Second City comes to Atlanta

Arts and Culture

Atlanta actors are helping The Second City players to spoof their home town.

Atlanta actors Amy Roeder and Tim Stoltenberg, left, rehearse a scene in Chicago with Michael Lehrer, and Anthony Irons, for the upcoming comedy revue. The Second City skits take aim at Atlantans. The revue will be headed to Atlanta for a six-week stint at the Alliance Theatre.

Pedestrians walk by the entrance to The Second City. Second City Theatre, which opened in 1959 and has since expanded to Toronto, Las Vegas and Detroit.

The Alliance and Second City wanted to include Atlanta actors. Two were hired: Tim Stoltenberg, improv director at Dad's Garage in Atlanta; and Amy Roeder, third-year theater graduate student at the University of Georgia.

Tim Stoltenberg, from Atlanta, left, rehearses a scene with Michael Lehrer from the upcoming comedy revue. The show begins its six-week run with previews starting Friday in the Alliance's 200-seat Hertz Stage.

Second City players, Michael Lehrer, Anthony Irons, and Amy Roeder, watch a clip from a DVD to aid them with a dancing scene for the upcoming revue.

Pictures of now famous The Second City alumni line the walls outside the box office in Chicago. In the mid-1970s, The Second City became a source of cast members for Saturday Night Live and SCTV, which borrowed many of the writing and performing techniques pioneered by Second City and other improv groups.

Michael Lehrer, rehearses a scene from the upcoming comedy revue, "Too Busy to Hate, Too Hard to Commute."

A quote on the wall of the backstage area at Second City in Chicago. "We dare to offend," says Beth Kligerman, Second City director of talent and talent development. "We're OK if someone walks out on a given night -- though we don't necessarily want that for our friends in Atlanta."

Second City player, Robyn Norris, right, bursts out in laughter during rehearsal. The troupe chose the self-mocking name "The Second City" from the title of an article about Chicago by A. J. Liebling that appeared in The New Yorker in 1952.

Tim Stoltenberg goes over his scene notes. "I think a lot of stuff is going to shock Atlanta a little bit," Stoltenberg says. "Which is good. I don't think Atlanta gets enough of that. Atlanta is ready to laugh at itself and say, 'Yeah, that's us.' And by laughing at ourselves we can identify what makes us special."

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Atlanta actors Amy Roeder and Tim Stoltenberg, left, rehearse a scene in Chicago with Michael Lehrer, and Anthony Irons, for the upcoming comedy revue. The Second City skits take aim at Atlantans. The revue will be headed to Atlanta for a six-week stint at the Alliance Theatre.

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