Improv Nation
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87 acetylene lamp: Kleinfeld, “Del Close.”
87 “you’ve got to make this”: Ibid.
87 “And I suddenly realized that we”: Feldman, “A Critical Analysis of Improvisational Theater in the United States.”
88 most sensitive issue in American life?: Flicker, “Safe and Unsafe Satire at the Living Premise.”
88 “and Godfrey grabbed the handle”: Buck Henry to author.
88 “would come out of the theater”: Joan Darling to author.
88 “they turned me down”: Leonard Harris, “Success Not Enough, Negro Actress Finds,” New York World-Telegram and Sun, September 2, 1963.
88 “same difficulty with us”: Joan Darling to author.
88 “It was Ted’s idea”: Ibid.
88 “I don’t really know anything about Negroes”: Jay Carr, “Geoffrey Cambridge Makes a Sentimental Journey,” New York Post, September 4, 1963.
88 “like group analysis”: Ibid.
89 “It took a while”: Joan Darling to author.
89 “This morning, I was shaken”: Ted Flicker, Rehearsal Notes: May 4, 1963, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 2.
89 Flicker had them switch: Joan Darling to author.
89 “The color line”: Ted Flicker, Rehearsal Notes: May 7, 1963, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 2.
89 “If you do it right”: Joan Darling to author.
89 with a kiss: Scripts, The Living Premise, Flicker Collection, USC, Box 1.
89 “When Mrs. Kennedy”: Ibid.
90 “If you don’t stop playing”: Flicker, “Safe and Unsafe Satire at the Living Premise.”
90 “Real dramatic integration”: Ibid.
90 “And we all became”: Joan Darling to author.
90 “the running character joke”: Marcia Seligson, “Hollywood’s Hottest Writer—Buck Henry,” New York Times, July 19, 1970.
90 “We’re doing King Lear here”: Nichols.
90 “to create an atmosphere”: Paul Gardner, “News of the Rialto,” New York Times, September 8, 1963.
90 “The whole thing”: William Glover, “Mike Nichols: Performer Turned Stage Director,” Bridgeport Post, September 20, 1964.
90 “I wanted to do comedy”: Mike Nichols to Elaine May, “Elaine May in Conversation with Mike Nichols,” Walter Reade Theater, New York City, July 2006.
91 For the first time in years: Mike Nichols to author.
91 He directed slightly and invisibly: Jules Feiffer to author.
91 “Mordant”: Larry Turman to author.
91 “a nervous comedy”: Ibid.
91 “The reason I couldn’t get”: Ibid.
91 “I thought it was oozing”: Ibid.
92 the Nichols and May manner: Ibid.
92 John Brent called Alan Myerson: Alan Myerson to author.
92 civilization is over: Carol Sills to author.
92 “We and everybody”: Ibid.
92 Billy ran to the drugstore: Rich Cohen, “What’s So Funny?” Rolling Stone, October 2, 2003.
93 “That was when television”: Ibid.
93 “But I don’t think we”: Stuart W. Little, “Elaine May, An Improviser,” New York Herald Tribune, April 27, 1964.
93 Second City’s most apprehensive audience: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
6. 1963–1967
94 “Bernie,” Patinkin said: Ibid.
95 “After the [JFK] assassination”: Ibid.
95 “But I’m not political”: Fred Willard to author.
96 “I’ve always admired people”: Jenelle Riley, “Fair-Weather Fred,” Backstage West, July 24, 2003.
96 “I like to play the guy that”: Joe Rhodes, “Second Wind for a Professional Oaf,” New York Times, February 24, 2008.
96 “Bernie [Sahlins] and I”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
96 Robert Klein: Fred Willard to author.
96 Start big: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
97 “Is Satire Futile?”: Talk of the Town, “Over and Out,” New Yorker, December 19, 1964.
97 the best improvisational work: Mike Nichols in Conversation at MoMA, April 18, 2009.
97 “Pinter especially struck me”: David Mamet, interview with Rick Kogan, Chicago Public Library, October 13, 2006.
98 “Let’s take a sleigh ride”: Ira Nadel, David Mamet: A Life in the Theater (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 29.
98 “people who you can listen to”: Daniel Schweiger, “Fred Willard Makes a Comedic Touchdown in ‘Back to You,’” Venice, September 2007.
98 “Miss Jones, take a letter”: Second City Archives, the Second City, Chicago.
