SAK Comedy Lab brings the laughs to a new location

By | June 11, 2024

ORLANDO — SAK Comedy Lab, Orlando’s premier improv comedy theater, is now delighting audiences at its new home at 55 West Church Street. The move represents the largest capital investment in the company’s 47-year history.

Originally founded in 1977, SAK Comedy Lab has called Orlando home since 1991, and this new venue marks a return to Church Street after leaving its first Downtown location in 1999. Throughout its three decades in Orlando, the company has operated successfully as a rare entertainment beacon that’s been able to run continuously and grow almost exclusively off admission and bar sales, a robust improv university program and a corporate outreach department.  

“SAK’s journey has been a delight to witness,” said Terry Olsen, Founder of SAK Theatre Company. “It germinated from a little band of traveling street theater performers in Minnesota, to contracting with Disney to open street entertainment at EPCOT, to the live entertainment venue we know today that has spanned four Downtown locations.”

With a build-out cost of $1.4M, SAK Comedy Lab’s new location was brought to life by McCree General Contractors and Adirondack Studios, who helped create an exciting cityscape feel in the venue’s lobby, box office and bar areas. The theater itself is equipped with 175 seats in a stadium seating format, with a stage and set reminiscent of SAK’s earlier venues, but with intricate, professionally designed and built theming. The entire venue boasts 7,200 square feet of space, inclusive of the back-of-house classroom space featuring three separate studios, a small office and a green room for performers.

“This new location at 55 West offers fresh life to our company, said Chris Dinger, Executive Director of SAK Theatre Company. “We find ourselves in a neighborhood more conducive to our live entertainment audience, an upgrade to every aspect of the experience and triple the classroom space of our previous venue. That combination of upgrades means many more years of laughs for our audiences, our students and our corporate partners.”