Focus Features

“It is a great feeling to get up in the morning and say, ‘I am in the same city as Steppenwolf and Second City,’ ” says Bruce Sheridan, the chair of the Department of Film and Video at Columbia College Chicago.

Steppenwolf, a not-for-profit, is the premier ensemble theater company in the United States. Ensemble members include Gary Sinese, Joan Allen, John Malkovich, Gary Cole and Laurie Metcalf.

In 1982, Steppenwolf
moved into the 211-seat
theater at 1650 N. Halsted
Street Chicago, IL.

The Second City, where improv was born, has launched the careers of many of America’s most loved comedic actors—from Alan Arkin (1960) to Tina Fey (1996).
And Columbia College’s Film and Video Department, the largest in the world, is the only film school that operates a satellite campus on a Hollywood lot—formerly the CBS lot, now at Raleigh Studios.

Why all three institutions have thrived has much to do with Third Coast culture and their hometown, Chicago.

Steppenwolf was founded in 1974 in the North Shore suburb of Highland Park by Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney, all three of whom were alumni of Illinois State University in Normal. In 1975, they were joined by six friends from Normal, H.E. Baccus, Nancy Evans, Moira Harris, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf and Alan Wilder. Today the ensemble includes 34 other actors, for a total of 41. (Two of the nine founding members, Evans and Baccus, have left.)

Gary Sinise along with
Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry
founded Steppenwolf
in 1974.

Martha Lavey has been a Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1993, and the company’s artistic director since 1996. “Steppenwolf is representative of Chicago,” she says. “We are distinguishable form L.A. and New York, in that there is a populist streak in Chicago, there is a work ethic, there is a hands-on, robust sensibility that shows up on stage and that is a huge part of the institutional history of Steppenwolf.”

As for theater culture on the other two coasts, Lavey would take Chicago’s any day. “The dominant industry in L.A. is cinema so the actors are drawn to work in film rather than theater, and that has a huge effect,” she says. “And New York is lead by Broadway, and the sensibility of Broadway is that of a commercial venture.” (Steppenwolf, like Chicago’s other well-known ensemble operation, Lookinglass Theater, is a non-profit institution.)

“Chicago has a very active theater scene, in part because it is under the radar of New York theater. There is not the idea here that one is going to bolt into world wide fame, but there is a real satisfaction of working in theater—a great dedication to the stage rather than to television or film.”

Three years ago Columbia College’s Sheridan teamed up with Steppenwolf founder Terry Kinney and former ensemble member Tim Evans to make a short film Kubuku Rides (This is it) (2006).The 18-minute short was directed by Evans and Sheridan and produced by Kinny. This year saw the release of Kinney’s first feature film, Diminished Capacity, to middling reviews.

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“It is a great feeling to get up in the morning and say, ‘I am in the same city as Steppenwolf and Second City,’ ” says Bruce Sheridan, the chair of the Department of Film and Video at Columbia College Chicago.

Steppenwolf, a not-for-profit, is the premier ensemble theater company in the United States. Ensemble members include Gary Sinese, Joan Allen, John Malkovich, Gary Cole and Laurie Metcalf.

In 1982, Steppenwolf
moved into the 211-seat
theater at 1650 N. Halsted
Street Chicago, IL.

The Second City, where improv was born, has launched the careers of many of America’s most loved comedic actors—from Alan Arkin (1960) to Tina Fey (1996).
And Columbia College’s Film and Video Department, the largest in the world, is the only film school that operates a satellite campus on a Hollywood lot—formerly the CBS lot, now at Raleigh Studios.

Why all three institutions have thrived has much to do with Third Coast culture and their hometown, Chicago.

Steppenwolf was founded in 1974 in the North Shore suburb of Highland Park by Gary Sinise, Jeff Perry and Terry Kinney, all three of whom were alumni of Illinois State University in Normal. In 1975, they were joined by six friends from Normal, H.E. Baccus, Nancy Evans, Moira Harris, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf and Alan Wilder. Today the ensemble includes 34 other actors, for a total of 41. (Two of the nine founding members, Evans and Baccus, have left.)

Gary Sinise along with
Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry
founded Steppenwolf
in 1974.

Martha Lavey has been a Steppenwolf ensemble member since 1993, and the company’s artistic director since 1996. “Steppenwolf is representative of Chicago,” she says. “We are distinguishable form L.A. and New York, in that there is a populist streak in Chicago, there is a work ethic, there is a hands-on, robust sensibility that shows up on stage and that is a huge part of the institutional history of Steppenwolf.”

As for theater culture on the other two coasts, Lavey would take Chicago’s any day. “The dominant industry in L.A. is cinema so the actors are drawn to work in film rather than theater, and that has a huge effect,” she says. “And New York is lead by Broadway, and the sensibility of Broadway is that of a commercial venture.” (Steppenwolf, like Chicago’s other well-known ensemble operation, Lookinglass Theater, is a non-profit institution.)

“Chicago has a very active theater scene, in part because it is under the radar of New York theater. There is not the idea here that one is going to bolt into world wide fame, but there is a real satisfaction of working in theater—a great dedication to the stage rather than to television or film.”

Three years ago Columbia College’s Sheridan teamed up with Steppenwolf founder Terry Kinney and former ensemble member Tim Evans to make a short film Kubuku Rides (This is it) (2006).The 18-minute short was directed by Evans and Sheridan and produced by Kinny. This year saw the release of Kinney’s first feature film, Diminished Capacity, to middling reviews.

