October 20, 2011
If you want to see how the stars of The Office, 30 Rock and The Colbert Report got their start, Saturday’s performance by The Second City is your chance. The Second City is an improv group with companies in Chicago and Toronto, as well as several national touring companies. In addition to their performances, The Second City also trains future comedians and actors in the art of sketch theater, many of whom, including John Belushi, Steve Carell and Tina Fey, among others, have gone on to serve as regular cast members on Saturday Night Live.
The theater opened in 1959 in Chicago, beginning as a small cabaret theater known for unconventional comedy. The group’s improv sketches are largely based on the theater games created by Viola Spolin, who developed activities for actors to learn how to improvise onstage. The actors are encouraged to approach improv theater the way they would approach any situation in real life.
If you are not familiar with the group itself, perhaps you will recognize one of its most famous online series, “Sassy Gay Friend.” Created by The Second City cast member Brian Gallivan, the series features Gallivan’s Sassy Gay Friend, every girl’s dream gay best friend, who gives sage advice to some of literature’s most famous heroines, from Juliet to Ophelia, as well as some of the more notable men in literature, including Henry VIII.
Another popular online series created by Second City cast member Danielle Uhlarik is “Advice from a Cartoon Princess,” in which Disney princesses including Snow White, Belle and the Little Mermaid give satirical advice to young girls. The videos are a hilarious perversion of the Disney tales, turning those classics on their heads. In the words of Sassy Gay Friend, if you aren’t at this performance by The Second City on Saturday, October 22 at 8 p.m. in the Barn, “What, what, what are you doing?!”