Get a second look at Second City Feb. 13

Published 7:48 pm Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Back by popular demand, legendary comedy troupe The Second City returns to the stage of the Edmonds Center for the Arts Feb. 13, bringing their unique blend of cutting edge improvisation and satirical sketch comedy mined from current events.

Celebrating its 50th year of cutting edge satire and improv, The Second City began in Chicago in 1959, launched by a group of hip, creative and intellectual University of Chicago students in an environment ripe for social and political satire.

The group’s popularity quickly spread and world comedy domination began with their first Broadway appearance in 1961 and their first London appearance in 1962. The Second City firmly established its comedy reputation with the debut of Saturday Night Live in 1974, featuring Second City alumni John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd and Gilda Radner.

The Second City is recognized as the premier training ground for the comedy world’s best and brightest and their alumni list is a “who’s who” of American comedy. Second City alumni include Tina Fey (“30 Rock”), Stephen Colbert (“The Colbert Report”) and Steve Carell (“The Office”) — as well as such notables as Alan Arkin, Robert Klein, Joan Rivers, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, John Candy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mike Myers.

This special performance will feature some of the best sketches, songs and improvisations from the troupe’s 50-year history, celebrating The Second City’s status as both a Chicago and American landmark.

In addition to its live stage shows, Second City now boasts the largest school of improvisational comedy in the world with theatres in Chicago, Toronto, Detroit, Las Vegas and Denver and training centers in each of those cities as well as New York and Los Angeles; a corporate communications division; an exclusive deal with Norwegian Cruise Lines that puts the brand in front of millions of cruise passengers every year; and a television and film division.