Bombastic. Fearless. Powerful. Iconoclastic. These are all words that will win you a game of Scrabble. And while gloating over your victory, why not take a moment to think of Laughing Stock improviser Jimmy Mac, whose goofy antics and obscure references have confused and angered improv audiences for almost ten years, and whose theatre resume spans almost twenty years, and whose run-on sentences mock the very language he speaks and claims to love?

As a Springville High School Red Devil, he was first introduced to improv, and performed with the school’s improv team against local high schools. Also while at SHS, he appeared in such plays as Neil Simon’s The Star-Spangled Girl as Andy Hobart, and The Man Who Came to Dinner as Dr. Sheridan Whiteside. He served on the board of directors of the Springville Playhouse Youth Guild, for whom he directed See How They Run to surprisingly positive reviews. He also played the Reverend Lionel Toop in this production.

He then matriculated to Snow College, Utah’s finest and least expensive junior college. Some of his favorite roles there were Ed Carmichael in You Can’t Take it With You, Arnold Wiggins in The Boys Next Door, Michael in Dancing at Lughnasa, and S/Sgt. “Froggy” LeSueur in The Foreigner, for which he was also the Assistant Director. He was also cast in Laugh in a Box, the short-lived black box-based improv troupe.

After three years at this two-year college (he graduated after two years, but decided to stagnate), it was off to Cedar City where he played with Off the Cuff as a guest performer for a year or so, further honing both his long- and short form improv skills. Also while in Cedar City he was offered the role of Giles Corey in a local production of The Crucible. In 2006, he moved to Salt Lake City on a whim to star as Rosencrantz in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at StageRight Theater Company.

Walking to Sam Weller’s Bookstore one day, he saw an audition notice for Laff Match. He auditioned, and played for them for two seasons, also guest-playing with Laughing Stock. He also auditioned for and was cast in Henry Botter as Renfield Haggard, A Christmas Carol Part II as Charles Dickens and Jacob Marley, and Indianapolis Jones as George Lucas, a Bureaucratic Fool, and a couple of Indians. Almost exactly a year after his first audition with the OBT, he was asked to join Laughing Stock, and the rest, as they say, is a particularly long-winded history.