Live from Chicago, it’s drop-in improv at Second City.
For two hours on Sundays and Wednesdays, the legendary ha-ha house invites all levels of comics and cutups to learn the art of improv. The $15 sessions are held in Second City’s complex of performance spaces, lounge areas and classrooms in the Old Town neighborhood. Our unadorned mime-box of a room sat one floor above the new UP Comedy Club, which opened in January and complements the two main stages. Heat rises; hopefully humor does as well.
“It’s about opening yourself up to what’s funny,” said Jessica Mitolo, our instructor and a director with the troupe, “and all the ways in which life is already funny and weird.” Such as pretending that you’re a ruthless samurai warrior in ballet flats.
Second City introduced the classes in 2005 to give students enrolled in its Training Center, the company’s educational arm, additional practice time. The classes soon drew a wider circle of clowns. Our Easter Sunday class of 10, for instance, included both a latent stand-up comedian and a quasi-sociologist who wanted to “see people’s level of cooperation” and “take the temperature of Chicago.” I didn’t know the city had a fever. Ba-da-bum.
“I need to find myself and get up my self-esteem,” said Darius Strickland, the performer making his comeback. “I’m walking away with confirmation that this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Jessica, a hummingbird in a flouncy skirt, had the same effect as a bottle of tequila: With her encouragement, I easily shed my inhibitions and watched my confidence grow, even in the silliest of circumstances. She started the class with a simple exercise, the ABCs. In pairs, we recited the alphabet with our bodies, building the letters with our arms, legs, heads and backs. Hunched over as one-half of an O, I felt as if I were practicing “Sesame Street” yoga, with Abby Cadabby as the master guru.
Jessica stepped up the challenge by regrouping us into quartets, thereby doubling the body parts and the chaos. As I played the role of the crossbarin the F, I imagined assembling a Dream Team of Alphabetizers from Second City’s alumni ranks: Fred Willard, Tina Fey, Dan Aykroyd and, for the bulge in the D, John Candy. (For a list of graduates, from the first class of 1959 to the present, peruse the names and photos that adorn the box office and the lobby.)
Improv weaves together myriad performing arts techniques and crafts, such as acting, physical agility, storytelling and memorization. Each exercise honed a set of skills that would prepare us for the big bang: an improvised skit based on wit, not a script.
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