What is The Second City?

The Second City is a long-running improvisational comedy troupe based in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.

The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959^[1] and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto, metro-Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York.

The Second City has produced television programs in both the US and Canada including SCTV, Second City Presents, and Next Comedy Legend.

Since its debut, Second City has consistently been a starting point for several comedians, award winning actors, directors, and others in show business.

History

Second City evolved from the Compass Players,^[2] a 1950s cabaret revue show started by undergraduates at the University of Chicago.^[3] The troupe chose the self-mocking name "The Second City" from the title of an article about Chicago by A.J. Liebling that appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1952.^[1] In 1959, the first Second City revue show premiered at 1842 North Wells Street and moved to 1616 North Wells in 1967.^[1] Co-founder Bernard Sahlins owned the theater company until 1985, before selling it to Canadian Andrew Alexander.^[1]

The style of comedy has changed with time, but the format has remained constant. Second City revues feature a mix of semi-improvised and scripted scenes with new material developed during unscripted improv sessions after the second act where scenes are created based on audience suggestions. A Second City innovation is the inclusion of live, improvised music during the performance.

A number of well-known performers began careers as part of the historic troupe and later moved to television and film. In the mid-1970s, Second City became a source of cast members for Saturday Night Live and SCTV, which borrowed many of the writing and performing techniques pioneered by Second City and other improv groups.

SCTV

Main article: Second City Television

Second City Television, or SCTV, was a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from the Toronto troupe of the Second City that ran from 1976 to 1984.

The basic premise of SCTV was modeled on a television station in the fictional city of Melonville. Rather than broadcast the usual TV rerun fare, the business, run by the greedy Guy Caballero (Joe Flaherty) sitting in a wheelchair only to gain sympathy and leverage in business and staff negotiations, operates a bizarre and humorously incompetent range of cheap local programming. The range included a soap opera called "The Days of the Week"; game shows such as "Shoot the Stars", in which celebrities literally are shot at in similar fashion to targets in a shooting gallery; and movie spoofs such as "Play it Again, Bob" in which Woody Allen (Rick Moranis) attempts to entice Bob Hope (Dave Thomas) to star in his next film. In-house media melodrama also was satirized by John Candy's vain, bloated variety star character Johnny La Rue, Thomas' acerbic critic Bill Needle and Andrea Martin's flamboyant, leopard-skin clad station manager Mrs. Edith Prickley.

The Second City Training Center

Main article: The Second City Training Center

The Second City has training centers located throughout North America, most notably in Chicago, Toronto, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The training centers have grown substantially since the Second City Conservatory was established in the mid-1980s under the tutelage of longtime Chicago improv instructors and mentors Martin de Maat and Sheldon Patinkin. The Chicago school has over 1,800 students in several disciplines, including improvisation and comedy writing. Various Conservatory alumni including Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Halle Berry and Sean Hayes have gone on to successful careers, with notable performers such as Tim O'Malley and Steve Carell having taught at these institutions,

The Second City Parents School

Main article: The Second City Parents School

In the early days of Second City, several parents and Lincoln Park community members -- including Paul and Carol Sills and Dennis and Mona Cunningham -- started a progressive school for their children, based on Viola Spolin's play therapy philosophy with her son Paul Sills' theater games refinements to it. Early Second City staff, and Old Town and Lincoln Park community members, were deeply involved in the school, including the Sillses and Cunninghams, Viola Spolin, John Schmidt, Mel Spiegel, and Beverly Gold. The progressive curriculum included daily theater games, and many students went on to careers in entertainment. Briefly at the original Old Town theater site at the intersection of Clark, Wells, and Lincoln Avenue, the school had several locations in Lincoln Park until it closed in the mid-1970s.

Awards

The Second City has twice been awarded an Equity Joseph Jefferson Award, once in 1997 as an ensemble in the "New Work" category for Paradigm Lost. The show featured Tina Fey, Scott Adsit, Kevin Dorff, Rachel Dratch, Jim Zulevic and was directed by Mick Napier. Stephnie Weir received the "Actress in a Revue" Jeff Award for Second City 4.0 in 2000.^[7]

Toronto's Second City mainstage troupe has won four Canadian Comedy Awards: "Best Improv Troupe" (2001), "Best Sketch Troupe" (2001) and "Best Comedic Play" winners Family Circus Maximus (2002) and Psychedelicatessen (2003).

Notable alumni of the Second City

Main article: List of notable alumni of the Second City

Notable alumni of the Compass Players

Main article: Compass Players

Second City Theatres

• The Second City Toronto
• The Second City Detroit
• The Second City Las Vegas

See also

• Compass Players
• Improvisational theatre
• I.O.
• Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre
• Chicago Theatre
• Viola Spolin

External links

• The Second City website
• Audio interview with Anne Libera, author of "The Second City Almanac of Improvisation," on The Sound of Young America
• Documentary about 'Second City'

Notes