98 “Okay, Willard, get up there”: Fred Willard to author.
99 “Paul,” Willard began: Ibid.
99 “That was a big change”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
99 “friendly satire”: Kashner, “Who’s Afraid of Nichols & May?,” audio recording accompanying article, VanityFair.com.
99 “I had to fire her”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
99 “She began modifying many”: Eric Forsberg, “Josephine Raciti Forsberg: An Important Part of Chicago Theater History,” paper presented at Columbia College Theater Symposium, Chicago, May 20, 2011.
99 To Sahlins, funny was funny: Jane Sahlins to author.
99 Elaine May was at a party: Mike Nichols to author.
100 Carl Reiner let her improvise: Thompson, “Whatever Happened to Elaine May?”
100 “my typing finger needed a rest”: Marjory Adams, “Film Star Elaine May Is Different,” Boston Globe, August 15, 1967.
101 Mike Nichols, and his new girlfriend: Mike Nichols to author.
101 “But is he perfect?”: Bruce Weber, “Mike Nichols, Urbane Director Loved by Crowds and Critics, Dies at 83,” New York Times, November 20, 2014.
101 “Everything felt different”: Mike Nichols to author.
101 “See?” May said: Ibid.
101 “Life had renewed”: Ibid.
101 “Will you come sit with me?”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
102 “I sat with him”: Ibid.
102 “Del was so bipolar”: Bill Mathieu to author.
102 lived at 452 Webster: Ibid.
102 their first date: Carol Sills to author.
102 “a jungle gym of junk”: Bill Mathieu to author.
104 “Paul didn’t want to be successful”: Mike Nichols to author.
104 every Saturday in Lincoln Park: Carol Sills to author.
104 “With the games”: Leslie Bennetts, “If It Works, It’s Theater. If It Doesn’t . . . ,” New York Times, September 8, 1986.
105 “Paul,” he replied: Mike Nichols to author.
105 Alan Myerson married Second City’s: Alan Myerson to author.
107 “Well, what do I have to do?”: Norman Jewison to author.
107 “Put this on,” he said: Ibid.
108 “a smart, funny, and lucid improv”: Ibid.
108 “Constantin Mevedenko”: Mel Gussow, “Alan Arkin: The Matchless Maskmaker,” Holiday, October 1966.
108 “There’s not a line in the film”: Ibid.
109 “I have felt that Mike tends”: “Fun and Games with George and Martha—Journal 1965–1966,” Ernest Lehman Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library, Box 2, Folder 8, p. 9.
109 On July 20, 1965: Ibid., 125.
109 “Did you hear me say Action?!”: Ibid., 126.
109 “My hope,” he said: Philip K. Scheuer, “Nichols: The Whiz Kid Whizzes Onward,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 1967.
110 a version of Elaine: Mike Nichols to author.
110 “After TW3 we all interrelated”: Buck Henry to Steve Lafreniere, “Buck Henry,” Vice, October 1, 2010.
110 “one doesn’t ask”: Buck Henry to author.
110 “I thought Buck”: Seligson, “Hollywood’s Hottest Writer.”
110 “You should read this book”: Buck Henry to author.
111 “It’s much more useful for me”: Kleinfeld, “Del Clos
e.”
111 “the purpose of psychoanalysis?”: Del Close Improv Workshop Notes, assembled by Joey Novick, Workshop of October 11, 1968, http://c3467x.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Applied-Improv-Network-Del-Close-Notes.pdf.
112 “was really urging you to try”: Helbig, “Friends and Coconspirators.”
112 his own experiments in longform: Alan Myerson to author.
113 “Anything can happen at any time”: Bill Mathieu to author.
113 “The ghost”: Ibid.
113 “We knew we had something”: Ibid.
114 can of apricot juice: Ibid.
114 “I was deeply offended”: Ibid.
114 “How about Harold?”: Ibid.
115 “I want this to be about not becoming”: Mike Nichols, in conversation with the New York Times, TimesTalks, live stream, May 7, 2012, http://original.livestream.com/nytimes/video?clipId=pla_b3bbca7b-a0ff-48fc-aa6d-2619b51a7a64.
115 “Hanley had no humor”: Larry Turman to author.
115 “And none of them”: Mike Nichols to author.
