Theater
The Second City
Improv comedy theater whose self-mocking name began as a magazine writer's insult.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to The Second City in Chicago follows how a scathing 1952 New Yorker essay mocking the city as a second-rate has-been gave three young performers, Paul Sills, Bernie Sahlins, and Howard Alk, the name for the improv theater they opened in Old Town in December 1959. It traces the theater's early years, including cast member Alan Arkin's leap to Broadway within two years and a young Joan Rivers sharpening her wit on this stage in the mid-1960s. The troupe's earlier outfit, the Compass Players, had just folded when the three men picked the new name.
This audio guide was created using AI.