Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

Something That Was The Second City

I saw Caesar across the street at Orsi's. He too was fired, and he was devastated.

He sat with me and we talked. I told him I was fired too. I told him I'll probably have a good cry about it when I get home but my world was still okay. I was touring with Oui Be Negroes, I was now teaching around the country at festivals. I was still doing theatre in Chicago.

Things move on. Things change. I never thought about the idea of being in Second City to have Lorne Michaels pluck me out and hire me. I never thought about it, in all honesty.

I was hired at 30. Everyone thought I was too old then and I beat all those odds in the first place. I was fired at 32. Others have been fired from Second City and did just fine.

The bitter ones created a show called "Second City Didn't Want Us" and their horror stories from working there.  Raw, mean, and angry.

Then, I was fine. I was good. I was very happy I wasn't in a place where I gave up Oui Be Negroes for this to happen. I was still doing the thing that I loved. And for a shiny moment, I did that too with The Second City.

Everyone said how messed up it was that they let me go. Then, that was not my place to say. The weirdness that occurred in my mind had very little to do with me and a lot to do with others who so needed to be a part of The Second City Family.

You make your family where you need to make it. I made my family my husband, and my pre-Second City world, my life, while I was there.

I didn't hang out the way a lot of people did by the time I was at Second City. I didn't get there when the doors opened, and close the bars around it the next morning to arrive back hours later for the doors to open again.

I considered it The Most Wonderful Job in the World and just that. I went to my job when my job asked me to be there. I then went home to my husband. I did shows with Negroes when they did not need me at Second City on the bench.

In the grand scheme of things, Second The City Chicago was my day job and Oui Be Negroes was the thing I did that I very slowly realized was the thing I loved to do.

I head over to Second City on a Saturday morning. I grab coffee (with ice cream in it) from behind the bar. I check in. I rehearse someplace in the building for The Children's Show. I check into the office and say I'm leaving, maybe get a check I forgot. I go home.

But it was Saturday Night that was the best. I head over with Oui Be Negroes and we do a show wherever we were playing that night: Café Voltaire. iO Chicago upstairs. Live Bait. Sheffield's, The WNEP Theatre. The Playground. I call my day job and say I will be out of town for Black History Month, making sure my schedule did not conflict with Second City Rehearsals.

Oui Be Negroes, it turned out, was the thing I loved to do.

For those in the real know: Pictionary was my day job. Golden 50th was my real love.

My lack of extracurricular activities at Second City could have been my downfall. Being a not smooth round peg could have been another.

It didn't really matter. I was happy I got to grace those doors and walk up those stairs and be in that theater that held the likes of Alan Arkin and Barbara Harris and and Bill Murray for a good solid two years.

Not in all those words, but I told Caesar the same thing too. He would find his place in the improv world. And, he did.

I got home and I told Hans. He held me.

Surprisingly, I didn't cry.

***

UPDATE MAY 7th 2020.

Today I'm an open wound revisiting this account in my book.  A big open goddamn wound.

When I realize I'm one of the few African American teachers thrown out in the world now of now qualified actors trained at Second City in the BIPOC Community.

And the horribleness of it all  No one would know I even got a paycheck from The Second City once upon a time.  Why?  I'm not considered an Alumnus.  I'm not on the list anywhere at Second City.

Erased from history.  No pictures on the wall.  Nothing on the website.  When you search for my name and Second City?  What pulls up is my bio information made by myself.  

It's a pretty common thing really:  Black people erased from history on the things they have done.

I was in the touring company and in the Children's show.  I was on the payroll.  The only reasoning I can see is this:  I never made it to the mainstage.

And when I was let go from the Second City I was asked if I wanted to teach.  Back then I smiled nicely and said:  Well if I have been fired because I was not considered good enough to perform or any movement to the mainstage...why would you want me to teach the thing you think I'm not particularly good at?

It didn't make sense to me then.
And it doesn't make sense to me now.

The Open wound of the times of 1996 flood over me like salt over the Open Wound in 2020.

The reckoning has arrived for Second City in the form of people finally sharing again in horror stories.

Not a performance called "Second City Did Not Want Us"  but in a Zoom meeting that should have been titled:  Using People of Color for Marketing:  Stories of how to get free work and never have them see a paycheck.

What I experienced at The Second City is a drop in the decades of systemic racism bucket that has occurred to the BIPOC community today. Especially at Second City Hollywood.

I felt undermined in 1996 every time Oui Be Negroes was called The Dog and Pony Show.
I screamed in horror when a mixed cast of mostly African American women performing at Second City Hollywood was backhanded called "The Affirmative Action Show"

Being called a spearchucker in class.  My teacher not knowing what to do over twenty years ago.
Students having to duck straight on racism written for them TO PERFORM now and white teachers NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO.

Black women being put on the door as "greeters" without zero protection from the horrors of Hollywood Blvd and being told you "You can deal with it" but finally changing policy when it came to white women...

The story of a woman FIRED from her "Scholarship" (can this be DONE?) for taking a break and letting another intern watch the Box Office.  Being screamed at in front of everyone.  Taking away her scholarship BEFORE she graduated.  And then...

And then...

Charging her credit card for the remainder of her scholarship leaving her not being able to pay rent.

'I'm finally good enough to play with White People"

My pain runs deep.
I pointed people to The Second City.

One of the last time I was at Second City Chicago I was invited to the Christmas party being held MONTHS after Christmas.  A room full of people of color in a massive structure of classes and workshop spaces I toured.  Wow I thought.  This is amazing.

They had hired a live Karaoke band.  Someone decided to sing my Pavlov Dog song "Baby Got Back.  Two white women mangling this song on the Second City ETC stage.

I looked at Jonathan Pitts and yelled.  OH NO.  NOT THIS SONG.

I ran up on stage and to the women went...I got you when they were all turned around in Sir Mix A Lot's song.  I looked at the band and said "Pick up at I like them Round Big and Juicy" 

I turned to the audience and without the Karaoke machine sang my staple Karaoke song.  (even using the NEVER used "LA Face with an Oakland Booty" changing it to North Side Face with a South Side Booty! for Chicago).

After I was done I got a bit holler of applause.  The person on the mic asked, "Who are you?"

I said...
'My name is Shaun.  I used to work here"

Only a select few knew.  The rest had no idea in what capacity.
Those select few were African American.

The last time I was at The Second City Hollywood was for the Diversity Festival 2019.  The first time I was asked.  Not by The Second City to teach, perform, or even be on a panel.  I was invited by the people I did a pilot with the smallest part of the pilot.  

Not a soul knew me.  Not a single solitary soul.  Just some random black woman who might or might not be important for some reason.

First, they gave me the wrong name tag as they could not find my name on the list.
Then the director of the pilot came up to me with my name tag that she got.

My name was Shawn Laundry.  And I laughed and laughed and laughed and...

Why would anyone at Second City now know me as a former employee?  I'm nowhere on the wall.  I'm nowhere in history.  

The man hosting the showing from Chicago looked like he fell out of bed from a binger, and had as much excitement hosting the screening as if Beyonce would be excited to be the lead speaker for the Female Auxilary of The Indiana Chapter of Klan. 

He had no idea who I was.  I had no idea who he was.
And that was maybe for the best. 

I have been erased from the history books of The Second City.  Nowhere to be found unless I tell you.

Maybe outside of the paystubs and the SC Bag today?
Maybe that's the best thing that could have ever happened.

Now if you will excuse me.  I need a massive gauze and a splint for the never-ending gaping wound of being a black woman in improvisational comedy on the list of three people deemed worthy to teach in 2020