The story
Originally, it was a 50-seat single venue (which immediately prior, housed a Vietnamese restaurant) founded on 20 April 1963, by Budd Friedman and his future wife, Silver (née Schreck) Saundors, and located at 358 West 44th Street, at Ninth Avenue, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City near the southeast corner of 9th Ave. The Improvisation was originally an after hours coffee house where Broadway performers could unwind after shows with an open mic inviting impromptu musical performances. In 1964, Dave Astor was its first comedian. Gradually comedians would use it as a venue to try out new material and talent scouts from The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and other New York-based television shows began frequenting the venue looking for new acts to book. After several years of alternating acts between singers and comics, by the 1970s it was a stand-up comedy venue. A second location was opened in 1974 at 8162 Melrose Avenue in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, California (which immediately prior housed the Ash Grove, a folk music venue). In 1979, Mark Lonow became a general partner and with Budd Friedman ran the Melrose club and oversaw the expansion of the single room as it became a successful chain. When the Friedmans divorced in 1981, the divorce settlement gave Budd Friedman ownership of the LA Improvs and Silver Friedman was given ownership of the New York Improv. The original New York Improv closed in 1992.
In 1982, the L.A. Improv became the original site for the A&E Network television series An Evening at the Improv, running from 1982 until 1996, and was produced by Larry O'Daly, created by O'Daly and Barbara Hosie-O'Daly, with Budd Friedman as a warm-up host. Other locations have opened since then, such as in Tampa, Florida, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Louisville, Kentucky. In 2014, Friedman sold the Improv chain to Levity Entertainment Group, now known as Levity Live.
From Wikipedia’s article on The Improv, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4