The famed comedy club
Second City opened in
1959 at 1616 North
Wells Street

Half a mile due east of Steppenwolf is The Second City. It was founded in 1959, by former members of the Compass Players, a group of University Chicago grads, dropouts and hangers-on who between 1955 and 1958 began playing around with improvised scenarios, blending comedy and theater. Compass alumni include: Alan Alda, Jane Alexander, Ed Asner, Del Close, Barbara Harris, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Byrne and Joyce Hiller Piven (parents of Jeremy and founders of the Piven Theater Workshop that boasts, in addition to Jeremy, John and Joan Cusack), and Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller (parents of Ben).

The Second City founders took their name from the title of a 1952 New Yorker article by New Yorker A.J Liebling, turning his jest into a nose-thumbing badge of honor. Since its founding, The Second City has been homestage for Alan Arkin (1960), Joan Rivers (1961), Peter Boyle (1967), Harold Ramis (1969), John Belushi (1971), Bill Murray (1973), Dan Akroyd (1973), John Candy (1973) Eugene Levy (1974), Jim Belushi (1978), Mike Myers (1988), Chris Farley (1989), Steve Carell (1991), Amy Sedaris (1992), Stephen Colbert (1993) Amy Poehler (1996) and Tina Fey (1996). The for-profit company also operates the Second City Training Center, which has about 1,800 students. Notable alumni include: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Bonnie Hunt, Stephen Colbert, Hale Berry and Sean Hayes.

“We have developed and coined an improvisational based process that is unlike anything else,” says Kelly Leonard Second City vice president, “It has fueled everything we do, from the training to the fact that our actors actually get to use that training in front of real audiences over a few years. It is a comedy boot camp.”

Like Steppenwolf’s Lavey, Leonard extols the virtues of Chicago theater. “One of the problems that you have in L.A. and New York is that you aren’t allowed to fail,” he says. “They are markets that are not interested in process, while in Chicago, a theater town that is interested in process, you have time to explore your craft and hone it. And here you actually have audiences that enjoy coming to watch that happen. In L.A., which is not a flourishing theater market, you have audiences that are interested in seeing showcases for television. While in New York there is a great theater market,  but that market demands slickness and sophistication. That Broadway influence would never allow for the kind of improv community that exits in Chicago. Improv is messy and it relies on a gritty honesty.”

Steve Carell (left) in 1993, with Paul Dinell,
Stephen Colbert and David Razowsky
at Second City.

Not that The Second City avoids the City of Angels. A couple years ago the company opened up Second City Entertainment in Los Angeles, and two months ago signed a “first-look deal” with CBS Paramount on anything the Second City film division develops.

What goes around comes around. The Chicago headquarters of Paramount’s former parent company, the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, was torn down a few years ago, but the 1923 building’s 20-foot tall arch will be reconstructed in the foyer of Columbia College’s Film and Video Department’s new media production center. At a cost of $21 million the center, to be built on S. Wabash Ave., what was known as Film Row back in the day.  Scheduled to open in 2010, the center’s state of the art production stages will help students “get around the weather problem,” as Sheridan puts it. The Film and Video Department has mushroomed in the last decade and now has 2,300 students earning a B.A. or M.F.A. (and that does not count the 300 students majoring in Television).

Columbia College Chicago grad Janusz
Kaminiski won an Academy Award for Best
Cinematography for Schindler's List (1993).

Columbia College alums include: Janusz Kaminiski, the cinematographer who won Academy awards for Shindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan; Genndy Tartakovsky, the animator, whose credits include Samarai Jack; George Tillman, Jr., the director of Soul Food and Men of Honor; Len Amato, the senior vice president of HBO Films; Peter Teschner one of the editors of Borat.

Sheridan, a New Zealand native, is bullish on Chicago. “It is wonderful running a film school in a town that is actually a successful theater town. People make a living being actors in theater here. There is always a pool of good character actors. Chicago may be the best city in the world in that regard.”

He thinks that the Chicago theater community provides something else. “There is a generally positive attitude to exploring in the Chicago theater industry, and that provides a good context for filmmakers, particularly those who are just starting out. You can explore something and if it works you can take it other places, but if it doesn’t work you haven’t lost your shirt.”

And, like Leonard and Lavey, he has a few things to say about the film industries in New York and Los Angeles. “There are two different cultures, an east coast culture and a west coast culture. In New York they will tell you they are very proud of their independent film industry and people in Los Angeles say that they define the global entertainment industry. But in Chicago we get to pick and choose our relationship. You can do it your way; you can decide to what extent you get buried in either of these two sectors.”

And like Leonard and Lavey, Sheridan praises the Chicago’s “basic work ethic.” “We get things done,” he says. “The inefficiencies in this business that were once tolerable are less tolerable in these economic circumstances. And as things get tight, the efficiencies and work ethic of places like Chicago come into play in ways that they haven’t before.”

Sheridan is not always gushing. There is that ever-present Second City complex. “If we are being honest, there is a handicap in Chicago,” says Sheridan. “Places like Chicago get so proud of what they can do for outsiders when they come in, that they start to act as if the ideas have to come from somewhere else. The challenge for Chicago is to do more to support, encourage and nurture creativity for the entertainment media arts. We need to invest in development. We can never win the location game, because there is always somewhere else to go to shoot. As the joke in Europe goes, Bulgaria is the new Prague. There is a danger of overemphasizing location work at the expense of supporting the infrastructure that you need to be a creative center, a creative force.”