Once upon a time, a little theater exploded into a phenomenon

I will admit to being jaded any day of the week. I will admit that selling tickets is not something I thought I would be doing at this point in my life. I will admit that dealing with customers gets me down. But I will also admit to admiring the hell out of people who have made their living making people laugh. In my opinion, it is one of the more difficult goals to obtain—be a respected comedian. And I can promise you that, even though I may forget who some of them are, I still can get geeky when an alum walks through the building. This being something I want to pursue, I just can’t help it.

The months of preparation and work leading up to this past weekend’s events still did not prepare me for the magnitude of what was going to take place in this building. First things first, let me give you an hour count. Here was my schedule from Thursday to Sunday.

Thursday— box office window from 4-9:30pm
Friday— 9-4 phone shift, back from 6pm-2:30am
Saturday— 9am-3am
Sunday—11am-4pm

Friday night was when it hit everyone that this was just an incredibly surreal time to work here. The first SCTV reunion show went up at 7pm. If you want to talk about things I’ll always remember, try this: seeing Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Martin Short, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas perform together onstage for the first time in years. Twice in a row…on the same night. Indescribable. Saturday, the theater became an absolute circus and there were people walking around here that were so successful and iconic, it blew my comedy nerd mind.




I started the morning with the Colbert Report panel, which was topped off by Colbert himself just cruising by the box office to check out his old workspace. Word has it, it’s one of the few places in this building that hasn’t changed.

Once the alumni shows began, all bets were off. In between the sketches they were performing onstage, alumni were having moments with Second City employees in various parts of the building. Friends were having discussions with Eugene Levy and Jeff Garlin in the hallways, I was offering Catherine O’Hara a menu, and Steve Carell was just straight up drinking a beer and telling me how he may or may not have blown out his voice while doing his famous Pictionary scene. Just buds. No big deal.

The topper on the weekend was when Horatio Sans walked over and introduced himself to me for no other reason than for me to say, “Nice panel discussion. I think you’re very funny. “

Surreal.

For a brief moment, I was reminded why I work here and how, even though I am constantly frustrated with customers and the fact that I answer phones for 8 hours at a time to pay the rent, Stephen Colbert and Nia Vardalos worked there too. So, maybe I was proud of myself for a hot minute. Maybe I was actually excited to get this job on an absolute fluke. Maybe, for the time being, I’m right where I should be. Maybe, just maybe, I got to tell Catherine O’Hara she’s been my comedy hero since I was a child and she may have said, “You are so sweet.”




Now…back to being jaded. I am a geek. ;)