T. J. Jagodowski

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T. J. Jagodowski is a comedian, actor, and improvisor living in Chicago. He was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He has been a member of The Second City as well as a performer and teacher at iO, formerly known as Improv Olympic. He has appeared in movies such as Stranger Than Fiction, The Ice Harvest, No Sleep Till Madison, and the television show, Prison Break. He is also recognizable from the Sonic Drive-In commercials.

The Chicago Improv Festival called him "The best improviser in Chicago," and New City Chicago said, "If Miles Davis had pursued comedy instead of music, the results might have looked something like this." [1] Jagodowski performs weekly in Chicago in a variety of improv programs, but most notably in "T.J. and Dave" with David Pasquesi, which the Chicago Reader has described as "an hour of subtle character development, verbal facility, and pantomimic agility that anticipates and plays off the audience's reactions." [2] The duo perform this show monthly at The Barrow Street Theater in New York City.

While in college, a vending machine fell on his leg, breaking multiple bones. He had plates and screws installed in his right leg, though a rampant staph infection took hold. Doctors told him he was one week away from losing the leg to gangrene. T.J. revealed this about himself during a performance of "The Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny", a weekly show at I.O. that uses one performer's/guest monologist's stories as inspiration for improvised scenes. T.J. was the monologist that evening and noted while telling the story that he generally hates when other monologist's tell "these kinds of stories".^{[citation needed]}