Second City returned to Athens for the fourth time and left both parents and students laughing.
The Best of The Second City rode onto the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium stage on a pretend Greyhound bus, which was only composed of six chairs.
This was just one sketch of many by six comedians of The Second City Touring Company, a touring improv troupe, as they returned to Athens on Saturday for the fourth year during Parents Weekend.
“This is so cool,” Julie Marchiano, a Second City member, said when addressing the audience. “This is like if all of my Facebook friends were in one room.”
The performance, which was part of the Ohio University Performing Arts and Concert Series, had an audience of nearly 1,500, Andrew Holzaepfel, senior associate director of the Campus Involvement Center, said.
A musical director aided the group through sound effects, which included the sound of a robot during one of the sketches.
Improvised sketches, including different time periods and characters, left the audience laughing and clapping throughout the evening.
All six members kicked off the show with two scenes that consisted of a long bus ride and later, with the same six chairs, they were at a dinner table acting as screaming children, a confused father and a struggling mother.
The Second City members acted as multiple characters including girls at the gym, platonic friends who wanted to share their dreams about one another, bike cops from Chicago and a girl with embarrassing parents.
Carly Brodax, an undecided freshman who attended the show, said she enjoyed the show overall but specifically enjoyed the Chicago bike cops.
“I thought it was excellent,” Doug Brodax, a visiting parent, said. “(I liked) all the impromptu stuff, just switching skits — ends of skits and beginnings of skits. I thought every one of them was so unique in different ways.”
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The members later performed a sketch about daily life over and over but set in a different time period each time, which included references to Hozier, Oasis and Elvis Presley.
“I did improv before and I couldn’t believe the way they came up with things at the tops of their heads like with the dates that the crowd screamed,” Rebekah Markovitz, a freshman studying journalism, said.
Markovitz, who was sitting in between her parents, said she was glad the show wasn’t as crude as the comedy show earlier in the year, which featured Saturday Night Live comedian, Aidy Bryant. She added the comedy was fitting for all ages.
“There were a couple jokes my parents laughed at where I was like, ‘Uh, I don’t get that one,’” she said. “But then there were a couple Harry Potter jokes they cracked, and I was cracking up about the Hufflepuffs and my parents were like, “What is that?’ ”
Susan Markovitz, Rebekah’s mother, said she saw The Second City years ago and immediately wanted to buy tickets after hearing there would be a show at OU.
“It’s good to laugh,” Susan said. “There aren’t a lot of things to laugh about these days, so it’s good to have some humor in your life again."
The final scene included all six members on stage singing about a new baby being born in the world today. The baby may grow up with her “vagina belonging to the state” and polar bears being extinct, but the baby is growing up in a world that accepts preferred pronouns and a president who isn’t white.
The six members sang one last word of advice before saying thanks and taking their bows.
“Be true to yourself and stay positive,” they said.
Holzaepfel said from what he heard from clapping and applause, the audience seemed to enjoy the show.
“I continue to think it’s a good fit for Parents Weekend,” he said. “It works out pretty well. It’s not too long of a show, and it’s an easy thing to come from dinner to see the show and still have the rest of the evening (for parents) to do whatever with their son or daughter.”
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