Deanna Moffitt started improvising in Portland, OR with ComedySportz in 1998. She soon joined ranks with Stacey Hallal to form the critically acclaimed duo, All Jane, No Dick, which performed in comedy festivals across the nation and Toronto.
While in Portland she continued working her way up the corporate ladder as an IT Project Manager for a Fortune 1000 company. After five years of performing in Portland, Deanna followed her heart, quit her job, sold her home and made the move to Chicago, to pursue a career in improvised comedy.
Hired on her second day in the city to work for a corporate entertainment firm, she was immediately asked to “just write some comedy sketches” for management at the corporate offices of McDonald’s. Having never written corporate comedy she was immediately put to the test and came out of the experience only slightly scathed.
However, that experience showed her there was money to be made in corporate entertainment and facilitation and she spent the next year and a half traveling the country performing for and training groups as diverse as Domino’s Pizza to Rachel Ray Magazine.
In between her travels she completed training at iO Chicago and took classes at the Annoyance. She was soon hired by ComedySportz Chicago and performed regularly with iO’s premier Harold Team Revolver and the Improvised Musical Del Tones.
Deanna enjoyed two contracts working for ImprovAcadia in Bar Harbor, ME. A boutique theater which imports some of the best improvisers from around the country to perform during their summer seasons.
Wanting to branch out she joined ranks with some of the best improvisers of the city to form Seven8Nine, a video sketch group. Seven8Nine were winners of several awards and also were the featured video group at two consecutive Chicago SketchFests.
Along with her partner Rance Rizzutto she created a show called The Silent Treatment, a completely silent improv show set to a soundtrack of music. After an intense eight-week competition of two person improv they were chosen by audience vote as the winner The Dual Duel Champions of 2007.
In 2007 she was hired by Second City to work on Norwegian Cruise Line, performing a Second City Theatrical show. She spent that winter in the Caribbean, in 2008 she spent the winter in the Mediterranean and winter 09-10 she enjoyed the pineapple-scented breezes of Hawaii.
She can now be found back on land, writing regularly and reading her essays with the monthly show “This Much is True” a writers collective which she helped co-found. She’s also been a guest with “Essay Fiesta” and can be seen August 25th with “Stories at the Store.”