Amsterdam improv theater Boom Chicago churns out American comedy legends

In Amsterdam, an English-language improv theater has spent more than 30 years turning American performers into comedy stars.

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Dutch people, not the most giving laughers.

Boom Chicago began in the early 1990s as an unlikely business idea: an improv club in a country not generally known for its comedy. Yet the theater went on to help launch Seth Meyers, Jordan Peele, Amber Ruffin and Jason Sudeikis, importing American performers and sending future stars back across the Atlantic.

Meyers said Dutch audiences were not generous with laughter, but their honesty helped performers improve. A drink-buying audience member once told him he had not liked the show, then explained he might still come to like Meyers. Meyers and Peter Grosz viewed that bluntness as direct rather than malicious.

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They so lovingly tell you they didn't like things. The honesty. The Dutch honesty

Improv differs from stand-up because performers do not deliver a written routine. They depend on audience suggestions for both material and direction, building scenes in real time. At Boom Chicago, performers turned answers about objects such as watches into songs and comic scenes, continuing the theater’s role as an international training ground for American comedy.

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I'm doing you a favor. This part was not good. I did laugh a little bit at that part, so do more of that.