'Hooking up' with comedic genius Second City at ROH

Jo Feldman, part of Second City troupe to appear Friday at ROH. (Courtesy photo)

An entity nothing short of a pantheon of comedic genius will be at our doorstep on Friday when Hooking up with Second City comes to the Rochester Opera House.

Just have a gander at some of the alumni of the famed Chicago comedic troupe that has been an incubator of comedy stars that have made us laugh for decades on NBC's Saturday Night Live and elsewhere.

From venerable talents like Alan Alda and Alan Arkin to SNL veterans like Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray to contemporary TV and film personalities like Steve Carell, Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert, Second City has been the standard bearer of comedic improv and sketch comedy for more than half a century.

On Friday Jo Feldman will be one of a half-dozen comedic troupers who have taken up the Second City banner touring the country honing their skills and making people laugh.

Feldman took a little time out on Tuesday to talk to The Lebanon Voice about Friday's show, whose comedic target will be the silly side of relationships between the sexes.

Feldman, who has performed in Maine with Improv/Acadia, an improve club in Bar Harbor, said she and five other performers - three guys and three gals - will poke fun at the frailties of human relationships and run the comedic gauntlet from improve to some of Second City's greatest archival sketch routines to get the crowd's juices flowing.

"This show includes the best of Second City, some of our favorite skits over the last 55 years," said Feldman, who began with the Second City as an intern at 19.

She said her troupe will do three or four improv routines, but mostly rely on some of those favorite, classic skits.

Asked whether the material was a bit "blue," she replied, "Whatever you want, you want blue, it'll be blue," adding the comedic nuance will run from dry satire to "bust-your-gut" funny, at least that's the plan, she says.

"There's something for everyone," she said, summing up their comedic philosophy this way:

"You'll get what you ask for, from the top of our intelligence with a fountain of integrity."

Works for me!

For tickets click here.