Sahlins and Sills flipped burgers in the kitchen. On December 16, 1959, The Second City's first revue show premiered at 1842 North Wells Street, with Sills' former wife and Compass Player Barbara Harris singing 'Everybody’s in the Know'.

They soon began performing occasional shows on the Near North Side. In summer 1955, at The Compass bar in Hyde Park, University of Chicago students, led by David Shepherd and Paul Sills, calling themselves Compass Players, began a 'commedia dell'arte', based on professional theater games taught by Viola Spolin, who was Sills's mother.

Liebling, published in The New Yorker in 1952, and published in book form as a collection the same year. The Second City chose its self-mocking name from the title of a series of articles about Chicago by A. History Ĭurrent location at 1616 North Wells Street in Chicago Since its debut, The Second City has consistently been a starting point for many comedians, award-winning actors, directors, and others in show business, including Del Close, Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, Mike Myers, Nia Vardalos, Steve Carell, Jordan Peele, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, and many others. The Second City has produced television programs in both Canada and the United States, including SCTV, Second City Presents, and Next Comedy Legend. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has since become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the English-speaking world. The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the oldest ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. For other uses, see The Second City (disambiguation).

Sin in the second city