Amsterdam's Boom Chicago: The Unlikely Incubator of American Comedy Stars

In the early 1990s, three recent Northwestern University graduates—Pep Rosenfeld, Andrew Moskos, and Ken Schaefle—were struggling to break into Chicago's comedy scene when they hatched what Moskos himself calls "probably the best stoner idea ever." They would quit their jobs, move to Amsterdam, and open an English-language improv theater in a country not particularly known for its sense of humor. The local tourist board told them it wouldn't work. They did it anyway.

Boom Chicago opened in the back of a bar before finding its permanent home near Leidesplein, Amsterdam's main square. The founders recruited a local businesswoman, Saskia Maas, who would become Moskos's wife and the operation's financial anchor—literally. In the early days, before the club had a bank account, Rosenfeld stored the night's earnings in his cowboy boots. The money went in one boot; when he brought a date home after a show, he handed the boot to Moskos for safekeeping. It was an unconventional accounting system, but it worked.

The real innovation wasn't the location or the logistics. It was the audience. Boom Chicago's performers faced crowds of international tourists and Dutch locals whose English wasn't always their first language. This forced a reckoning with American comedy's default settings. Seth Meyers, who arrived in the mid-1990s after being recruited by Moskos and Rosenfeld, discovered that Dutch audiences didn't laugh easily—and when they did, they stopped abruptly. "Dutch people laugh like this," Meyers recalled. "Ha-ha. And they immediately get quiet." But they were honest. A Dutch audience member once told Meyers directly: "I did not care for it." Then bought him a drink anyway, explaining, "Maybe I will like you." That withering candor became a teaching tool. References to the Cleveland Browns or the Olive Garden meant nothing to someone from Finland or Australia. Jokes about keying a car—a common American prank—drew blank stares. Comedians learned to build humor from universal human experience rather than cultural shorthand.

Ike Barinholtz, who performed at Boom 25 years ago alongside Josh Meyers, described the effect: "When you're playing for 300 people and their English isn't all their first language, you have to learn how to be bigger. You have to learn how to own a room and make references that are a little more universal." Brendan Hunt, who arrived in the late 1990s, noted that throwing even a single Dutch word into a sketch made the audience treat you like a god. The constraint became the curriculum. Performers worked six shows a week, giving them constant reps on stage with little time to nurse their failures. Between shows, the ensemble would huddle at intermission to discuss what was landing and what wasn't—a halftime adjustment that sharpened instincts.

The theater's reputation spread back to Chicago's comedy circles. Word of mouth drew more ambitious performers willing to commit a year minimum for full-time pay. In 2000, a touring show that Seth Meyers developed at Boom caught the attention of "Saturday Night Live." He was hired as a writer—a moment Meyers describes as drawing a direct line from the Amsterdam stage to network television. Brendan Hunt, Jason Sudeikis, and Joe Kelly developed a partnership at Boom that eventually became the foundation for "Ted Lasso." Hunt has said plainly: "I don't think Ted Lasso does happen without Boom Chicago." The show's DNA—Americans abroad, viewing themselves from outside their own home, making fun of themselves first before ribbing others—came directly from the theater's ethos.

Jordan Peele, Amber Ruffin, and others followed. Boom Chicago's comedy academy grew to teach more than 200 students annually. The business that started as a half-baked idea in a boot evolved into an operation generating millions in annual revenue, much of it from corporate events that mixed entertainment with business. In June 2026, the theater held an alumni reunion where former cast members returned not just to reminisce but to perform—Meyers, Barinholtz, Hunt, and others trading jokes on the same stage where they'd learned their craft. The unlikely wind-up had produced real results. What began as three young Americans convinced they'd found the perfect place to fail had instead become one of comedy's most reliable incubators, a place where the constraint of performing for people who didn't share your cultural references forced you to become genuinely funny.