Jeremy Sweetlamb

Jeremy Sweetlamb, known earlier as Jeremy Lamb, is an American improvisational theatre performer, director, and comedy-festival producer whose career has centered on the improv scene in Austin, Texas. He took the surname Sweetlamb after he and his wife, Caitlin Sweet, combined their surnames when they married.

Performing career

Well Hung Jury Sweetlamb became interested in improvisation as a teenager after watching reruns of the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. While in high school, he attended performances by Monks' Night Out at the Velveeta Room and joined Los Paranoias, a Monks' Night Out sister troupe directed by Pamela Ribon that also included Shana Merlin. After Sweetlamb and several friends were not selected for Monks' Night Out at a later audition, they formed Well Hung Jury.

In 1999, Well Hung Jury helped gut and rebuild the Hideout Theatre in exchange for performance time after the venue opened, giving the troupe a regular space. In 2000, the troupe staged a 27-hour continuous improvised narrative that the Statesman described as an unofficial world-record performance. In 2005, the Austin American-Statesman described Available Cupholders as a Well Hung Jury-influenced troupe performing in Chicago. One performance was staged inside a standard-size van and drew four audience members. That March, The Columbus Dispatch listed Sweetlamb as the leader of the Chicago-based troupe for a performance at MadLab Theatre in Columbus. The troupe returned to Columbus for the 2006 Columbus Fringe Festival, where the Dispatch identified Sweetlamb as its founder. He said Available Cupholders favored fringe festivals and college touring because those settings encouraged experimentation and the possibility of trying new approaches to improv.

By 2006, Sweetlamb had returned to Austin after three years in Chicago, where The Austin Chronicle reported that he trained with members of Second City and ImprovOlympic. He was again performing with Available Cupholders as well as presenting solo work as Bearded Lamb.

In 2018, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that the members of Available Cupholders had all attended the same high school, though in different years, and had been performing together for 20 years. The troupe was returning for its tenth Sarasota Improv Festival and was one of a few groups to have appeared at every edition of the festival to that point; the newspaper identified Sweetlamb among its members. Michael Joplin said the group continued to reinvent the kinds and styles of shows it performed in order to surprise both itself and its audiences.

Available Cupholders continued to perform outside Austin. In 2022, Sarasota Magazine reported that the troupe returned to Florida Studio Theatre for a residency that included two performances and three improv workshops, with Sweetlamb identified as one of the group's members.

By 2025, the troupe's five members were living in different parts of the country and performed together when their schedules allowed, including during holidays in Austin and at festivals. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune described Available Cupholders as a stalwart presence at the Sarasota Improv Festival since the event began in 2009. The group returned for the 15th festival in 2025 and remained in Sarasota for an additional week of workshops and performances. In 2003, he performed "Bigly Huge (Hugely Big)" as part of a FronteraFest Best of the Week program. Austin American-Statesman critic Jamie Smith Cantara described the piece as a series of improvisations created from audience-supplied material, with Sweetlamb carrying details and characters from one vignette into another.

In January 2006, billed as Bearded Lamb, Sweetlamb and Mike D'Alonzo provided comedy play-by-play and color commentary during the Rose Bowl at the Hideout Theatre, while Available Cupholders and Knuckleball Now contributed sideline reports and comic takes on commercials.

A 2016 overview of Austin improv credited Sweetlamb with helping originate the Hideout Improv Marathon, touring nationally as Bearded Lamb, and co-reviving the improvised-wrestling production Soul Grudge Showdown with Michael Joplin in 2014. He later said the idea also developed after he and Well Hung Jury traveled to other festivals and became interested in bringing new performers, styles, and ideas to Austin while avoiding aspects of those events they disliked. The event continued under other producers after Sweetlamb moved to Chicago in 2003.

Sweetlamb was again co-producing Out of Bounds with Shannon McCormick by 2007. Their approach emphasized minimizing hierarchy among participating troupes, affordable access to headliners and workshops, and payments to performers.

By 2012, Out of Bounds had expanded to more than 500 performers in 100 shows across six venues. Sweetlamb described community and the continued emphasis on improv and sketch comedy as its central priorities, while favoring gradual growth that avoided debt.

Directing and teaching In July 2011, Sweetlamb appeared with Available Cupholders at the Sarasota Improv Festival in Florida. The Bradenton Herald reported that the troupe remained in Sarasota for an additional week of improv master classes and two special performances. Sweetlamb said the classes emphasized creating a narrative arc while avoiding self-editing and accepting failure as part of the improvisational process.

A 2011 profile in Your Observer reported that Sweetlamb had earned a film degree from the University of Texas at Austin, studied at Second City in Chicago and at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles, and toured as Bearded Lamb. That year he joined Florida Studio Theatre as a guest teaching artist and directed Just Desserts, a production combining short-form and long-form improvisation. In October, the Venice Gondolier Sun described him as a new resident artist and director of improvisation at Florida Studio Theatre that fall.

In 2012, Sweetlamb directed Process at the Hideout Theatre, an improvised production structured around the auditions, rehearsal, and performance of a play created during the show.

That July, Sweetlamb taught at the Sarasota Improv Festival, where he, Kaci Beeler, and Michael Joplin of Available Cupholders led a workshop titled "Super Quick Character Generation".

In 2025, Sweetlamb described himself as a theater teacher in an interview with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He was also among the improvisers scheduled to lead workshops during that year's Sarasota Improv Festival. In 2014, The Austin Chronicle described Sweetlamb as a central figure among the leaders of five major Austin improv organizations while reporting on their collaboration around Out of Bounds.