Second City alums celebrate 50 years

It was a comedic gathering of greats as Second City in Chicago marked its 50th anniversary with the likes of Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert.

The three-day celebration over the weekend featured monologues, songs and sketches from established and upcoming stars.

"We're under-rehearsed," said Martin Short on Friday night, according to an article inThe Chicago Tribune.

Second City, with its main branches in Chicago and Toronto, trained legions of comedians in improvisation comedy, turning out some of the biggest stars in the business.

Alumni from the Toronto branch were crowd pleasers during the weekend event, which raised money for its Alumni Fund.

The Toronto Star, which sent its theatre reviewer, said Andrea Martin and Martin Short ad-libbed a dance number while O'Hara teamed up with Levy for an ear-splitting Canadian song medley.

Short also come out at different points as the triangle-playing Ed Grimley and slick TV host Jackie Rogers.

Joe Flaherty and Levy re-constituted their newsmen, Floyd Robertson and Earl Camembert.

The biggest applause was reserved for current TV stars Carell and Colbert, who were once in the Chicago company at the same time.

The Tribune says the main players of The Office and The Colbert Report re-enacted a piece they had to improvise one night in 1993 when they were required to mesh the differentconcepts of "coming home" with African-American poet Maya Angelou into a sketch.

The pair looking like Wall Street businessmen in their three-piece suits created a scenario in which Colbert announces, "Every time I come home, I turn into an old black woman."

The scene played out with different comedians entering the fold and turned into a Southern romance, ending with Colbert, in the role of an elderly black woman, kissing another male comedian on the lips.