The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Jake Thomas, nephew of SCTV star Dave Thomas, sustained a massive spinal cord injury this January that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. To help not only Jake and his family, but also help fund research and other patients at Spinal Cord Injury Ontario, Dave Thomas has organized …
Ask any stand-up comedian today who the best stand-up of all time is or was, and they’ll likely tell you Richard Pryor, George Carlin, or want to make cases for both equally as the top of the tops. Ask any Jewish comedian from the Baby Boomers through Generation X that …
The Second City has announced the 2017 recipients of the 4th Annual Bob Curry Fellowship: Terrance Carey, Dan Bazaldua, Eunji Kim, Sophia Rafiqi, LeLe Mason, Rolando Lep, Rob Wilson, Adrienne Brown, Damon Royster, Evan Mills, Atra Asdou, Jayson Acevedo, Riley Mondragon, Squeek Rangel, Brian Keys and Stephanie Branco. Named for …
In an ironic twist, The Second City and its leaders are producing a biopic about the legendary late improv comedy guru, Del Close, who famously had a falling out with Second City over the direction and importance of improv, and bolted to join Charna Halpern in launching improvOlympic. Mike Myers …
Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien and Kathryn Renée Thomas met in various Chicago improvisational theaters, and with a shared name and a dream between them, formed The Katydids. They’ve sold a sitcom to NBC and a feature film screenplay, but none of that might have …
We’ve all heard and seen the reports coming in from theaters and comedy clubs across the country this past year. Donald Trump’s divide-and-conquer presidential campaign, which currently has us in America facing a distinctly unique constitutional crisis, has influenced not just the behavior of Americans in public settings related to …
In case you missed it due to a Halloween party or the World Series or college football, there was a major comedy event on TV this past weekend, too. PBS broadcast the 19th annual ceremony awarding the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, this year of 2016 to …
The Second City’s actors have left a long legacy of comedic brilliance on the big screen, and now, in 2016, the Chicago-based theater company and training ground has launched what it’s billing as “the world’s first film school focusing on comedic content,” the Harold Ramis Film School. Ramis not only …
This week found Stephen Colbert welcoming a star and the director of the upcoming dark comedy about Wall Street’s 2008 collapse, The Big Short. But Colbert really wanted to look further back in time and comedy history to the years he spent with Steve Carell and Adam McKay in Chicago. …
Ali Farahnakian is living the American comedy dream. Born in Iran and raised in North Carolina, Ali moved to Chicago after college and fell right in with The Second City, improv Olympic and the teachings of Del Close and Charna Halpern. Saying “Yes, And” to life led him to becoming …
