Alumni return to honor Second City's 50th anniversary

Fifty years ago this month, Chicago got really funny.

The Second City comedy theater opened in a former Chinese laundry on Wells Street in December of 1959. Since then it has all but defined American humor and launched the careers of a staggering number of actors, writers and directors - among them Alan Arkin, Peter Boyle, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and Wheaton natives John and Jim Belushi.

This weekend, a healthy dose of alumni will return to Wells Street to participate in a three-day celebration of the theater's accomplishments.

"We couldn't be more excited," said Andrew Alexander, Second City's co-owner and chief executive officer, who's been involved with the company since 1974. "I think we're paying proper tribute to a comedy institution that's unlike anything else in the world."

Second City emerged from the ashes of the Compass Players, a comedy and theater group organized in the 1950s by some University of Chicago students (including Mike Nichols and Elaine May). The group challenged the comedy status quo by using satire and improvisation to lampoon American life and culture.

When the Compass Players folded, several of its alums helped build Second City, a new comedy group that took its name from a snotty article about Chicago in The New Yorker.

Sheldon Patinkin, a longtime Second City director and stage manager who recently retired as chair of the Theater Department at Columbia College Chicago, was part of that inaugural 1959 Second City ensemble.

"We started selling out almost immediately," Patinkin said. "We hit the ground running because the audience that Compass had built followed us to Second City."

Refining a format used by the Compass Players near the end of its run, Second City provided audiences with a mix of scripted sketches and improvised scenes based on audience suggestions. (Even the written material was based on cast improvisations, though.) Satire and parody were key components of the group's comedy.

The young theater's profile skyrocketed just a few months after opening when Time Magazine ran a big story on it, Patinkin said.

"In those days, for a magazine like Time to cover something in Chicago was all but unheard of, so it really got people interested," he said.

An infusion of young talent in the late 1960s, people like Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty, kept Second City vital, and in 1974 a Toronto location opened for business. That decade also saw the premieres of "Saturday Night Live" and "SCTV," groundbreaking sketch-comedy television shows that turned Second City performers such as John Belushi, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and Martin Short into household names.

"Those shows really helped put us on the national comedy map," said Alexander, who ran the Toronto location in the 1970s and was a producer on "SCTV." "I don't think you can overstate the impact they had."

Today, Second City alums like Fey, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert remain on the front lines of American comedy. The company operates improv training centers in Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles. Touring companies bring the Second City aesthetic to nearby suburban spots like the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights as well as comedy clubs, theaters and universities all over the world. And Second City continues to develop projects for television and film.

For Patinkin, who still works with Second City as an artistic consultant, the ultimate legacy of Second City is the roster of talented people who have performed there.

"Second City folks have influenced so many areas of our culture, from stand-up comedy to film to television to the theater," he said. "It's really amazing and a bit humbling to look back at all the talent that has passed through. I'm very grateful to have been a part of it."

Birthday highlights

Some of the brightest stars ever to pass through Second City will return to Chicago for a weekend of performances, panel discussions and screenings, all to celebrate the comedy institution's 50th birthday. The bigger events have long been sold out, but there might still be tickets available to a smaller panel or performance at the theater, 1616 N. Wells. Go to secondcity.com.

A few of the weekend's highlights appear below:

• "The SCTV Cast Reunion": A live performance starring Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Harold Ramis, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short and Dave Thomas; 7 and 10 p.m. Friday

• "The Colbert Report": A panel discussion with Stephen Colbert and writers/producers from his show; 10 a.m. Saturday

• "The Second City Alumni, One Night Only": Alums from every generation of Second City will gather on two stages and perform classic scenes from the archives; 7 p.m. Saturday

• "Second City, From Stage to Screen": Panel discussion featuring Jim Belushi, Betty Thomas, Jeff Garlin, Bob Odenkirk, Harold Ramis and Dan Castellaneta; 1 p.m. Sunday

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