115 Buck Henry empathized with Benjamin: Buck Henry to author.
115 “Working with Buck is very like”: Betty Rollin, “Mike Nichols: Wizard of Wit,” Look, April 2, 1968.
7. 1967–1968
116 “You can’t play it”: Mike Nichols, in conversation with Chip McGrath, TimesTalks, live stream, May 7, 2012, http://original.livestream.com/nytimes/video?clipId=pla_b3bbca7b-a0ff-48fc-aa6d-2619b51a7a64.
116 “goy after goy”: “This Is 40: Judd Apatow and Mike Nichols Q&A.”
116 “He [Benjamin] needed”: Mike Nichols in Conversation at MoMA.
117 “I’m not right for this part”: Sam Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate,” Vanity Fair, March 2008.
117 actor David Warner: Dustin Hoffman to author.
117 “Arkin was the first director”: Ibid.
117 I’m not supposed to be in movies: Ibid.
117 “Did you see this week’s Time magazine?”: Kashner, “Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols.”
117 “he’s Jewish inside”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
118 “Do you think you could make him”: Ibid.
118 “What am I doing here?”: Lynn Stalmaster to author.
118 “Don’t be nervous”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
119 “We were losing big to television”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
119 “I want everyone to bring”: Murphy Dunne to author.
119 The first time social worker Gary Austin: Gary Austin to author.
121 “Benjamin’s twenty-one years old”: Dustin Hoffman to author.
123 “Now listen,” Nichols barked: Gold Standard screening of The Graduate.
123 “That’s usually the best work”: Ibid.
123 “I got my feeling for people”: Leonard J. Berry, “Mike: He Applies ‘The Nichols Touch’ to What May Be the Most Eagerly Awaited Film of This Generation,” Boston Globe, December 7, 1969.
124 tale of the night before: Alan Myerson to author.
124 “more vigorous enforcement of all of our drug laws”: Deborah Kalb, Gerhard Peters, and John T. Wolley, State of the Union: Presidential Rhetoric from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2007), 648.
124 “We’re going to do what happened last night”: Alan Myerson to author.
127 “It seems to me that it is important”: Bob Thomas, “By Mike Nichols: Repertory Company Eyed,” Austin Statesman, February 10, 1967.
127 “I plan to cast everyone”: Ibid.
127 “I am so sick of hearing”: Ibid.
127 “a bar where we could put”: Laurie Ann Gruhn, “Interview: Paul Sills Reflects on Story Theatre,” Drama Theater Teacher 5, no. 2 (Winter 1993).
128 “This ‘invisible inner self’”: Ibid.
128 “You can’t reject outside authority”: Aretha Sills to author.
128 improviser Cordis Heard: Cordis Heard to author.
128 “You can use the text”: Ibid.
128 “I don’t want your psychology”: Ibid.
128 “Your political consciousness”: Ibid.
128 “There are some guys”: Dennis Cunningham to author.
129 “Essentially what we’re going”: Abbie Hoffman on Yippie Tactics—1968, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oujcg_Tifw.
129 “It’s all conceived as a total theater”: Abbie Hoffman on the 1968 Democratic Convention, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcXKeuOW3lQ.
130 “We were all against Vietnam”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
130 a barracks of sandbags: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 359.
130 transformed the theater’s beer garden: Carol Sills to author.
130 Abbie Hoffman, for a flash: Eugenie Ross-Leming to author.
131 “This city and the military machine”: David Farber, Chicago ’68 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 196.
132 “Democracy is no good”: Judy Jacklin Belushi, Samurai Widow (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1990), 24.
132 Belushi had radicalized: Judy Jacklin Belushi to author.
132 “so-called most radical”: Ibid.
132 hit him in the ribs: Bob Woodward, Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 41.
132 “Theater—guerilla theater”: Jerry Rubin, Address to the Yippie Convention, Great Speeches of the 20th Century, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TphuwosYrQ.
132 Inside the Hilton Hotel bar: Jules Feiffer to author.
133 “I can’t believe how much tear gas hurts”: Woodward, Wired, 41.
8. 1969–1972
138 “I don’t need an actor”: Joe Flaherty to author.
138 “[This is] a chance”: Joe Flaherty, interview hosted by Mark Warzecha, Second City and Beyond, Los Angeles, July 30, 2008, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJd_ear6Dak.
138 “pass to the open man”: Jim Fisher to author.
