Post Gazette: "In the world of live stage performance, improvised comedy is about as daring as it gets -- which makes The Second City something of a high-wire act with a death wish.
The Chicago-based company that celebrated 50 years of laughs last month is renowned for its progeny, including Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Stephen Colbert and thousands of others."
4 comments:
Second City has been very valuble to entertainment, just looking at Tina Fey alone. Her acheivements on SNL and 30 Rock have been quite impressive. I think it's wonderful that it continues to train people on the art of improv. A lot of television sitcoms is shifting to a sort of improv-based comedy, such as the office. It will be interesting to see if Second City continues to produce people who live up to this.
I watched an Interview with Tina Fey and she talked a lot about Second City's influence on her. It was really interesting to hear how formative this group is. Especially since I had never heard of them before this year. Its great that they are training actors to do improv well. I mean if you can get in front of an audience, and work off the other actors, and somehow pull a show together, then you can really do anything. I hope that second city continues to produce great actors with that keen understanding of comedy that we see in people like Tina Fey and Steven Colbert.
Now living in Chicago, I have gotten the chance to see Second City perform several times, and they never fail to present a fantastic show. This 50th Anniversary tour, though, has me somewhat nervous. Part of what makes SC sketches work is the timeliness of the material they're spoofing. Even if a sketch is not directly commenting on a current event (or even an entire city, like an auxiliary company that showed "How I Lost My Denverginity"), many jokes depend on implications of current events or situations that are going on in the world. The sketches pulled from the 50s and 60s have to be some of the blandest stuff they have in that show, because without the societal knowledge of the original audiences, some jokes just cannot land the same as they first did without it being such a universal situation. Again, a need-to-see-to-find-out show.
Improvisational comedy is one of the most impressive forms of performance. I've seen a couple of Second City shows, and I'm always astounded by what the performers are able to come up with so quickly. Second City as an organization is so important, as it serves as such a great experience and, in a way, a training program for actors.
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