Some great news is coming to aspiring New York comedians, Chicago’s most iconic improv and sketch troupe is launching a new flagship location in Brooklyn later this year.
The past few years have not been easy on the New York comedy scene. When New York’s legendary Upright Citizens Brigade announced that they would close all New York locations in 2020, the city was left with a serious gap in its comedy offerings. UCB was a uniquely New York institution that brought up the careers of timeless performers like Kate Mckinnon, Donald Glover, Aubrey Plaza, and Aziz Ansari. While UCB still operates a few locations on the West Coast, the loss of New York’s homegrown comedy icon has left local comedians in desperate need of new training and entertainment.
Now though, the New York comedy scene is about to undergo a major transition, as Chicago’s premiere comedy troupe has secured a lease for a brand new performance space and restaurant. The Second City was founded in 1959 by Paul Sills, Bernie Sahlins, and Howard Ark, and is now the oldest ongoing improvisational theatre troupe to be continuously based out of chicago. The Second City has produced programs in both Canada and the US, including SCTV and Second City Presents. Today The Second City is known as one of the country’s premiere talent incubators for comedy, and launched the careers of countless comedians, including Bill Murray, John Candy, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Stephen Colbert, and Cecily Strong.
Now, The Second City has just announced that that they will be opening up a new location in New York for the very first time. Developing a brand new comedy space in Williamsburg, the new expansion will include a main stage for performances, a stage for students, seven classrooms, and a full-service restaurant. While The Second City has been operating in multiple different locations across the country, until now New York has always remained UCB territory. Now that UCB has left the city though, The Second City will be filling a void that was urgently needed.
“New York just feels obvious,” said CEO Ed Wells in a statement, adding that “As we came out of the pandemic and saw the resurgence of our stages and our consumer demand and the fact that we’re selling out every night, it became more immediate for us to start thinking about expansion.”
The news of The Second City’s expansion comes on the heels of their acquisition by private equity group ZMC, which is run by Strauss Zelnick. In an ongoing effort to restructure the company to be more equitable, ZMC set out to grow The Second City in a diverse new direction. ZMC managing partner Jordan Turkewitz stated last year that they are “Very excited to partner with management and the incredible talent at The Second City to grow the brand and build a diverse organization that elevates all voices.”
While the location for their new space has not been revealed yet, the team is hoping to have the location operational by Summer 2023. For more information while you wait, you can follow The Second City on Instagram. And of course, once they open you’re going to need to take a visit to watch your favorite Restaurant Reporter trying his hand at improv comedy.