139 “I would say in the first month”: Mike Sacks, And Here’s the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft (Cincinnati: Writers Digest, 2009), 40.
139 “Everybody fought to be”: Joe Flaherty to author.
139 Flaherty and Remis froze: Ibid.
139 “adjusting egos”: “A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume and Joe Flaherty,” A Bit of a Chat (podcast), January 27, 2013, A Site Called Fred, http://asitecalledfred.com/2013/01/27/joe-flaherty-ken-plume-chat/.
140 “I guess I’m pretty much”: Ibid.
140 “We worked so well”: Jim Fisher to author.
140 “we were radical”: Donna McCrohan, The Second City: A Backstage History of Comedy’s Hottest Troupe (New York: Perigee, 1987), 169.
140 Bernie Sahlins took note: Jane Sahlins to author.
140 “The previous bunch”: Jim Fisher to author.
141 “In Jules’s cartoons”: Sheldon Patinkin to author.
141 “They got the paraphrase completely”: Arkin, An Improvised Life, 99.
141 “a real ensemble”: Tom Burke, “Feiffer: If at First You . . . ,” New York Times, January 26, 1969.
142 “If you have ever experienced”: Clive Barnes, “Reappraisal: The Comic Horror of Little Murders,” New York Times, October 2, 1969.
142 “what we thought was an improv”: Christopher Guest on Kevin Pollack’s Chat Show, no. 113, October 13, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CncBFKdL70Q.
142 “We went up to see her”: Ibid.
142 “I knew something was off”: Christopher Guest to Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose, aired May 12, 2003, PBS.
143 “If I’m in the room”: Harold Ramis to Jake Jarvi, Sheridan Road Magazine, February 26, 2014, audio recording, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMG7om-GVgU.
143 her depression: Ibid.
143 “We tell kids”: Ibid.
143 “stand up for the little guy”: Harold Ramis, interviewed by Eric Spitznagel, Believer, March 2006.
143 fighter pilot: Harold Ramis, Jack
Oakie Lecture on Comedy in Film, audio recording, AMPAS Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, CA.
143 “Suddenly,” he said: Ibid.
143 “a great lesson in comedy”: Harold Ramis lecture, Chicago Humanities Festival, November 4, 2009, http://chicagohumanities.org/events/2009/laughter/2009-ramis-history-film-comedy.
144 “I could see elements”: Ramis interview, Believer.
144 their own shit: Brett Martin, “Harold Ramis Gets the Last Laugh,” GQ, July 2009.
144 masturbating in front of her family: YouTube video, Harold Ramis shared insights on Jewish Creativity *Rosh 5770 @ Aitz Hayim, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSl0TBCx424.
144 Second City’s thirty-seventh revue: Second City Archives, the Second City, Chicago.
145 “We bombed”: Thomas, The Second City Unscripted, 42.
145 “totally authoritarian, dictatorially oppressive”: Jules Feiffer, Tom Hayden, and Jon Wiener, Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight (New York: New Press, 2006).
145 “Abbie,” Fisher recalled: Jim Fisher to author.
146 “They are not as astringent”: William Leonard, “Sweet Simplicity at Second City,” Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1970.
147 “PTA”: Second City Archives, Second City, Chicago.
147 “I loved writing and performing”: Ramis interview, Believer.
147 “Why are you leaving, Harold?”: Joe Flaherty to author.
147 sneak-preview screening of MASH: Peter Biskind, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?,” Premiere, March 1994.
147 “I almost passed out”: Mike Nichols on Charlie Rose, October 19, 2011, https://charlierose.com/videos/13356.
148 “Everything that Catch couldn’t have”: Mike Nichols, on “Commentary,” Catch-22, directed by Mike Nichols (Paramount Pictures, 1970), DVD.
148 Nichols himself wondered: Sweet, Something Wonderful Right Away, 86.
148 “not about human behavior”: Carol Kramer, “Catch-22: ‘It’s Really About Dying,’ Says Writer Buck Henry,” Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1970.
148 “about the fact that heterosexual”: Jules Feiffer to author.
148 Confessions “startled me”: David Fear, “Mike Nichols on The Graduate: The Director of This 1967 Classic Reflects on Its Making,” Time Out New York, April 10, 2012.
148 “Well, you’ve got to do this”: Mike Nichols, “Mike Nichols & Jason Reitman Talk Carnal Knowledge,” Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 2011.