Matt Griffo, from Upstate NY, has been performing comedy for half a decade. Matt now lives in Chicago and has trained at I.O., The Second City, and the Annoyance in improvisation, music, and writing. He is a founding cast member of The Second City Musical Improv House Ensemble, has music directed for Second City's Brownco Company and is a member of the improv group Wheelhouse. He plays the piano and ukulele and loves them both dearly. Matt performs non-stop as an actor and musician, averaging over 150 shows a year. While doing all this he visits family and friends, does graphic design, and works out at the gym. Matt is an inspiration to us all.

Matt Griffo is a person.

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I grew up in Upstate NY. Rochester NY to be exact. My father was a musician and so was my older brother and as a kid I didn't play anything. I tried many times at band but was never much for practicing because I was told to. I always loved performing and did it throughout all my life.
As I grew up I had a stronger and stronger desire to play an instrument and perform. At 12 I tried to teach myself piano with a "learn how to play piano book" my dad found in the basement. I learned how to play a few things but I found it was way more fun to get off subject and play things I'd make up. At 13, a friend and I tried to re-write a short version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and make a movie. (We couldn't quite get all the kids to focus.)

When I was 14 I wanted to play guitar. But my father's guitar hurt my hand and I couldn't get the chords right. I thought at the time it was because my hands were too small. But it was just cause I didn't know they'd stretch to fit the guitar. I looked up little guitar online and ukuleles popped up in the search engine. I asked my dad if he could get me a ukulele and he said yes. We went down to the house of guitars (the local music store.) and he bought me a thirty dollar ukulele. It was surely, one true piece of crap. And I loved it.

I played it every day and always made up songs walking around with my friends hanging out at home or even at school. I remember turning on the PA system in the high school cafeteria in 8th grade and singing a song I started making up with the lyrics of "Vagiclean, Vagiclean..." and that's all I remember. Fifteen year old me sure was hilarious...

At school I would play piano and me and my friends would make up songs and I would normally do the same exact chord progressions. I went to a school of performing arts during highschool and took modern dance, voice, music, acting, and theater history. Plus some electives. Near the end of high school it was time to go to college. I didn't know where I wanted to go. I knew I wanted to go for either graphic designer, theater, or both. But I felt like if I went I would drop out and have wasted thousands of dollars. I had heard about a comedy school in Chicago, prayed on it, and decided that's where I was to go. I worked doing data entry for half a year, hated my life, then was fired for not doing a good job. (Because I hated working there.) I then worked as a graphic designer for a media marketing company before moving to Chicago. (That went really well.)
When I first moved to Chicago I lived in my van for the first two weeks in the Piper's Alley parking garage (The Second City parking lot.) with my friend Lauren Hearter. Lauren was miserable because of her allergies. I trained at Second City eventually becoming a music director for the Brownco company. Since then I perform all around Chicago in plays, sketch comedy revues, improv shows, and my solo comedy shows. I also produce shows and every year put on "Holy $#!% It's Christmas!" at Donny's Skybox in Chicago.

So that's me! Thanks for getting all the way to the end. Unless of course you skipped ahead.

- matt griffo