Sam Richardson/Photo: John McCloskey

The opening gag in Second City’s 98th mainstage revue dares audiences to break the fourth wall, and it involves not a single cast member in sight.

It is a radical moment (best experienced firsthand) for such a mainstream, name-brand comedy theater.  At Second City, audiences have been conditioned to assume nothing too uncomfortable will be asked of them, but suddenly that usual sit-back-and-relax ethos becomes sit-up-and-take-notice.

I don’t want to oversell what is really just a brief moment in the show, but it does upend the Second City formula just enough to suggest that “Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies” might be headed in some intriguing and unpredictable directions. That the show is in fact as traditional as any of its predecessors probably isn’t that surprising.

I find it’s best to assess Second City on its own terms—the comedy is of a certain type and style—and director Matt Hovde and his cast have brought strong concepts to the stage. The execution is another matter. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Flanigan, Tim Baltz, Beth Melewski, Brendan Jennings, Christina Anthony, Mary Sohn

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If there is one reason to see Second City’s thirty-fourth revue on the e.t.c. stage, his name is Brendan Jennings, one of the newer writer-performers in the cast who makes his presence known with a good-natured mania that is impossible to ignore.

Of the many talents who’ve worked on Second City’s stages in recent years, Jennings seems the most suited for “Saturday Night Live.” Whether that’s in his future is another matter, but Jennings has a lot of qualities that work well on TV. There’s an inherent sweetness to his comedy and, like Will Ferrell, he has enough personal charisma to play it broad—almost too broad—and still keep it interesting.

He doesn’t display much versatility, but he has the loose physicality of a frat-boy party animal, and a real knack for the comedy of humiliation. I will not soon forget his primal scream of rage as he stood dressed in a pair of Daisy Dukes hiked up his butt crack, wailing about his miserable life. Jennings screams like a girl, a trait that is both hilarious and a clever bit of comedy; you are always on his side, no matter how ridiculous and ass-cheek-exposing that side may be. Read the rest of this entry »

Mick Napier has directed plenty of shows at Annoyance Theatre, none of which however, have been sketch comedy. This is the same Napier who founded Annoyance Theatre, directed more than fifteen sketch revues at Second City, directed David Sedaris’ “One Woman Shoe” and directed “Exit 57” for Comedy Central. This is why his mates at Annoyance are so excited that Napier is premiering his newest sketch show, “The Swear Jar,” at his home base, so to speak. “It’s very dirty,” half-laughs managing director Tyler Wolff-Ormes. “And he’s definitely taking advantage of the no-holds-barred attitude of Annoyance.” With musical direction by Lisa McQueen and  a cast featuring Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Angela Dawe, Colleen Murray, Andrew Peyton, Conner O’ Malley, Brian Wilson and Chris Witaske, Wolff-Ormes expects great things. “I’m really excited about the cast,” he says. “It’s a powerhouse cast.” The show, $15, opens March 27 and runs through May 1. (Peter Cavanaugh)

Mark Sutton/Photo: Bob Knuth

How do you make a satire about a satire?  That meta question goes unanswered—disappointingly so—in Second City’s new show “Rush Limbaugh! The Musical!”  There is so much lacking here, it’s hard to know where to begin.

Say what you will about the man, Limbaugh’s entertainment instincts are impeccable; he knows how to put on a show. Personally, I would have loved to see Second City parse what it is exactly that makes Limbaugh tick as a pop-cultural entity. Creators Ed Furman and T.J. Shanoff (with director Matt Hovde) choose a different track, portraying Limbaugh as a cigar-puffing, money-obsessed boob—which would be fine if it weren’t so predictable.

Let’s back up a moment.  Just about everything Limbaugh says or does has the whiff of satire and farce to it, and it’s never entirely clear how much is carnival barking and how much is true-blue sentiment. But to simply paint the guy as egotistical, racist, venal, sexist and hypocritical, well that’s as reductive as it gets. These are all the usual beefs against the guy, and it’s the obvious route. How do you puncture Limbaugh’s persona—and his wildly successful history of bloviation-as-political-discourse—in a new way?  Frankly I don’t have the answer, but I’m not the one creating a show, either. Read the rest of this entry »

Andy St. Clair, Brad Morris/Photo: Bob Knuth

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If the comedy revues at Second City hew to a familiar pattern, it’s for a purpose. I don’t always agree with that purpose, but the theater just reached its fiftieth anniversary, so something’s working.  The company’s latest mainstage show may not be its strongest, but it is worth seeing for two reasons: Brad Morris and Andy St. Clair.

“Taming of the Flu” feels especially traditional in its Second Cityness. (Longtime director Mick Napier is at the helm.) This isn’t humor that comes from uncomfortable introspection. The material and its execution is standard stuff. Ultimately it’s up to the cast to differentiate their show from years past and, on that score, Morris and St. Clair do most of the heavy lifting.

I barely noticed Morris three years ago when he joined the mainstage. It can take a little while for performers to figure out where they fit in, and Morris sorted things out by the time he hit the stage in 2008’s “No Country for Old White Men.” Read the rest of this entry »

The"Bye Bye Liver" cast, left to right: Lindsey Fisher, Sherra Lasley, Joshua Dunkin, Mike Ehmann, Jeff Strickland (not pictured: Mike Barton)/Photo: Jason Robinette

Pub Theater Company moves to a new space with a beer garden just in time to open a third year of “Bye Bye Liver: the Chicago Drinking Play” on July 24th.  At the new Pub Theater at Fizz, 3320 N. Lincoln, company president Byron Hatfield promises, “You will have a very funny time and cheap drinks.”  The company’s formula is pretty basic, Hatfield says, if you give people laughs and liquor, “You pretty much can’t fail.”

