Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Second to none: ‘The Second City’ chugs along at Flamingo Las Vegas

It never fails.

The cast of "The Second City" asks the audience for an emotion that can be used in an improvised skit at the Flamingo Las Vegas' Bugsy's Celebrity Theatre.

"Someone always yells out 'horny,'" said actor Kay Cannon a few minutes before going onstage, where her prediction would prove to be correct.

She also correctly predicted that Dr. Seuss would be one of the authors shouted out by a member of the audience for a second improvised skit.

While some things may be predictable, there are always plenty of surprises to catch fans off guard in the show that arrived in Las Vegas 17 months ago.

"We have blossomed," Supervising Producer Brooke Schoening said.

The troupe has become so popular it will have a home at the Flamingo for at least another year.

Kelly Leonard, The Second City's producer, said Wednesday from his Chicago office that a contract should be signed this week, extending the show for at least another year.

"We have come to a verbal agreement," Leonard said.

It shouldn't be surprising that the nation's premier improv theater company would find a home in the Entertainment Capital of the World, but the going was a little slow in the beginning.

Turns out, The Second City is better known in the East and Midwest than the West.

"We learned right off the bat that our name wasn't going to bring us very much luck in Vegas," Schoening said. "On the East Coast and in the Midwest, everybody knows The Second City -- but not so much out West. We are rebuilding our name here. It's like being back 43 years ago, when we first started."

But, she said, the show's producers felt Las Vegas was an untapped resource.

"Their thinking was a mixture of knowing there was nothing like it on the Strip, and the really enticing aspect of it being a crap shoot," Schoening said. "It could hit, or it could bomb."

The Second City began in Chicago in 1959, taking its name from a profile of the city that appeared in The New Yorker. It was an instant success and has been a proving ground for performers ever since.

The troupe's alumni reads like a VIP list of the Screen Actors Guild. Among the hundreds of future celebrities who would get their training improvising on a Chicago stage were Dan Aykroyd, Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, brothers John and Jim Belushi, Peter Boyle, John Candy, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Joan Rivers and Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara (parents of Ben Stiller).

Besides The Second City's five permanent theaters (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Toronoto and Las Vegas), it has five touring companies, a division providing improv entertainment for corporate functions, and several training centers for would-be actors and improv artists (including one in Las Vegas).

The local company replaced the popular musical "Forever Plaid," when "Plaid" producers declined to enter into a four-wall agreement with the Flamingo. Four-walling, in which a production company rents a theater, has become as common in Vegas as someone yelling out "horny" at an improv show.

When Second City arrived in Vegas, it did 12 shows a week (two each night), and had nine rotating cast members. Six were onstage for each performance.

After 9/11, the show was reduced to five cast members who performed eight shows per week. For some reason, the smaller casts brought in bigger business.

"All of a sudden, we began selling out," Schoening said. "We feared going into the summer doldrums, but we have consistently sold out performances all summer long."

Soon, the number of weekly performances will be increased to 10.

"We have built a home for ourselves here," Schoening said.

Still with it

Of the original cast from 17 months ago, Jason Sudeikis and Seamus McCarthy are the only ones still with the show.

Sudeikis says there are a lot of similarities among all Second City productions.

"We all try to maintain the elegant simplicity," he said. "There are not a lot of props or costumes. There is a lot of imagination. Those things are all similar.

"But how audiences respond varies everywhere, from Youngstown, Ohio, to Vienna, Austria."

The 26-year-old Sudeikis grew up in a suburb of Chicago. His parents often took him to see Second City when he was growing up. The performances inspired the career he began with ComedySportz, a Milwaukee-based theater company.

"ComedySportz is similar to the TV program 'Whose Line Is It Anyway,' " Sudeikis said. "It's all games, using lots of suggestions from the audience."

Second City performances are about 75-percent scripted, with the scripts taken from the archives of the original company. Actors perform a number of skits, ranging in length from quick black-outs to scenes lasting several minutes.

But it is the unpredictable, 25-percent segment of the show that has audiences on edge, waiting for the next outrageous moment, which may hit on any subject from incest to homosexuality to politics.

Proving themselves capable of coping with the unpredictable has led to film and television careers for many Second City actors.

"Working for The Second City is like playing football for a big-time school," Sudeikis said.

It automatically gets a first look from talent scouts and film producers and directors. Over the years, most of the cast members of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" have been recruited from The Second City.

"Based upon our alumni, we are a fertile recruiting ground," Sudeikis said.

Cannon's shot

Kay Cannon, 28, was working on a master's degree in theater when she decided to try her hand at improv.

"I took a class at The Second City, and it became contagious," Cannon said. "I saturated myself with the improv community."

She became a cast member with ComedySportz and the Improv Olympic company, but her ultimate goal was The Second City.

"You don't audition for a spot with the company," Cannon said. "You audition to be on a short list of candidates -- you audition for the hope that a spot will open up."

One opened for her in Las Vegas about a year ago. When she arrived, she found a lot of challenges.

"For one thing, there's no intermission," Cannon said. "We do a show that lasts an hour and 15 or 20 minutes without a break. It's very fast, very quick. And doing eight shows a week can be hard on the body."

Being an improv actor has a lot of challenges, no matter where the show is performed. You have to know a little bit about a wide variety of subjects, and be able to apply the knowledge at the right time in a funny context.

"And you must be focused. You have to be there, 100 percent."

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