These days, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts is in it for the laughs. But this embrace of comedy has a serious purpose: bringing in people who rarely, if ever, visit its theaters.
The effort starts Thursday when Second City, the famous Chicago-based improvisational theater, opens “Red Scare” at the Garner Galleria Theatre. The show takes a satirical look at U.S. culture and politics, lifting its name from the red states-blue states division in recent national politics.
“We’re hoping to be successful in attracting a new demographic, a new audience to the center,” DCPA president Randy Weeks said.
In the past the lure was musical reviews such as “Always … Patsy Cline,” which in its first run, Aug. 5, 1995 to March 28, 1999, became the longest-running stage production in Denver history. It held that distinction until “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” racked up 1,731 performances between June 29, 2000 and Aug. 29, 2004.
“This (Second City) is definitely not a normal little, small musical cabaret show that we have had in the cabaret space in the past,” Weeks said. “It is something completely different. So we are kind of putting our necks on the line and taking a chance here.”
The center has hedged its bet by bringing in perhaps the best-known brand name in sketch comedy outside of “Saturday Night Live.”
That show owes part of its success to the many writers and cast members who came to it from Second City theaters in Chicago and Toronto. Those luminaries include Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Martin Short, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, Tim Meadows and Tina Fey.
Founded in 1958, Second City alums include an earlier generation of entertainers, among them Alan Arkin, Alan Alda, Peter Boyle, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Robert Klein, David Steinberg, Joan Rivers and Bonnie Hunt.
Second City vice president Kelly Leonard said one of the theater’s major draws over the years is giving audiences a chance to see big-name talents before they get their big names.
“The shows are terrific but really at the root what people are seeing is really incredible talent, young talent that you hope in five to 10 years from now is going to be the Steve Carells, the Stephen Colberts and Tina Feys,” Leonard said in a recent telephone interview from his office in Chicago.
Weeks hopes such comedic talent can bring a new generation of theatergoers to the downtown arts complex.
“We have always thought of the cabaret space as sort of an entry portal to the performing arts complex, something that is relatively inexpensive, relatively accessible,” Weeks said. “It’s not like trying to get someone to come down to the performing arts complex for the first time to see William Shakespeare.”
Leonard said that keeping ticket prices as low as possible was important to Second City as well, even though it is an Equity theater.
“A lot of our audience doesn’t know they are coming to an Equity theater and doesn’t really care,” he said. “But it is important because that’s at the root of our work. But we need to be an accessible kind of entertainment. We’re not expensive.”
Ticket prices for “Red Scare” are $25 for Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday shows and $28 for Friday and Saturday’s four performances. That’s cheaper than the $32-$38 you would pay for the musical revue “My Way.”
“Red Scare” comes to Denver from the main stage at Second City. It is the first time since 1985 that a main-stage show has been exported to another city at the end of its Chicago run.
Running time for the two-act “Red Scare” is 90 minutes with intermission. It is a scripted show developed entirely in improvised sessions.
After each show the cast returns for one more act, an improvised set. It runs for 30-60 minutes, depending on how well it’s going over.
“The third act, which is fully improvised, is where we are testing out material,” Leonard said. “Maybe we are testing out something that someone came up with during the day. But it is more likely we’re getting suggestions from the audience and improvising off of those.”
People are let into the theater for free to fill any empty seats for the improv sessions. Fans line up outside Second City’s door at 1 a.m. on Saturdays to grab the seats of those who leave after the second act.
Each night’s improvisation is recorded. Material that hits a chord with the audience or the performers is honed and refined in rehearsal.
“And then we look to slowly take old material out of the first two acts and substitute the new material,” he said. “Once we are 50 percent new material we … select an opening date and start to craft the theme that has emerged out of these various scenes and songs and improvisations.”
Both Second City and the DCPA hope that happens here.
It would mean that Second City will be here past its scheduled closing date of May 21 and that Weeks will catch the theater newcomers he seeks.
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
The Second City: Red Scare
SKETCH COMEDY|Galleria Theater at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, 14th and Curtis streets. Preview: 8 p.m. Thursday and 7 and 10 p.m. Jan. 27; opens Jan. 28 and runs through May 21 | Previews, $20; regular, $25-$28 |303-893-4100 or denvercenter.org for tickets and showtimes
