Second City, Chicago

In Chicago, meetings are over. I'm leaving tomorrow. Wait to do tonight? It's around 730pm. I ask Sam, he looks something up, finds an interesting trombone, sax, bass, drums quartet. Sounds good? Yeah, i really like the idea, i like the idea of a trombone inspiration.

No! What am i thinking! I have a list of things to do when i'm in Chicago. And the least reads:

• Improv Olympics
• Second City

After a brief internet research, i decide for Second City, even though the price is much higher. So we cab it there. The show has started already: a night of sketches. They seem initially set up, then improved. Then some obvious improvisations on clues from the audience…

The cast is great: 6 actors Tim Baltz, Edgar Blackmon, Holly Laurent, Katie Rich, Mary Sohn and Steve Altien. I enjoy very much the performance of Steve (great acting, and great improv ideas) and Edgar. There is also a guest appearance of Jason Sudeikis, whose improvisation ideas are impressive, however his acting skills a tad less.

I have seen some improvisation shows in Italy and surely this team is very well trained. However, i was not impressed by how the audience clues were incorporated in the actual improvisation: sometimes they were not completely and all the times they were only used as starting point. I really like improvisation performances which end with the clue, or start and end with it, because it give the audience the impression that the actors are really on it: by the end of the sketch, the audience most likely forgot all about the clue, and then BAM! there it is, giving the entire sketch a whole new meaning. So from this perspective i am a little disappointed with tonight's show.

The food is fun, the crowd is mostly under 30, very interesting. I purchase a way-overpriced T-shirt for Mauro, the buddy who suggested i added Second City to the Chicago todo list.

Overall, i am very pleased to have gone and know this place!

duckone version: 1.1.4