic web series “Mystery Mansion” (director and co-producer), won “Best TV Pilot” at the Hoboken International Film Festival. His original work has been featured on Funny or Die and the UK’s number one Star Wars fan site, JediNews. Joe directed the national commercial campaign for Unpakt.com, and created international commercials for The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Born Free USA, and DAVSS (featuring ‘Doctor Who’ number 4, Tom Baker). His latest national commercial for the Duke Lemur Center features the VO of John Cleese. Joe is a founding member and creative director for the Magnet Theater Video Lab. As an actor, Joe has played various characters on ABC’s “One Life to Live”, appeared on “SNL”, and has starred in over 30 stage productions in NYC, NJ & PA. He’s had the privilege of working for legendary directors Ridley Scott, Sydney Pollack, Anne Bogart, and David Hugh Jones. He is an alumni of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, The New School, The School for Film and Television, and earned his BFA in Communication Design from Kutztown University in PA (while also studying design at Buckinghamshire College, England).

Sydney Duncan is a New York-based comedian, improviser, writer, producer, and actor and is one of the newest cast members of Wild’NOut on vh1. She has trained extensively at UCB, The PIT, Magnet Theater, and Dallas Comedy House studying advanced improv, musical improv, and sketch. Before comedy, Sydney was a professional ballet dancer having trained at ABT, Alvin Ailey, Texas Ballet Theater, and Ballet West among others. Her credits include Regional Broadway shows such as Will Rogers Follies and Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Solange Knowles’s music video When I Get Home. She has been featured on Comedy Central’s IG and TikTok, and is a recipient of The SNL Scholarship Award. You can catch her regularly performing in Comedy Theaters all over NYC including her monthly character show at Brooklyn Comedy Collective, teaching improv at The PIT, her one-woman show at Union Hall, Understudying at Second City NY Mainstage, and UCB’s Maude & Betty Teams.

Originally trained in theater, Kimberly Alu has performed and written for venues across New Jersey and New York including Count Basie, Princeton University, The Player’s Club, and The Duke on 42nd Street. After moving to Los Angeles, Kimberly continued to write for several sketch comedy groups and has performed on countless improv teams including Sketch Time Strangers and Sweet Tweets, which was presented at The Second City Hollywood to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Additionally, her short play Jumper received best original play at the Manhattan Repertory Theater and the Midtown International Theater Festival. Her original full length play Carnival Games also won best play at The Thespis Theater Festival.

Since moving back to New York, Kimberly has immersed herself in the improv and sketch world, taking up work at The Peoples Improv Theater and Gotham Writers Workshop as well as starting her own digital improv network Socially Distant Improv when New York went into full lockdown mode in March of 2020. She has completed over 40 original sketch comedy pieces, a half hour comedy pilot, two docu-series, and countless plays. Kimberly has developed her own line of improv classes, Approach to Dramatic Improv and Advanced Dramatic Improv, directly inspired by her background in acting, for The Peoples Improv Theater. Most recently, she was responsible for creating and implementing the full comedy curriculum for Dallas Comedy Club and helped to curate a series of shows for their Mainstage, including her absolute favorite, The Family Funny Interactive Improv Show.

Chris was a regular host for TV Land’s “Prime Movies” and has made appearances on NBC’s “Blacklist”, Bravo, IFC, E Television, Hulu, Netflix, Starz and The Discovery Channel.  He also was selected to represent New York on the TV show “World Cup Comedy” produced by Kelsey Grammar.

Chris has been featured in the feature films “The Co-Exist Comedy tour,” “Twenty Million People” “The Best Man” and “Generation Iron 2”.

He’s a regular standup around New York and you can catch him on Saturday nights at 8pm with the Pit’s longest running house team The Baldwins.

Listen below to hear more about Chris’ teaching style and improv philosophy, and learn more about The PIT in his discussion with PIT Founder Ali Farahnakian.