Saturday Night Live’s Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Mike Myers and Chris Farley are Second City alumni. So are Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert. 30 Rock alone boasts Tina Fey, Scott Adsit, Rachel Dratch and Jack McBrayer. On the local front, Second City Las Vegas (the institution also maintains resident stages in Chicago, Toronto and Detroit) has launched SNL’s Jason Sudeikis, MAD TV’s Frank Caeti, The Daily Show’s Dan Bakkedahl and 30 Rock writer Kay Cannon. Yet even as SCLV enters its sixth season performing at the Flamingo, troupe members Shelly Gossman, Ryan Archibald, Paul Mattingly, Katie Neff and Craig Uhlir are still finding their place within the Strip’s entertainment landscape.
“We have very few props. There aren’t song-and-dance numbers, and there aren’t sets to tell me that I’m in Oklahoma. That’s a little bit of a challenge,” concedes Gossman. Adds director Jim Carlson, “Pictures of our alumni help them better understand, but I’d say a good 60, 75 percent of the audience doesn’t know what they’re walking into, what Second City is about.”
The group’s comedy is more interactive and less straightforward than the stand-up variety of Rita Rudner, Louie Anderson or fellow Flamingo performer George Wallace. Though the majority of the show consists of group-written sketches that evolve over an eight-week period, the troupe relishes the freedom unscripted moments provide. For every crafted scene concerning crazed helicopter pilots, the sexual plight of a vacationing couple, chronic office high-fiving, dysfunctional families and raps about Don Imus, there are opportunities for audience interaction and even challenging fellow actors.
“My job is to stay in character but also to make Ryan laugh, so every night I have to find something new,” Gossman says of a “Karaokinsens Disease” sketch, in which she plays the hysterical mother of a son who can only communicate through the lyrics of Lionel Richie and Neil Diamond.
For Carlson, who characterizes the current season as “dirtier but smarter, and also more human” than previous incarnations, the key to continued survival is simple: Never pander. “I find that an audience is going to rise to the level you set,” he muses. “Oftentimes they’re a lot smarter than the entertainment industry gives them credit for. Let’s assume that they’re smart. Let’s assume that they’re going to get it. Let’s assume they appreciate well-thought-out gags.”
The Second City players firmly believe that once curious ticket-buyers are in the door, they’ll be won over by enthusiasm and originality. Says Gossman, “It’s completely unique. It’s not taking something that was original and redoing it, or doing a show that was written by somebody else and choreographed by 20 different people. These are five young people who are writing about real life right now, with the help of a director. Everywhere you look there’s an advertisement to draw someone in; for something that they don’t recognize, that is kind of difficult. Being here six years is a feat in itself.”