Laugh lessons: What today's top comics learned at Second City
Editor's note: You can't turn on the TV these days, it seems, without seeing someone connected to Chicago's famed comedy theater the Second City. In the following excerpts from Sun-Times reporter Mike Thomas' new book, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theater (Villard, $26), you'll learn how Second City shaped the comedy sensibilities of many of today's top stars. Plus, remembrances of some of the company's larger-than-life personalities.
On a snowless and seasonably mild Wednesday night in mid-December 1959, the Second City opened for business at 1842 North Wells St., on Chicago's Near North Side. By all accounts the satire-centric, improvisation-steeped theater -- housed in the former Wong Cleaners & Dyers Chinese laundry and later described as "a caucus room, fit for politics and poker and vote-swapping" -- was a smash success from the start. Fifty years on, with a long and luminous alumni list that includes John Belushi and Bill Murray, Steve Carell and Chris Farley, Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey, it remains a top-tier comedy crucible -- the Harvard of ha-ha.
PHOTO GALLERY
Second City: Before they were stars
• On the Greg Jarrett morning show, 8 a.m. Monday on WGN-AM (720).
• "The Sunday Papers with Rick Kogan," 8 a.m. Oct. 11 on WGN-AM (720).
• At a book signing, with special guest Tim Kazurinsky, 7 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Book Cellar, 4736-38 N. Lincoln.
For those fortunate enough to earn a residency there, Second City has long been a noble end in itself as well as a potential springboard to fame. Without the skills it teaches (chief among them collaboration), the confidence it instills, and the failure it allows, much of the comedy (and, to a lesser extent, the drama) we have seen and continue to see on screens big and small would be either distinctly different in tone or simply nonexistent.
This book is the product of more than 170 interviews and covers the first half century of Second City's existence. And though it is a celebration of the theater's influence and longevity, this uncensored oral history also delves into darker corners of a vibrant past. Present-day and former cast members, artistic directors, musical directors, producers, and stage managers recall onstage hilarity, backstage buffoonery, and offstage tragedy. Eminent outsiders weigh in, too.
Here, then, in the words of those who know it best, is the Second City unscripted.
America was in the midst of a comedy revolution when Bernard Sahlins, Howard Alk, and Paul Sills conspired in 1959 to open a bohemian coffeehouse for recreational smoking, erudite discourse, and satirical theater. Considering the times, it seemed destined for success -- or miserable failure.
And then, only three months after it began, in March 1960, none other than Time magazine praised the fledgling theater as a place where "the declining skill of satire is kept alive with brilliance and flourish" -- lofty plaudits indeed for a tiny Midwestern outfit that boasted no national stars, a scant budget, and something of an inferiority complex. The fact that it remained afloat a few months out was -- at least to the founders and early cast members -- a small miracle.
From night one, there were crowds in the lobby and lines out the door to witness the birth of a sensation.
Alan Arkin
First and most important, Second City gave me a place to go; it gave me a place to function. That was the main thing. And the second most important thing, which was very, very close to the first, was that it gave us a place to fail. Which doesn't exist in this civilization anymore. There is no place to fail anymore. And failing at something is crucial. We knew that 20, 30 sometimes 40 percent of what we were doing wasn't going to work. The audience didn't mind. They knew that two things would fail and the next thing would be glorious.
David Steinberg
Those audiences at Second City were just amazing. They were smart and funny and they knew that they were onto something that no one was seeing anywhere else in the country. And so you got energy from them, and that's why the material was so good. What you took away from that is, if you try to hide any version of yourself, you're not going to be good. And be as smart as you want to be. Don't play to the dumbest person in the audience. Play to the smartest person in the audience. That seems like a little rule, but at the time it was a sort of revolutionary thing.
Joe Flaherty
We went up [to Toronto] thinking, "Can we find anybody who can do this kind of work? We're doing really good comedy. And we're improvising. Not a lot of people can do that stuff." So we were wondering if we could scrape a cast together. I remember Joyce [Sloane] had booked this church in the area, and Del [Close], Bernie [Sahlins], and I went in to look at the assembled groups that came in to improvise. And in walked Eugene Levy, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, and Gilda Radner.
Dan Aykroyd
When Second City came to town, it was the place to go and audition. And everybody wanted to get in, because we knew it would be a lot of fun and it would provide the training that might lead to a professional career such as those who had gone before: Shelley Berman, Alan Arkin, Nichols and May. So we were all very passionate about it, and nervous. Valri [Bromfield] and I and John Candy auditioned on the same day. And at the time, John was selling Kleenex for Kimberly-Clark to make a living. He had a route.
Harold Ramis
Groucho Marx saw our show in Chicago, and it didn't go well. I idolized the Marx Brothers and was so disappointed in our performance that I didn't even go out into the house to meet him. I went into the bar to hide out, and after a few minutes, Flaherty came out to look for me. "Groucho wants to see you," he said. "Groucho asked for me specifically?" "Yes," Joe said. "What did he say?" "Groucho asked, 'Where's the guy with the wig and the false nose?' " I did go out to meet him then, and he was quite old and not very pleasant. He teased me about my hair and nose again, but I guess I was glad that he actually showed some interest in me, however unpleasant it was.
