The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Before Better Call Saul. Before Breaking Bad. Before Mr. Show with Bob and David, and even before Saturday Night Live, Bob Odenkirk worked at The Second City in Chicago. While there, he performed and helped write Chris Farley’s iconic motivational speaker character, Matt Foley. And even 30 years later, Odenkirk still tells Conan …
Michael Clayton McCarthy achieved the comedy dream and proved you could do it going in the opposite direction. McCarthy (no relation) became a staff writer for Saturday Night Live at age 24 in 1983, followed that up with two years writing for Sesame Street, and then went to Chicago, where …
Red Crown Productions LLC announced it’s developing a biopic about Chicago improvising legends Del Close and Charna Halpern, Del & Charna. Kay Cannon will direct the film, off a script from Rich Talarico and Alex Fendrich. All three are alums from The Second City, and Cannon and Talarico both studied …
Looking for funding help to become a comedy filmmaker? The Harold Ramis Film School (“HRFS”) at The Second City today announced a partnership with NBC to create the Emerging Voices Scholarship that will awarded up to four students from diverse backgrounds to study in Chicago. Eligible candidates for the Emerging Voices …
David Shepherd, who co-founded the Compass Players in Chicago with Paul Sills in 1955, thereby giving birth to a revolution in improvisation and comedy which led to The Second City and much of everything we know and love today about sketch comedy in America, has died. Shepherd was 94. Born …
This year, The Second City has worked with Insight Productions on an upcoming documentary about the comedy theater’s legendary TV series, SCTV. Now they’ve agreed to collaborate further to develop original comedy programming. “The magic of Second City’s creative process has always been twofold. Not only do our writers and …
Jim O’Heir is an Emmy-winning actor and comedian best known for co-starring as Jerry Gergich on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. He’s a Chicago guy who trained at Second City in the 1980s, then thrived in an independent improv and sketch group called White Noise, which took him out to Hollywood. O’Heir enjoyed …
Danny Breen made his mark in front of the camera as a cast member for eight seasons on HBO’s sketch comedy series, Not Necessarily The News. But Breen also won multiple Emmys for his work behind the scenes on a producer for Ellen and The Wayne Brady Show. An alum of …
A roast of George Wendt at The Second City over the weekend brought with it some unexpected news about an upcoming movie on the late improv icon Del Close. Various sources reported that the financing for Del needs to be reconfigured, and executive producer and Second City owner Andrew Alexander …
Voice-over actor and improviser Tino Insana, who got his start in Chicago with a comedy trio with John Belushi, has died. Here is The Second City’s obituary for Insana: Tino Insana, improviser, actor, writer, award-winning voice-over artist, best remembered as Mr. Grouper in “Bubble Guppies,” for which he was nominated …
