I am Mike Balzer. Most people know me as Baz. I’m a Los Angeles based experience designer in the themed entertainment industry. In a previous life/my pasttime, I wrote/write humorous things for insufficient amounts of money. I don’t understand how I got to where I am from where I was, so don’t ask.

I spent twelve years in Chicago, eight of them as the Creative Director of the iO Theater, America’s most respected comedic improvisation theater. There I was responsible for every aspect of live entertainment at our two theaters – adjudicating, programming, writing, producing, directing, performing, marketing, brand management, media development, and so on. Essentially, anything involving a modicum of creativity went through me at some point. Despite all that, I don’t often improvise. My experience with improv has left me very suspicious of impermanence, and I gravitate to scripted projects, especially those with heavy investment in spectacle and non-traditional narrative devices.

My non-theatrical writing work includes the cruelly short-lived Comedy Central series The Onion SportsDome, additional work with the Onion for their Onion News Network web content, print work in Chicago weeklies and dailies, multiple branded entertainment campaigns, pieces for various blogs and online lit journals, and a few chapters from my pet project: a non-fiction book about the late, great EPCOT Center attraction, Horizons.

In my free time, I enjoy playing ice hockey, visiting Disney theme parks, camping in places surrounded by mountains, eating fine dining, practicing the accordion, and reading current medical journal articles on electrophysiology.

True Story: I was a Make-A-Wish kid and received a Canon XL1 and a computer with which to edit video in 1997 after Al Pacino turned down my original request: a speaking role in his next film.

Click here for recent updates and news.
Or here for some work samples.
Or here for a wide variety of decidedly 21st century ways to get in touch with me.
Or here for the latest sports scores and news from ESPN.