Revolving Door Policy
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Minor, a native of Flint, Michigan, who’s performed with Second City Detroit, Second City E.T.C., and Second City Toronto, left the company on good terms, lured away to join the cast of HBO’s Mr. Show. Since then he’s worked on a handful of television shows, including The Martin Short Show, The Daily Show, and Saturday Night Live. So it was no surprise when Second City producer Kelly Leonard invited him to move his successful two-person stage show, Jerry Minor Is a Black Man, from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York to Donny’s Skybox Studio Theatre, on the third floor of Piper’s Alley.
Farahnakian and Michalski, on the other hand, were less fondly remembered. Farahnakian was fired twice, the first time in 1996, for inciting a crowd of promgoers whose school had paid for a special performance, specifically asking that none of the performers use the F word. “Ali got onstage,” Leonard remembers, “and told the audience, ‘I can’t use the F word, but you can.’” In less than a minute he had the whole room chanting “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
A washout at Lane Tech, Michalski enlisted in the navy in 1971 to avoid being drafted. After he was discharged he returned to Chicago and tried his hand at comedy, taking classes in improv at the Players Workshop. Unlike most improv students he stuck with it, going on to work with a series of well-regarded troupes–the Saint Vitus Dancers, the Comedy Rangers–before landing a spot in the Second City touring company in 1980.
After two more E.T.C. shows, Michalski was sent to open a Second City branch in Los Angeles. “We started strong. We got good reviews,” he says. But the show faltered when Second City tried to “go Hollywood,” hiring a name star (SCTV alum Andrea Martin) and trying to generate ideas for network sitcoms. “We crashed and burned.” The franchise closed down, and after working for Second City for nearly ten years Michalski found himself stranded with his wife, fellow Second City alum Jane Morris, and their kids. “No one even offered me a plane ticket back to Chicago.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Newberry.
