When Jim Carrane moved out of his parents’ Kenilworth home at age 28, he didn’t realize just how small Chicago could be. In search of cheap rent, he spent the next six years living in an apartment designed for dwarfs. Now Carrane, 36, looks back at that time and laughs. As a performer on the local improv comedy scene, he’s honed his storytelling skills in three one-man shows about his life. His fourth, Jim Carrane Is Living in a Dwarf’s House, is directed by his longtime friend and collaborator Gary Ruderman and opens for previews this week at the Second City E.T.C.
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“People used to call the place ‘Jimmy and Dave’s midget apartment,’ but ‘midget’ really isn’t a politically correct term,” says Carrane. “No matter how many laughs we’re trying to get from this show, we’re not out to make fun of dwarfs. It’s really about my urban adventures, with that as a connecting point.”
Since then, Carrane has acted in corporate videos, become an Annoyance and ImprovOlympic mainstay, and presented two more shows, Since We Last Talked, about his relationship with his father, and Dog Tales, about a hellish stint as a dog-sitter on the North Shore.
