By Robert K. Elder / Photography by Jeremy Lawson
“Yeah, Jesus is OK, but we’re waiting for something better.” Pause. “I can’t believe I’m going to say that in front of my parents.”
A nervous comedienne-in-training says this with a laugh as she paces back and forth behind the Second City e.t.c. stage, mingling with fellow students. Tonight is a final exam of sorts in the Comedy Studies program at the Second City, an ongoing partnership between Columbia College Chicago and the iconic laugh factory.
Crowded behind the stage, among discarded props and a pair of giant Barack Obama and John McCain puppets, these Comedy Studies students warm up their voices, try to calm their nerves, and ponder their fate. Over the past 15 weeks they’ve been honing their skills and mastering techniques that—let’s face it—would get them kicked out of most venerable educational institutions. It’s as if the nation’s class clowns got together and expected their parents not only to encourage their behavior (and perhaps condone a lifelong history of stern notes from exasperated teachers) but also to applaud proudly while they sang dirty songs. In four-part harmony.
But comedy is serious business. After all, this is the “Juilliard of comedy,” the institution that spawned a sprawling Mount Rushmore of comedy, including Bill Murray, Tina Fey, John Belushi, Amy Poehler and many, many others.
So there is tension. The students confront it head-on with a song, rehearsed just now by one of the groups. They sing:
Our parents are supportive
And glad we took these classes
But if we use them in a sketch
They’re gonna kick our asses.
Can you teach someone to be funny?
It depends who you ask.
“You can’t,” says Anne Libera, head of Comedy Studies for Columbia College. “You can teach someone about being funny. You can help them discover the voice they do have and give them the tools to deepen that and grow that.”
“I think you can,” says acting major Annie Castellano, 21. “You have to let your inner intellectual go. You have to let that adult die a little bit and bring back the five-year-old you. You gotta be goofy. You gotta let yourself go there.”
Sheldon Patinkin, 73, who stepped down this summer after 29 years as chair of Columbia’s Theater department, pioneered the Comedy Studies program with Libera. He is a bit more philosophical. “You can give them the confidence to know that they can be funny, but it really depends on how you define funny. Lots of people can tell jokes. That’s not what we’re looking for. For us, honest behavior, honest reaction to what you are receiving from the others, is what’s likely to be most funny—and that you can teach.”
Course work looks like this: Each class comprises 10 to 16 people who work as an ensemble for a full term, four days a week, not counting rolling rehearsals and writing sessions. Only two books are required, and the rest of the time is spent out in the city, seeing theater, comedy, and other types of performances. Though the Second City Training Center opened in 1985, its Comedy Studies program welcomed its first Columbia cohort in the spring of 2007.
The academic marriage of Second City and Columbia made sense, Patinkin says, because “Columbia’s Theater department functions around the concept that theater is an ensemble art, as is improv. Improv is required of all of our directing and acting majors, usually in their second year. And it has always been part of how we train people. So the fit was just obvious.”
Columbia juniors and seniors mix with other students from around the country, all vying for the spotlight in what’s been called their semester abroad on Wells Street (home of the Second City theaters).
The chemistry of comedy
Initially, incoming students fear intensive competition, says Libera, who also serves as the executive artistic director for Second City’s Training Center. But “it’s not at all what happens,” she says. “People challenge one another, they push one another.”
The program focuses on ensemble work and the improv dictate to always make your partner look good. That’s not to say, however, there isn’t intensity and competition.
Back at the e.t.c. stage, just before the group’s final showcase, Gary Richardson, 19, of St. Louis, reflects on the experience while his classmates warm up.
“In these last 15 weeks, I’ve gotten less sleep than at any time in my entire life. And I’ve been happy about it. This is the best thing that I could have ever done.”
The training center can be two parts immersion education and one part summer camp—with all the panty-raid and truth-or-dare traditions well intact. But it’s part of the bonding, the chemistry of the group experience. “Somewhere in the middle we were all supergood friends. Then at the end we all hated one another. Now we’re back to being supergood friends,” Richardson says. “So there are highs and lows. It’s pretty much like camp.”
Then, of course, there’s the sexual tension. Comedy school has not been a hook-up-palooza, however. “I don’t think anybody is dating yet, but as soon as the semester is over, people will start,” Richardson predicts. Here, his comedy training kicks in. “There’s an orgy scheduled for the 14th. We can finally have sex with one another without it being weird—’cause I don’t have to see you every day.”
Then, of course, there’s the one guy who can’t make it, and you have to send him Polaroids.
“That’s the worst,” Richardson says. “In fact, I think I might be that guy. But I’m going to make it.”
What if your grandma dies? What about the funeral?
“My grandma would want me to be there.”
Exam in the spotlight
For now, all of the focus is on the showcase. Most of the students are prepared, though for some the wardrobe requirements were met at the last minute. Second City’s dress code requires that people be funny, not look funny, so women wear colorful tops and black pants. For men, the uniform could be called “accountant casual,” with ties, blazers, and white shirts.
The dress code makes bespectacled film major Michael Klasek, 21, look like the love child of Drew Carey and Dilbert. But up until 35 minutes ago, he didn’t even own a white shirt. He came straight from a thrift store, where he hurriedly picked out a shirt—only to discover it had small blood stains around the collar. “I thought it was ink!” he says in mock panic. “Someone could have been killed in this shirt!” Then he calms and says, “I’m not going to lie to you. I killed someone for this shirt.”
All of the last-minute joking is an attempt to mask his nervousness. His mom is out in the audience. “What if I bomb in front of my mom? What if I say something and she just mouths, ‘Oh my God’?” But he needn’t worry. In short order, the lights go up, and the young comedians come out and sing about the transcendent, healing power
of oral sex. In four-part harmony.
Everyone claps. Everyone laughs.
Robert K. Elder is a journalist, author, film columnist, and contributing editor to Stop Smiling magazine. His latest book, Last Words of the Executed, is due out in the spring of 2010. Elder also runs the websites It Was Over When: Tales of Romantic Dead Ends and It Was Love When: Tales from the Beginning of Love. Jeremy Lawson ('94) is a Chicago-based freelance photographer.
