WHEN SECOND CITY—the venerable Chicago theatre company known for crafting live, long-form comic improvisations—arrived in Toronto in 1973, it was a fun, fresh voice in a comedic landscape that seemed stale, parochial and wholly underdeveloped. Second City buzzed with a liberating, free-form energy. And it drew in a group of friends, a rotating cast of actors and students who thrilled at making one another laugh.
Across various stages and performance spaces, Second City Toronto catalyzed a Big Bang of Canadian comic talent. It nurtured performers whose wit and chummy faces would dominate the comedy landscape, on both sides of the border, for decades to come: John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Joe Flaherty, Dave Thomas, Dan Aykroyd, Andrea Martin, Robin Duke, Gilda Radner and many others.
The early…
