Photo: Shmura Campbell
Andrew Alexander wields enormous power from his cramped Wells Street office. Actually, his confines speaks to one of the striking things about Alexander—despite the more than 30 years he’s spent at Second City, 20 of them as the organization’s proprietor and executive producer, he’s actually quite modest. Questions about the new e.t.c. revue are answered by offering praise for its director Matt Hovde and the show’s ensemble members, and he’s willing to concede that the venerable theater is not without faults. Maybe Alexander’s just good at playing the PR game; regardless, chatting with him is a humbling experience—as laid back as he seems, there’s a lot riding on the decisions he makes.
Time Out Chicago: First question: What is it that you actually do?
Andrew Alexander: Well the fact that nobody knows is good. I must be doing my job. As an owner and also sort of a CEO, you kind of keep an eye on everything, right? So: producers—we have so many different divisions now—training, theaters, touring, all those areas. I have all the division heads reporting to me. It’s sort of [about taking on] new initiatives, particularly in TV and film. In fact, I’m out in LA quite a bit.
TOC: What do you specifically get involved with?
Andrew Alexander: What I call bread and butter issues like diversity, gender issues. Those kinds of issues are really important to me: how is our diversity working? What’s the talent pool looking like? Moving back to Chicago in the early ’90s, diversity was one of those things I felt we weren’t doing a great job of. It’s always a challenge frankly. That’s probably one of the bigger issues for me that I keep on the day-to-day. Diversity’s kinda important when you’re talking about ensemble. It gives you point of view.
TOC: People cite Piñata Full of Bees (1995) and Paradigm Lost (1997) as shows that really stood out. What about them do you think resonated with people?
Andrew Alexander: They broke the form. There was more flow, where it’s not a sketch, an actor coming out and moving chairs around—it’s almost doing 20-30 seconds of stand up. That was the traditional device. It’s interesting how that’s changed how performers are perceived here now. It’s very much more ensemble. In those days, someone would come out and say “I take you to a living room,” it was a chance for people to actually get to know the performer a bit better. You had your personas, like the Bill Murrays—he thrived at doing that. That doesn’t happen much anymore, where you’re talking directly to the audience. In a strange way, it’s reinforced ensemble. In our world, those shows were real earth shakers.
TOC: Do you feel you’ve been able to shake the earth since?
Andrew Alexander: At the end of the day, it’s really about the content of the show. You can only play with the format so many ways. I mean, you can have the actors hang from the ceiling or something. But this is a series of sketches—some longer, some shorter—and that hasn’t changed in 50 years. It should be about the content. The ability to move a show along quicker is a response to the age we live in. Things are more fast-paced, and we responded to that organically. But it’s still the content. If it’s not there, it doesn’t matter how creative you are jumping from sketch to sketch.
TOC: My understanding is that the theater in Chicago does well, as does the one in Toronto. But the other Second City venues seem to…not do as well. Is there truth to that?
Andrew Alexander: Yeah, they do terribly. I think that in Chicago and Toronto, there is such a strong tradition of doing this kind of work that the brand Second City really means something. [Seeing Second City] is one of those things that you do when you come to Chicago, whereas they don’t have that tradition in other cities we’ve tried. Detroit was great when we were downtown, but where we are now, I mean, it’s…To answer your question another way, I’d never open another theater anywhere else, I see that’s not the way to go anymore.
TOC: In the Encyclopedia of Chicago History online, it says “its early hip, urban satire has been replaced by a broader base of human references.” Agree?
Andrew Alexander: I don’t think…the one thing that I’ve noticed over, say, the last 25 years is that there’s less local reference—city politics, things like that. Everything’s become more global, national in scope. That’s sort of the seismic shift. That has to do with the fact that a lot of people who come to Second City now as performers learn the craft here and are from somewhere else. The audiences are from all over, and the media just informs you in a way today that is so broad. Local politics just don’t seem that exciting anymore. In today’s world, you’re competing against world media, including everybody’s opportunity to expose themselves on YouTube, and a plethora of channels to get comedy from. If it wasn’t working, people wouldn’t come. It’s that simple. One great divider in our world is people aren’t going to pay 25, 30 dollars if they don’t think it’s worth it.
TOC: Do you think Second City is still viewed as cutting edge? Which is what I think that quote is trying to say.
Andrew Alexander: I don’t know. Cutting edge…Is Borat cutting edge, rolling around in a bedroom licking a guy’s ass? I think we still are able to create a show that works for a very diverse public. Cutting edge comedy is such a hard thing to define. We live in world where things are becoming more specific, so your tastes are going to get satisfied somewhere. Like Borat—which is a terrific movie. Our audiences have never been larger. We’re always close to sold out. And it’s still 50-50 local. It hasn’t shifted to 90 percent tourists.
TOC: When is Second City at its weakest?
Andrew Alexander: When we start to take the audience for granted. That’s dangerous, but we’re pretty cognizant of that. It’s been a while since we were being guilty of that.
TOC: You optioned Kim “Howard” Johnson’s book The Funniest One in the Room and Jeff Griggs’ Guru, both based on Del Close’s life, as movies. What’s up with the rumor that Bill Murray’s gonna play Del?
Andrew Alexander: I dunno. Billy actually said to Kim Johnson that he’d be interested. I think we need to get the script first. I always felt there was a guy…British actor from…I always forget his name. Was in that series Deadwood. He played the lead character [Al] Swearingen [Editor’s note: That would be Ian McShane]. Got that dark sensibility about him.