Stephen Colbert in the Zeitgeist – Second City Anniversary Edition

Hey, Zoners! We’re already seeing reports from this weekend’s Second City anniversary festivities, and personally I can’t wait to hear more about this morning’s panel discussion. I’m also really looking forward to a review of tonight’s special alumni show. In the meantime, stories about Second City and its importance to the development of comedy on stage and screen have been showing up this week, so here’s a quick rundown of those, your Second City zeitgeist in honor of their 50th anniversary.

First up, the Chicago Tribune takes a close look at the work of Steve Carell, Tina Fey, and Stephen Colbert and their influence on television comedy. The article sees them as contributing toward a looser and more improvisational art form that nevertheless depends on material that has been finely honed. It’s a pretty detailed examination of how these three particular alumni use their Second City training to great success on TV.

• Colbert, Fey and Carell: Comedy’s power players – December 6, 2009

  On “The Colbert Report,” Colbert is performing, essentially, the longest-running sketch in TV history. Yet, his impersonation of a Bill O’Reilly-following boob of a TV presenter has, instead of fading in its fifth year on the air, only grown richer and deeper.

  To watch him try to hold character each night — to say the things “Stephen Colbert” would say while actually making the opposite satirical point — is one of the pure joys in contemporary television. Given the demands of the character, his interviews with authors are often extraordinary feats of improvisation. It’s a fearless performance, exactly the kind of thing you learn from getting up onstage and pretending to be a bus driver one moment, a lion in front of the Art Institute the next.

Metromix Chicago has an interview with Mick Napier, Second City director and improv teacher who is directing tonight’s alumni show. He has some interesting comments about how Second City has changed during his tenure and about alumni he’s worked with in the past, including some guy named Steve.

• Just for laughs: Local master of sketch comedy directs a Second City milestone – December 8, 2009

  Will you get star struck this weekend? I think so. It’s weird: Second City is asking me to come in and direct some of these guys in their scenes [for the anniversary shows]. Steve Colbert is a friend of mine. He was in the very first class I ever taught at Second City, but I haven’t seen him in about five years — since “The Colbert Report” — and I’m actually asking myself, ‘How am I going to be around Steve?’ and I don’t even know.

  Anyone else you’re especially excited — or nervous — about seeing? I’m certainly looking forward to seeing Amy Sedaris. She’s probably the funniest person I’ve ever met in my life. When I see Amy, I have to decide whether or not to go up and say ‘Hi’ to her because I will start crying in laughter in about 10 seconds after I say hello.

Both the L.A. Times and the Wall Street Journal have given nods to the legacy of Second City and the many talented performers who began their careers there. These articles have a lot of good background information, though they’re less focused on any one particular performer.

• Second City’s first rate legacy – L.A. Times, December 6, 2009

  But Second City has always insisted that it be viewed and treated as a theater (it has a contract with Actors’ Equity) as distinct from a comedy club. Although many people think that its shows are wholly improvised, they are actually shaped, honed and tightly scripted.

  “We use improv as a tool,” says co-founder Bernie Sahlins, “not a performance form. Material rises out of improvisation, but it has been written, tried out and tested before it goes into the show as a finished piece. The improvisation is basically public rehearsals.”

• Fifty Years of Second City – Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2009

  The Second City, which took its name from a series of derisive articles about Chicago by the New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling, has good reason to take a bow. It has changed the tone and shape of comedy on stage, in film and on television. “We’ve had an influence in every decade,” said Mr. Alexander. “It was particularly true in the ’70s with ‘Saturday Night Live’ and with Harold Ramis’s films, into the ’80s with Mike Myers, and there’s the new generation with Stephen Colbert and Tina Fey.”

So many great names in TV comedy came out of Second City, and as someone who grew up as a fan of the original Saturday Night Live cast, I’ve long appreciated how these talented people have been able to make me laugh. I’d practically sacrifice a limb to be at tonight’s alumni show, because I’m sure it’ll be an amazing experience. But since I can’t be there, I’ll look forward to reviews of the show, and hope that we hear about some particularly hilarious doings.

(h/t Jennie)