Tim Kazurinsky
George Wendt had been selling insurance for his father's company, Mary Gross had worked for the American Dental Association, Danny Breen was selling tickets at a racetrack, Bruce Jarchow was a city planner, and I was an ad man. We didn't have eight-by-tens when we walked in the door. It wasn't our goal to be on a sitcom. That came later.
Shelley Long
I found out that I could be funny professionally. I had been sort of a comedy geek as a kid at times. But I didn't even think about, "Would that translate on a professional level?" And I found that it did. At that time, being someone from the Second City meant something. I think it probably means more now. But it meant something, even back then. More than I realized. It's not like we were really performing for producers. We were performing for Chicago. We were still really very committed to doing things that our audience in Chicago would connect with.
Having briefly starred on the Wells Street mainstage in 1975, Wendt had been demoted to Second City's suburban outpost -- a cheesy resort called Chateau Louise -- for failing to meet satiric standards. He stayed there for a couple of years.
George Wendt
I sucked. I think it was the best thing that ever happened to me. They said I was playing it too safe, and they didn't actually want me to go away completely. They wanted me to go back in the touring company. Oh, God, I was crushed. I was crushed. And that's probably something that should happen to everybody. So it was my first huge bump in the road. And it really kind of made me sort of take stock in myself and my approach.
Jim Belushi
I wasn't the easiest guy to work with, being a middle child -- never getting enough. You do act one, act two, and then you do the improvs. They do it different now, but back then we'd ask for suggestions, go backstage for 20 minutes, try to get scenes, and they'd put them up on the board. And I would go, "I'm light! I'm light!" And the stage manager used to get so pissed at me. He'd go, "You're in one, two, three, four, five scenes! What do you mean, you're light?" I said, "I'm light!" He goes, "Belushi, you're light in life!" I'll never forget that, because no matter how much I got, I always felt like I was light. And Joyce [Sloane] filled that for me. And so did the theater. It was family.
Richard Kind
Whenever anybody says, "Oh, I saw you in Chicago," I go, "Oh, back when I was good?" I was smarter then, I was so well read. And I listened well. I would walk down the street and you had to pay attention to what people were saying, you know? It's something I don't do nowadays, especially in L.A. You let the world go by. At Second City, oh my God, I listened and I reacted and I wasn't self-centered. All I was worried about was the world.
Bonnie Hunt
I had been doing shows at Bob's Bar across from Wrigley Field at night and working at the hospital during the day. And I had been doing both for a very long time. My boss at the time said, "I think you need to let go." Because I was still too attached to my patients. When I was in the touring company, I was calling the hospital every day to say, "How's so-and-so doing?" [My boss] was like, "Bon, you've got to put both your feet in and try the other thing."
I think everybody there kind of knows when somebody's ready. They know the difference between somebody who's politicking and somebody who isn't. I was a cancer nurse during the day, so it wasn't like I was getting into the theater politics. I was just so thrilled to be a part of it and to get an opportunity to be there. And it definitely showed in my performance because I just loved it. It seemed almost as healing as my job during the day. I felt that ... connection with the audience. Like, "I know what you're going through. I know what it's like to get up every morning and go to work and wait for the bus in 70 degrees below zero with the windchill factor." That's what I was doing. There's such a strong connection at Second City between the audience and the actor, because the actor is still struggling. They know, "We're in this together."
Jeff Garlin
I look back at my time at Second City and it wasn't really that pleasant. But I learned everything I know. There would be no "Curb Your Enthusiasm" if it weren't for Second City. Because of Second City, I became a better comedian.
Stephen Colbert
I was very actorly, because I had gone to theater school. And I was very controlled. I was all about planning. And Paul [Dinello] was sort of a wild, chaotic, impulsive energy comedically. Much sillier, much stupider behavior. And I'm happy to say he won that battle. He said my tie was tied a little too tight, and he was absolutely right. And he opened me up to a little bit of a wilder side, and so did Amy [Sedaris]. And then the three of us became pretty inseparable, and I was very lucky and grateful to have those two people to love and be loved by, for the next few years, because it's not easy to be a lady-in-waiting there at Second City, while you're on the road all the time. You get to be on the road, which is great, but waiting for your work is an exhausting experience. Even waiting for a touring company. They keep you hungry.
A keen observer of mortal foibles and life's grotesqueries, Sedaris had a penchant for getting ugly. Playing it pretty, she decided early on, just wasn't her thing.
Amy Sedaris
I just don't find it interesting. I think there are enough girls out there who can do that, and look the part. I just didn't pay any attention to it. I don't remember wearing makeup onstage. I could do the different characters and wouldn't have to worry about that. I wanted a blank slate. You can just add one thing and you become that character, but if you've got cat-eye eyeliner on, then you're going to look like Sophia Loren in every scene.
Tina Fey
I had always felt that if a company is generating its own material, it was always preposterous to have this notion of "Well, if we have too many women, there won't be enough parts." I was very timid the first [rehearsal]. I didn't even really know how the process would work, and I remember [the director] would be trying to make coffee on the breaks, and I would go over to him and be like, [timid sounding] "Well, I think, maybe I had an idea we could do something." He'd be like, "Okay, tell it. In the rehearsal. Bring it up in rehearsal." And I'd be like, [timid voice] "OK." And then I'd go back into rehearsal and not say anything. But eventually I sort of found my way in that company.