Youth Coach, Instructor

Summer Camp Instructor

Jeris Donovan is an actress and comedian who has performed and directed improv for nearly thirty years. She studied improv at the renowned Second City in Chicago, Improv Olympic Chicago, and Annoyance Theater, and taught all levels of improvisation at the Improv Olympic West conservatory in Los Angeles, where she created and directed groundbreaking troupes including Bitch Planet with Lindsey Stoddart (American Housewife, The Great North), Wendy Molyneaux (Bob’s Burgers, The Great North), Angela Kinsey (The Office), and Kate Flannery (The Office), BIG with Dana Powell (Modern Family), and Backyard Kilbasa with Chris Tallman (The Thundermans), Arden Myrin (Insatiable), and David Ury (Lodge 49, Breaking Bad). ​

 

Jeris is also a Meisner trained actor and has worked on such television shows as Spin City, Two Guys and a Girl, and, more recently, Dopesick, Words on Bathroom Walls, and The Walking Dead: The World Beyond. 

 

STUDENT SUCCESS  

Since 2014, Jeris has taught improv and coached professional actors of all ages at Moonlight Stage Company. During her tenure at Moonlight, she built the only youth improv training and performance program of its kind in the country. Her troupes have been selected to perform at festivals throughout the southeast, always earning the privilege of being the youngest troupes selected in each festival's history. Jeris now brings her youth improv training and performance program to ComedyWorx (and we are delighted to collaborate with her!). 

 

Jeris is also a professional acting coach whose clients have booked roles for TV shows including Wonder Years (2021), Welcome to Flatch, Will Trent, Florida Man, Swagger, SNL, Stranger Things, Just Beyond, DC’s Stargirl, This Country, Dopesick, The Staircase, Hightown, Mare of Easttown, Queen Sugar, The Gifted, The Resident, Stephen King’s Creep Show, Misfits and Monsters, and NCIS: New Orleans. Her clients have also booked roles in films including Love and Gelato, Boys of Summer, Spiderman: No Way Home, Black Phone, Troupe Zero, Feel the Beat, Words on Bathroom Walls, Forever Your Girl, and What Men Want. 

 

Previous students are comedians, actors, and writers seen in many national commercials and on shows such as The Office, Bob’s Burgers, SNL, Modern Family, Euphoria, American Housewife, The Middle, Breaking Bad, Insatiable, Mr. Mercedes, Gifted, and School of Rock, and many clients have had callbacks and tested for sketch shows and sitcoms for Nickelodeon and Disney XD and booked local and national commercials.