Getting Better with Age - the Second City at 50

by Stef Piermattei

second-city1 Countless film, TV and stage actors who are, without a doubt, the funniest people in show business have roots in the Second City. This mecca for making people giggle was founded in 1959 in Chicago. Offering a variety of ways to be entertained, or to learn to become more entertaining yourself, the live comedic shows are highly acclaimed and the classes held in the famous training center teach adults new ways to have fun.

It was only fitting for The Second City to celebrate its golden anniversary with a showcase of A-list comedic alumni performing for hoards of fans, over two hundred deep-dish pizzas and a cake. Not just any grocery store cake either: a multi-tiered confectionary masterpiece that warranted a replica to be placed in the lobby near the ticket booth.

Michigan Movie Magazine got a chance to sit down with Kelly Leonard, The Second City’s Executive Vice President, known for putting together smashing shows and sharing them with as many audiences nationwide as possible, to brush the surface on how this theater from humble beginnings has shot to stardom all while turning up the volume on laughter.

MMM - How do you even begin to plan a 50th birthday party for The Second City?

Leonard - We quite foolishly decided to have everyone over. We had three hundred alumni back for a weekend party and did a four-hour showcase that featured the best scenes from the last 50 years. For most of these people, their formative years were spent at The Second City. This was their graduate school, and everyone was on equal footing. Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell stepped onstage to do the scene “Maya” and it was magic. Everywhere you turned, there was an icon. They were so happy to be home and I’m glad we did it here.

MMM - Second City had grassroots beginnings. What would you say has been the biggest change and what has stayed the same?

Leonard - The model that we began with is exactly the same. We create the shows through improvisation and the shows themselves are a series of sketches, some related, most of them not. The biggest change in terms of the actual content is length. These scenes used to be seventeen minutes long. They were one-act theater pieces that would not work today. The biggest change we have to deal with now that they didn’t have to deal with in 1959, is success. For the work to be valid, it needs to be anti-authority, needs to risk failure, and needs to be potentially non-commercial at times. All of that is dangerous. If you’re trying you normally wouldn’t embrace those things, but that’s what makes us successful.

MMM - Production tax incentives and digital technology are making it easier. How do you see the entertainment industry changing, especially in the Midwest?

Leonard - Many of the talent agents have people whose job is to go online and look at talent. I don’t think digital technology is going to change anything essential because it’s not that much different from putting an audition on tape. It’s going to be just as difficult because of the amount of people out there. At Second City, we’re very lucky with our form, because we’re building talent. Our instructors have their eyes on people at a very early stage saying “watch out for so and so,” so we’ve built our own weeding out system. The coasts know they’re going to see quality at Second City. We’re doing that job for them. The interesting opportunity from the digital sphere is a lot of what gets noticed is short form content and we’re experts in shortform content.

MMM - There’s a wonderful vibe whenever you see a Second City show or even just walk by the building. It feels like it’s always going to be here. How do you think it’s blossomed into the icon for Chicago entertainment?

Leonard - We were the first storefront theater in Chicago; the concept didn’t exist before. Theater in 1959 was mostly touring shows. The idea that you could build this in a neighborhood was completely unique. Tourists or locals with parents or friends in town all want to show off Chicago. They take people to Wrigley Field, come to Second City, go to the Sears Tower, and eat some deep dish. We’ve become one of the landmarks. You want to get the feel of the place and get an insider’s glimpse and that’s what you get at Second City. We talk about what’s going on around the city. We speak with a Chicago accent. There are national topics we work on as well. It’s inexpensive so access is there. You can wear jeans. You can drink. We make it easy. A lot of theater makes it hard. You don’t know how to dress; you pay sixty-five or seventy bucks for a ticket. You can’t have fun. We want you to come here and have fun.

MMM - The larger than life success stories of Second City alumni are too long to list. How do you balance that shadow with the day-to-day process of developing new and young talent?

Leonard - The ones who have their eyes on Saturday Night Live are the ones who aren’t going to get promoted. The vast majority of alumni that have been successful here were always very much in the moment. Tina Fey, Adam McKay, Stephen Colbert; they all really focused on their work as artists. They were here to study. They enjoyed what they were doing and that’s where their heads were. In the training center, when you start taking classes, you might have the idea that you’re coming here to learn to be funny, but then you realize that you’re learning to be more human. We are putting you in touch with yourself and that’s what’s funny: the recreation of very human behavior. It’s preparing people for life. Many people take these classes to accent the life they’re living not to get on the stage. They are getting eye-toeye contact unburdened by a work or dating atmosphere, with people they don’t know at all. It’s great to have a place that you can come once a week and explore what it is to simply be. There are precious few places for people to do that.

MMM - When you first got involved were available and how many are available now?

Leonard - There used to one hundred and thirty students, now there are about two thousand. There are eighty-five faculty and I can’t even count the classes. We have everything from movement classes to acting to voice classes. There’s a wide variety, but the improvisation program is the cornerstone that has over seven hundred students. It’s a massive enterprise and it’s only getting bigger. When the economy took a dive, class enrollment went up.

MMM - What advice do you have for talented people who have not yet found their platform?

Leonard - You have to make your own platform. In Chicago, you can’t swing a cat without hitting an improv troupe and that’s good because you don’t get better making funny videos in your bedroom. You get better by finding people who are more talented than you and performing with them. The great story of the Midwest is that we’re a great place for theater, so get onstage. Perform in front of people. That’s how you find out what is funny. You’re not going to find out what is funny when you and your buddies are making funny faces at each other. Not to say that you don’t experiment in that field, but you have to grow chops. Take classes and make your stage. Be inventive. A lot of people sit around bemoaning their opportunity when they could be using that time to make their opportunity. That’s how Second City started; a bunch of people just jumped in together, and look where we are 50 years later. If these guys did it, there’s no reason why anyone else couldn’t do it. The kind of opportunity people have now in terms of marketing yourself online and the way box offices could work didn’t even exist when Second City was founded. I think it’s vital to recognize that the vast majority of people who are successful worked very hard and decided to invent. Don’t do what other people did, find your own voice and use that voice.