Doing it all in college serves Eninger in his comedy career

• By Frannie Comstock
• CAS Intern

When Andy Eninger was a student at Miami, he tried to do it all.

He studied mass communication, advertising, improvisational comedy, and theater (just to name a few), and learned how to make his voice heard.

“Every voice gets heard at Miami.” says Eninger.

His many fields of study at Miami led Eninger to his position as the Learning Designer & Facilitator at Second City in Chicago. The 1991 grad also performed in Tower Players, and created a televised sketch show during his time at Miami. He extended his stay at Miami by getting a master’s in theater.

Now, Eninger works with Second City, an improvisational comedy company that has spawned alumni like Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. His work with the company focuses mainly on bridging the gap between comedy and leadership, helping businesses empower their employees and improve communication using techniques found in improv.

He also recently finished up a five-year run as head of the writing program at Second City, focusing on creating the curriculum possible to “create the next generation of Tina Feys.”

Eninger credits Miami with allowing him to explore his comedic prowess. Beyond performing with the Tower Players, Miami’s former improv group, he also created his own television sketch show, which he connects with his mass communications major.

“I loved the practical side of it, getting my hands on cameras and the freedom to make actual content,” says Eninger. “To be able to work with people who I thought were funny and just learn by doing was incredible, and that was a great companion to the classroom studies piece of it.”

Eninger also participated in a (now defunct) advertising practicum during his undergrad years, which he allowed him to see the crossover between different types of studies, an appreciation that now lets him apply the same principles to his Second City work with businesses.

“It’s interesting because one of the things I did while at Miami was this advertising practicum,” says Eninger. “It would bring in folks from art majors, it would bring in business majors and mass comm majors and you’d basically become an advertising agency to learn about a product, and that was incredibly influential on seeing kind of where the arts and business overlap.”

Bruce Drushel, one of Eninger’s former professors, says that Eninger already showed signs of his future creativity during his time at Miami.

“He was one of my advisees, and at that time we had physical folders for people, and I remember looking at his admissions, and he talked about how one of the reasons he was interested in majoring in mass communication was that he really felt compelled to create. He had sort of a creative impulse. Very seldom does anyone put someone like that in response to an interview question like that,” says Drushel. “That kind of stuck out to me.”

Eninger’s creative impulse has clearly stuck with him. Through connecting comedy and business, his work has become a great example of a liberal arts education extending to life after college.

“It’s amazing for me to look back and see where a lot of these themes in my life started, and it was at Miami,” says Eninger.