After two successful runs of Bye Bye Liver, Pub Theater began attracting crowds that were too big for its space at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, and started looking for its own space in Lakeview, where many of the company members and audience members lived. Read the rest of this entry »

The Second City just launched its Neighborhood Tour this month, designed to be an entertaining—and educational—walk through Old Town. Second City originally considered doing an all-Chicago tour, but “we talked about Old Town for an hour and a half. There are so many landmarks and so much history just in Old Town alone,” says Managing Director Jenna Altobelli. The Tour was written by Margaret Hicks, who is also the primary guide. Altobelli says a similar tour had been done before, but time restraints had prevented a revival. “Margaret Hicks came in last year and wanted to bring it back,” she says. “It’s her persistence that made it happen. We’re coming up on our fiftieth anniversary and we’re trying to do some auxiliary things to celebrate our time in this neighborhood and in Chicago.” The tour highlights local bars, homes, churches and architecture, including St. Michael’s Church, Old Town Ale House and Pipers Alley, as well as Second City facilities. While rooted in history, the tour is designed for humor. “It’s based in fact, but there’s also improvisation in there, and it’s funny,” Altobelli says. “It’s not for the major history buff, but it’s for somebody who wants to learn some stuff and have a lot of fun.” The tours run Wednesdays and Sundays through October 4.

Amanda Blake Davis, Beth Melewski, Andy St. Clair, Christina Anthony, Timothy Edward Mason and Tom Flanigan/Photo: Bob Knuth

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Second City revues rarely diverge from format.  The rhythms are bright and confident, and comedic actors with darker, more unusual inclinations typically have a steeper learning curve adjusting to the form while retaining some bite.

For audiences, the setup provides a baseline consistency.  It has also served many a Second City alumus very, very well—banging out the same show every night, they leave here with TV-ready experience and polish.

Ultimately, the quality of any revue is contingent on how well its writer-performers mesh—their comedic philosophy, their personalities—and the cast occupying the Second City’s e.t.c. stage is among the best in recent years.  The same cannot be said of their current show, directed by Matt Hovde. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chicago Improv Festival’s “Storybox” is a new kind of improv—the kind where each actor is both a storyteller and a role-player in a play which they spontaneously create themselves, along with seven other people who each have their own ideas about how the story should go. In a Mad-Lib type effort, eight people cooperate to tell a different story every performance—a story in which none of them have complete creative control, and where none knows for certain what will happen next. Together, they work—as a team—to produce a coherent, compelling narrative. It’s as if a person were trying to tell a story off-the-cuff at a campfire, and had a large group of friends to help them out. Unlike other improvisational shows, the focus here is not only on getting laughs, but is more about taking the audience on an emotional journey through the often serious dilemmas in the lives of characters portrayed. Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Bradecich, Lori McClain, Lauren Dowden, Sam Richardson and Joey Bland (photo by Bob Knuth)

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So last week Rod Blagojevich went on the radio and slammed Illinois legislators as a bunch of losers and lechers, sparking this hilarious headline on Chicagoist.com: “Bitter Blagojevich Drinks Springfield Haterade.”

The timing was perfect—coming just one day after Second City opened “Rod Blagojevich Superstar.” Seriously, does Blago have a financial interest in the show? He’s doing one hell of a job marketing this ode to his idiocy. Because yes, he’s a lowlife egomaniac and the human equivalent of the herpes virus. And yet his continued delusions and obsessive media whoring, it’s kind of golden, no?

National late-nighters hit paydirt with the guy—the coif is a punch line all its own; big ups to “Daily Show” for “Scumdog Million-Hairs”—but Second City’s “Rod Blagojevich Superstar” is the first major flaying of the ousted governor by (and for) the people who actually voted him into office.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, but comedy is best served fast and reckless, and director Matt Hovde understands this in a big way. Jokes about political backroom bullshit fly faster than Blago’s thicket of bangs on a gust of lakefront wind, and somehow it all feels right.

As portrayed by Joey Bland in a black turtleneck and super-deluxe luxuriant wig, Blagojevich is a blissed-out douchebag ignoramus convinced of his own messianic powers. (Actually, Bland looks a little like Sean Hannity under all that hair, and I would argue that, despite their opposing political leanings, they actually have more in common than you’d think.)

In this skewering of all things Rod (and a few things Burris), “Jesus Christ Superstar” was an inspired choice to parody. When Lori McClain’s ball-busting Patti Blagojevich belts out, “I don’t know how to fucking love him,” it’s like some kind of musical theater karmic justice is being handed down on a silver platter. McClain’s performance really got me—the look on her face suggests Patti is a gal who sees life as one long bar fight. Oh Patti. (Nina Metz)

At Second City e.t.c. in Piper’s Alley,1608 N. Wells, (312)337-3992 or secondcity.com. Tues-Wed 8:30p. $14. Through March 18. After that, it moves to Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 East Grand, (312)595-5600, through September 6.