Curt Mabry
Zmack Founder and Executive Director
Try new, improved Curt, now with 30% less Southern Mississippi Drawl! Our secret recipe combines a former kids TV show host, radio announcer, and hopeless comic book geek into a fluffy nougat, sprinkled liberally with bad jokes and anti-France rhetoric, and coated with a thick rich envelope of cheese. Available now in fun size!
Punk
Zmack Director
Punk is a master in the art of physical comedy and has been mimeing, his own business, for over the past 30 years. His hilarious brand of body slapstick has delighted audiences of all ages in Europe, Asia and the US and improv audiences alike, have also been pleasantly surprised by the quick-wit that comes out of the mouth of this nit-wit. Growing up in San Diego, most will agree that he never grew up and is still a kid at heart. As the saying goes, "You are as young as you feel", but according to him, "You are as young as the women you feel." Can you feel it?
Claire Vanessa Lim
Zmacker
Claire the Bear was tossed to planet Earth as a mistake—one of the near-sighted folks from Juvenurspiter thought she was an Angry Bird and mounted her on the slingshot. Claire landed right smack on the Zmack stage and improvised her improv education on the spot. The act continues up to this day as none of the Zmackers seem to have picked up on it, and she thinks living improv is the way earthlings normally behave.
Julien Bertrand
Zmacker
A self-deluded anomaly of the "Frog State", Julien croaked his way through imaginary conservatories and underground performances of like-minded amphibians. A (leaping) disciple of Commedia Dell'Arte and ardent follower of "Whose Line", Julien leapt to China 7 years ago, and has since established his tadpole in the Shanghai puddle. Julien has hopes to become another Frog Prince, or spend an evening with Kermit.
Koan Brown
Zmacker
Koan Brown hails from the teeming metropolis of Smithers in the Canadian wilderness, where he was raised by fire-breathing lizards. Koan came to Shanghai to market his quick-release trouser idea but remains to occasionally decline invitations to climb onstage with ZMACK. Koan enjoys the games Sure Ding and Freeze and in his free time enjoys destroying Pyongyang.
ZMACK HALL OF FAME
Candy Tang
Candy Tang, 80s’, tiny sweetie local, labeled a mixture as born Cantonese, studied in Beijing, and now works in Shanghai, traversing the whole China, LALALA. Rebelling in mind, wide in behavior, free like a bird, but without wings, edged like an eagle, but without claws. But life is not easy as close to death in childhood (come to me for details), thus now fear of nothing. Life is yet fabulous, once abandoned in Seoul Korea, lost in Shangri-La, Yunnan, and yelled in Sydney's Blue Mountain. Used to be a hip hop fan, a rock zest, an indie pop insane, now fascinated about improvised performance art. Candy is a local appetizer for ZMACK. Go Candy! go ZMACK!
David Warner
David is a bear. No wait, that’s wrong. David is a Warner and he is a New York City. He enjoys living in Shanghai, but more importantly, in China, and has studied the culture and eaten take-out Chinese food for more than a decade. David enjoys the third person and walks on mountains near waterfalls. He plays music, writes poetry and performs theater while still keeping his day job teaching law and sociology at an international university. He prefers cats to dogs and people to cats. David plans to stay in China for as long as it takes.
Christopher Brantley
After surviving the hard streets of south central Kentucky, CHRISTOPHER BRANTLEY escaped to China in 2001 and spent the next 8 years traveling to every corner of the country. During that time, he discovered the outstanding diversity in Chinese culture, picked up Mandarin, and ate everything in sight. He is whip-crack funny, intellectually arousing, sexually irresistible, and very, very modest.
Jubal Gallaga
The Cute One. Jubal is one of the founders of Zmack and no one will ever let him forget it. However, he's willing to carry that burden for the rest of his life - may God have mercy on his soul. Jubal received his training from the Negros Summer Workshops in the Philippines. He's been involved with the NSW as teacher and student for 14 years. He likes a lot of the games, just don't tell him that it is set in a factory.
Stephanie "Sproffee" Rice
Stephanie “Sproffee” Rice calls the robot infested suburbs of Connecticut home. After winning the Nobel Peace Prize in baking, she decided to venture to the unknown lands of Shanghai. She claims her improv skills are the result of an explosive accident involving copious amounts of Sprite and Coffee, hence her alter ego, Sproffee. Sproffee loves the game "Questions Only", although she often forgets to explain the rules before playing with strangers on the metro. Sproffee has returned home to Connecticut as the result of a sword given to her by a lady in a lake.
Emmitt Kyle
Emitt Kyle was born as Emperor of the Ants, spending many years ruling over the British ant kingdom from a Castle built by the Norman invaders in the 1060's. The beautiful castle overlooked a great river of Honey tasting water. But deep in the heart of this Emperor of Ants was a passion to paint pictures, a requirement to recreate rousing rhythms and a need for noodles...... so he moved to China to become ZMACK!'s best dressed-noodle munching-drumming-artist and prop maker....and helps with a few other things behind the scenes as well. NO ANTS WERE HARMED IN THE PRODUCTION OF THIS BIOGRAPHY !
Jennel Jin
Our homegrown Shanghai sexbomb declined to write a bio because she's tired of Curt's constant barrage of over-long emails. Watch this space for more.
Matthew Schonfield
MATTHEW SCHONFIELD is the last of three brothers, who swore an oath to find the grail, and to guard it. His hobbies include chicanery, obscurantism and tripping the light fantastic. Matthew loves improv, but wonders when the cast will find enough time to rehearse so they can learn their lines properly. Before returning to USA to entertain audiences there, he was most recently seen regularly performing improv in Shanghai as the Chairman of the People's Republic of Comedy.
Eric Shen
In the year 3240, posthuman hyperfeminists created the ideal sex robot to serve their depraved appetites. Sadly, a flaw in the design of this perfect boy-toy resulted in its being discarded in the wastes outside former Los Angeles. A roving band of rebellious but thoroughly whipped men re-programmed this droid and sent it backwards in time to prevent the fall of the testosterone regime. Awakening with no memory of his mission, he took the name ERIC SHEN and entered the Hollywood entertainment industry to make his fortune. That didn’t work out, so he came here to Shanghai to entertain you.
Sean McLane
Sean began his improv training in Tartarus, after testing Zeus one too many times. He tricked Persephone and even Thanatos, Death himself, but in the end, his hubris proved his downfall. Now stuck in this absurd existence, he takes breaks from rolling large rocks up hills to replace the letter P with the letter S and show soor unsussecting seosle his srehensile senis.
Dominic St Pierre
Spawned from a petri-dish for an experiment in genetic perfection gone wrong, Dominic was subjected to a battery of physical and social tests from day one. After being bathed in wolf blood and eventually abandoned, he was left to fend for himself in the Canadian arctic at the age of three. Dominic learned to both hunt for seal and read algebra from an Inuit elder, eventually mastering the techniques of throat singing, maritime trade and traveling long distances on a sled pulled by a three-legged dog. His decade-long voyage over land and sea (in a self-crafted convertible sled-canoe made of mammoth tusk) brought him to his new home in Shanghai. Found washed-up on the shore of the Huangpu, Zmack talent scouts immediately seized the opportunity to mold him into a performer after extensive training in the arts of basic social communication under relentless authority of a cat-of-nine tails whip. He now enjoys long walks on the beach, red wine, and the Kenny G's greatest hits.