Second City Chicago Goes Up in Flames

A multi-alarm blaze destroyed offices of one of comedy’s influential and legendary theaters

If there’s a leading funny celeb with a major movie or TV show set to premiere this fall, there’s a good chance they’re concerned about the Chicago comedy house that helped give them their start. The offices for The Second City Chicago burned Wednesday, reports the Tribune, consuming the company’s officers by sparing the legendary theater. A firefighter was injured while fighting the blaze, but the comedy shop tweeted that staff and improv students were okay.

A list of Second City Chicago alumni is a who’s who of American comedy. Stephen Colbertgot his start with Second City 24 years ago. Uncle Buck himself, the late John Candy, walked the Second City stage in 1973 along with Bill fucking Murray.  What we’re saying is the list of comedy royalty from this outfit alone could fill one ridiculously funny book.

Firefighters told the Tribune that the fire began as a grease fire in an Adobo Grill adjacent to the Second City offices and spread from there. But here’s good news: the theater, or the actual performing space where every funny person ever — almost — began learning the art of improvisation and working on characters they later brought to life in a huge way on a show like Saturday Night Live — it remains unscathed.

Keeping with their history and the improv comedy convention of keeping the skit moving by responding with “Yes and…” The Second City tweeted a dry but kind of reassuring affirmation about the disaster:

ICYMI: Yes, there's a fire. And we're working on it. #YesAnd #YesAndLifestyle pic.twitter.com/kiqkBId6vZ

— The Second City (@TheSecondCity) August 26, 2015

And… scene?

Photos by Screen grab