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Chicago’s pioneering club – where comics from John Belushi to Tina Fey learned their craft – is 60 years old. We crash an improv class in search of its secrets
In the fashionable Old Town district of Chicago, I am making mooing noises and performing deep lunges. My classmates are frozen to the spot – waiting for me to tap one of them so they can make a strange movement and noise all of their own. This is not your typical Monday night, even in Chicago.
In the hallway outside this improv class run by The Second City hang the headshots of actors who, once upon a time, were most likely gestating in a similarly ridiculous way, feeling roughly as self-aware. Amy Poehler, Bob Odenkirk, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Dan Castellaneta, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Jordan Peele, Jane Lynch, John Belushi … the list of alumni covers an entire corridor. Continue reading...