The Second City: Notes on Chicago’s Funny Urbanism

The old line is that, “there are a million stories in the naked city.” This is one of those stories. Actually, it’s several of those stories. More specifically, it is number of stories about the creation of even more stories. Lost yet? The story is of Chicago and how it provided the ground for the development of a style of improvisational comedy. It is the story of “The Second City” comedy troupe, who they are, what they did, how the did it, and why it could only have happened in Chicago. In this sense Chicago is not only a setting, but also a seedbed; the fertile ground for a creative explosion. This is an urban study as cultural history, and also as performance.

Volume Editors
David Ruy & Lola Sheppard

ISBN
978-0-935502-95-4