HERE’S … JIMMY!

In 2016, at the age of 52, Kenilworth native and longtime standup comedian/improv teacher Jimmy Carrane lost his father to pulmonary fibrosis, got attacked while standing on a pew and delivering an unwanted eulogy at the ensuing funeral, and became a first-time father.

It wan an eventful year for Carrane to say the least, filled with one blessed “up”—the arrival of daughter Betsy—and several painful “downs.”

“My relationship with my father (Robert) was complicated,” says Carrane, now 59 and a resident of Evanston. “He was very likeable but, as a workaholic lawyer and real estate developer, wasn’t around much at home. And he spent 33 months in federal prison for embezzlement, which embarrassed me. My family didn’t want me to speak at his funeral, but I prepared a eulogy anyway.

“My father’s death hit me harder than I thought it would. I cried while writing the eulogy. Then, at the funeral, a stranger in a gray suit pushed me off the pew. I couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. Winnetka police officers ended up showing up at the church.”

Three months later, Carrane and his wife, Lauren, welcomed Betsy into the world.

A fatherless man was suddenly a father.

Carrane, a 1982 New Trier High School graduate, plans to recount his challenging childhood and share a rookie father’s lighter moments and hilarious observations on Father’s Day Weekend during his one-person show, “World’s Greatest Dad(?),” at The Laughing Academy in Glenview.

Delightfully sarcastic and self-deprecating, he is scheduled to perform once (7:30 p.m.) on Friday, June 16 and twice (7 p.m. and 9 p.m.) on Saturday, June 17.

Each show promises to be part laugh-out-loud funny, part poignant.

“It is very cathartic for me, doing the show,” says Carrane, who first performed it in 2019 before sold-out crowds at The Second City’s Training Center in Chicago, and later staged it at The Elgin Fringe Festival and the Chicago-based SOLO SUNDAY storytelling series.

“I discovered that sharing pain with an audience makes for a good story,” he continues. “My father would come home late at night and usually head to his bedroom to read the newspaper. I wanted attention from him. But he was always supportive of my career in comedy. I could make my father laugh, and he was a tough laugh.”

Generating laughter helped a young Carrane—a huge Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show fan, as well as an avid television viewer of M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show—navigate rough times as a 300-pound student at New Trier Township High School.

“I was fat and didn’t fit in at New Trier,” admits Carrane, who went on a diet regimen in his 30s and weighs 186 pounds today.

“Kids at that age can be mean. I wasn’t good at anything other than making people laugh in the classroom. My peers laughed all the time around me. My teachers? Not so much.”

While attending Columbia College Chicago as a marketing major, Carrane took improv classes at The Players Workshop at The Second City and felt more at home there than he had ever felt at his home in Kenilworth or in a school setting.

He later learned a great deal under the tutelage of improv guru and iO Chicago cofounder Del Close, who launched iO (formerly known as “ImprovOlympic”) with co-founder Charna Halpern in 1981.

“Everything changed for me on that first day at The Players Workshop,” says Carrane, who took improv classes with the late Chris Farley and, in the 1990s, performed improv alongside future household names Mike Myers, Rachel Dratch, David Koechner, Andy Richter, and Tim Meadows, among others. “I found myself able to fit in because I was around so many like-minded people.”

His first one-person show, “I’m 27, I Still Live at Home and Sell Office Supplies,” opened in 1991 at The Annoyance Theatre in Chicago and emerged as a hit for more than 18 months.

“Every part of that show’s title was true,” the former salesman says.

But many of Carrane’s comedy peers became wildly famous and he did not, leaving him bitter, depressed, and a regular at therapy sessions (sometimes twice a week) when he was in his 40s.

“I told my therapist, ‘I’d like medication that will make me famous,’” Carrane cracks. “That’s not how it works, I discovered.”

He married Lauren, now a consummate public relations professional, 11 years ago. Carrane knew Lauren was the one for him when she was suffering terribly during a visit to Florida.

“Lauren,” Carrane recalls, “got food poisoning. Her health scare scared me. I was scared of living my life without her in it.

“That’s when I knew I was in love with her.”

Carrane’s therapist suggested that Jimmy and Lauren have a baby to bring more joy into their life as a couple and thereby supplant Jimmy’s depression over not being famous at the national level.

Betsy turns 7 in July.

“I really wanted fame because I thought fame would make me happy,” says Carrane, the author of two books, including Improv Therapy, and the seven-year host of Studio 312 on Chicago Public Radio—a show-within-a-show on WBEZ’s 848, where he interviewed a slew of celebrities, including Conan O’Brien, Cindy Crawford, and Jeff Garlin.

“As a father,” he adds, “I feel fulfillment without being famous. And with Betsy around, I no longer worry about just myself.”

Jimmy Carrane will perform his one-person show, “World’s Greatest Dad(?),” at The Laughing Academy, 3230 Glenview Road, Glenview, on June 16 (7:30 p.m.) and June 17 (7 p.m. and 9 p.m.). Purchase tickets ($25 each) at thelaughingacademy.com. Call 847-724-2787 for information. For more information about Carrane, visit jimmycarrane.com.