The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Noah Gregoropoulos, a celebrated teacher of improv comedians from Chicago, has died from cancer. He was 63. A graduate of Northwestern University, Gregoropoulous taught comedians and comedic actors at improvOlympic (iO) since the early 1990s, and fully took over when Del Close died in 1999. Which meant he helped shape …
Niccole Thurman is an actress, writer, and the co-host of the podcast, The Scroll Down with Marcella Arguello. Originally from Kansas, Thurman studied acting at the University of Kansas before finding her place in comedy through The Second City in Chicago. She served as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The …
Christina Anthony is an East St. Louis native who came up through the Chicago comedy scene. Anthony joined The Second City, where she performed with e.t.c. and the touring company, and co-wrote three award-nominated sketch revues for the legendary comedy institution. But she almost never got the recognition she deserved …
As first reported by Financial Times, The Second City could have a new owner as soon as next week. FT cites multiple sources claiming the Chicago comedy institution has a potential buyer in the works: ZMC, a private equity firm run by Strauss Zelnick, the 63-year-old CEO of Take-Two Interactive, …
We’re getting our first wave of winners from the new scholarship program that Saturday Night Live has introduced in partnership with four of the biggest improv/sketch programs across America. The Second City last week announced its first four scholars, having had to pick from upward of 1,300 applicants. They are …
In the build-up to season 46 of Saturday Night Live, NBC announced that the sketch-comedy TV institution would be partnering with select comedy theaters and schools across the country to offer scholarships. Now we’re starting to see how that’ll look, and it looks like each of the four institutions involved …
The Second City, the venerable comedy institution with branches in Chicago, Toronto and elsewhere, is up for sale for only the second time in its 61-year history. Yes, and? Variety broke the news today. “While all our lives have been affected by the pandemic, The Second City has found green …
So far this month, the longtime CEO of The Second City has announced his resignation and asked the legendary Chicago theater to name a replacement from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) community, while the four co-founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade theaters in New York City and …
How’s this for a Friday night surprise? After announcing on Thursday that it would end a partnership with the Chicago Mayor’s Office in light of Black Lives Matter, The Second City announced tonight that its CEO, Andrew Alexander, was resigning. Several black comedians who had worked with and for The …
When I sat down with Fred Willard in February 2020 inside his home in Southern California, he was noticeably weak — I held his microphone for him throughout our conversation — but his mind and his sense of humor was quite intact, and he was still working. In fact, Fred …
