Courtesy Sheila Robertson
Monkey Business Institute members with Sheila Robertson, bottom right.
Robertson, lower right, with the Monkey Business troupe, where 'yes, and' reigns.
Madison’s obsession with basement-based comedy extends well beyond Comedy on State. Monkey Business Institute, MBI to fans and friends alike, is another underground comedy offering. It teaches classes on different improv formats. They also serve up multiple formats of improv shows and have for more than two decades, with the bonus aroma of Glass Nickel Pizza from upstairs permeating the performance space. Through an estimated 4,600 regular shows across the years, the group has brought joy to audiences through make-em-ups, silliness, and collaborative storytelling.
This year Monkey Business has been nominated, for the umpteenth time, for Madison Magazine’s Best Of Madison “Best Comedy Group” award for 2026. And now, Monkey Business has a new owner and leader: Sheila Robertson. Though she’s not actually “new,” per se. In fact, she’s been involved with MBI for almost its entire existence.
Robertson is well-suited for the role, embodying both the monkey, business, and the institute of it all through her effervescent play and silly-serious teacher persona, accrued acumen, and decades of experience (she’s an educational technology sales account representative in her other life). This isn’t her first rodeo owning a business, either. She’s been a successful solo entrepreneur in the past, as a certified massage therapist, and has decades of sales experience (including, once upon a time, as an ad rep for Isthmus).
Isthmus spoke with Robertson via Zoom about her upcoming venture.
A self-described “country kid” who grew up just east of Madison, Robertson fell in love with improv comedy at age 14 after seeing Madison’s gone-but-not-forgotten ComedySportz improv troupe perform. Seeing improv for the first time “as a 4-H kid, [I was] just like, ‘What is that? That looks amazing!’” she says. She started doing improv herself at 18, and never looked back. She’s also occasionally dipped into sketch comedy and stand-up.
Robertson first joined ComedySportz Madison in the 1990s. “My only job back then was not to marry a farmer,” she quips.
Somewhat infamously, despite her admiration and dedication to the squad, Robertson quit the troupe with a Post-It note that read "I Quit, Love Sheila,” after more than a decade — and some frustrations.
ComedySportz dissolved not long after.
Brad Knight and Jason Stephens created MBI in 2004 to keep the short-form improv games of ComedySportz alive. Robertson joined MBI in 2007, after a two-year improv break, during which time she got married (not to a farmer) and had a baby.
Since then, Robertson has been heavily involved in MBI. She’s been one of the primary performers across various shows — both short-form and long-form improv — as well as one of the primary improv educators.
She focuses on teaching applied improvisation, which uses improv theater techniques in non-performance settings (like people’s jobs), and she incorporates lots of somatic movements (tapping, cross-body activities, rhythms) into her courses. The activities may “sound goofy and fun, but they really do change how your neural pathways work,” she says.
Robertson also helped create Yes, Ma'am, an all-female improv show active for the last 10 years, as well as The Merge, one of MBI’s flagship shows, which features a blend of stand-up and improv.
Booking those shows at Glass Nickel and before the group had a set location “really helped me understand how to negotiate with the venue, and how to cast the show,” she says, as well as “how to build a following.”
She also ran the operations committee, which, while it “doesn't sound that exciting or sexy,” is necessary to keep things up and running. She’s also used her sales skills through the years.
Negotiations for ownership of MBI took place over a year, she says, and she is “proud of how [Knight and I] both had difficult conversations and figured out how to do it together.”
Courtesy Sheila Robertson
Sheila Robertson
Sheila Robertson is a veteran improvisor who also has a background in business.
Robertson has plans to expand MBI’s reach, to bring in new, larger audiences, as well as enrich the community it already has. She sees where “improv could go, and how much more we could do” to be inclusive.
She also wants more stage time for her performers: “How can we get them a little bit more cheddar, you know?” She wants to provide opportunities for everyone to “get more skills and have a lot of fun.”
Her business rationale is driven by three principles: “Is it fun? Is it good for my performers? And is it going to make us a little bit of money?” she says. “Because money allows us to have more fun and be good to my performers.”
Finally Robertson would like to encourage modern adults to break down inhibitions by embracing “even one percent” of that “yes, and” mentality. “We've become a very ‘no’ culture, because you go with what you know, and you’re trying to protect yourself,” Robertson says. “Yes, and” is about saying yes to “your own thoughts, your own process, and to other people.”
