Second Nature was founded on November 19, 2002. The troupe performs every Thursday night in USC's PED Building, providing free, comedic, one-hour shows. Second Nature regularly performs with other improv troupes from all over Los Angeles, and the United States. The collegiate troupe is known for the Fracas! Improv Festival, one of the largest intercollegiate improv comedy festivals in the world. Additionally, Second Nature pioneered The Facebook Show, an improvised comedy show based entirely on the Facebook profiles of audience volunteers.
Since its debut, Second Nature has become a regular part of campus life at USC, and has begun the careers of several comedians, actors, and directors.
History
Second Nature was founded in 2002 by a group of USC students interested in performing improvised comedy. The troupe is a recognized student organization within the University of Southern California. The group chose the name Second Nature based on the idea that performing spontaneous theatre should become "second nature" to the cast.
The style of Second Nature's comedy has changed with time, as the students have become more passionate and knowledgeable about improvisational theatre. Originally, Second Nature performed ComedySportz style shows, with the troupe split into two competing factions. After being influenced by The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and The Groundlings with whom the troupe had taken workshops, Second Nature adopted a more free flowing scenic style of improvisation. For the past few years, the troupe has been performing predominantly long-form improvisation, focusing on The Harold and The Armando, while occasionally performing other forms such as Text Message, The Town and The Bat.
Though Second Nature is fairly young, a number of professional performers began their careers with the troupe.
The Fracas! Improv Festival, or Fracas!, is an improvisational theatre festival created and hosted by Second Nature, and held annually at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles since 2004.
In The Facebook Show Second Nature projects the Facebook profile of an audience volunteer
Once a month, Second Nature performs Special Format Shows which contain either a special show format, or a special guest. As many special format shows are experimental, few receive a strong enough audience reaction to be performed multiple times. A notable exception is The Facebook Show.
The Facebook Show consists of three segments, roughly twenty minutes each. Each segment begins with an audience member volunteering to be interviewed by Second Nature. During the interview, the audience member logs on to their Facebook profile, which is projected on a screen, and explored in front of the live audience. Finally, Second Nature uses material from the volunteer's Facebook profile as the basis for their improvisation.
Second Nature's first Facebook Show was performed in 2005, when Facebook was open only to college students. However, since the social networking website has been opened up to the public, the show has become popular with a larger audience.
One of the many show formats Second Nature performs is The Armando. This format - developed at ImprovOlympic - involves a guest monologist (frequently a celebrity) who uses a suggestion from the audience to inspire a truthful, personal monologue. The improvisers then use the monologue as inspiration for a series of scenes, which in turn inspire a response from the monologist.
Second Nature has performed The Armando with the following guest monologists:
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.
Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines; see Applied improvisation.
The Groundlings is an American improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school based in Los Angeles, California. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin, whose improv techniques were taught by Del Close and other members of the Second City, located in Chicago and later St. Louis. They used these techniques to produce sketches and improvised scenes. Its name is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene II: "...to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise." In 1975 the troupe purchased and moved into its location on Melrose Avenue.
The Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) is an improvisational and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicago's ImprovOlympic in 1990. The original incarnation of the group consisted of Amy Poehler, Matthew Walsh, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Adam McKay, Rick Roman, Horatio Sanz and Drew Franklin. Other early members included Neil Flynn, Armando Diaz, Ali Farahnakian and Rich Fulcher.
The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre is an American improvisational and sketch comedy training center and theatre, originally founded by Upright Citizens Brigade troupe members Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh.
Harold is a structure used in longform improvisational theatre that is performed by improv troupes and teams across the world. In the Harold structure, characters and themes are introduced and then recur in a series of connected scenes. It was first performed in California by The Committee in 1967.
Matthew Paul Walsh is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for his role as Mike McLintock in Veep for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He is a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade sketch comedy troupe, with which he co-starred in its original television series and the 2015 reboot. He also previously starred in short-lived comedy programs such as Dog Bites Man and Players, and was a correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He has also appeared in films such as Road Trip (2000), Bad Santa (2003), School for Scoundrels (2006), Role Models (2008), The Hangover (2009), and The Do-Over (2016).
Spontaneous Broadway is an advanced long-form improvised performance, based on audience suggestions. The audience typically submits titles of songs that have never been written, and the performers choose suggestions to create songs, the audience votes through acclamation on their favorite song, which is then used as the core of a brand new Broadway musical.
Friday Nite Improvs, or Friday Night Improvs (FNI), was a long-running weekly improvisational comedy show staged on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show functioned as an improv jam, performed by improv actors who don't normally work together. FNI was unique in that, in addition to the audience's providing improv suggestions, the performers are all pulled from volunteers in the audience. FNI ended in 2014. A student improv group, Ruckus, has succeeded FNI as a resident improv group on the University of Pittsburgh's campus.
iO, or iO Chicago, is an improv theater and training center in central Chicago, with a former branch in Los Angeles, called iO West and in Raleigh, North Carolina called iO South. The theater teaches and hosts performances of improvisational comedy. It was founded in 1981 by Del Close and Charna Halpern. The theater has many notable alumni, including Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.
Gary Austin was an American improvisational theatre teacher, writer, and director who founded The Groundlings theatre company in 1974.
Unexpected Company is an improvisational comedy group founded in Hollywood, California in 1986 by Tim Hillman, and recreated in Rhode Island in 2003 by Hillman and Justin James Lang.
Respecto Montalban was an improvisational and sketch comedy troupe associated with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City from 1999 until September 2005.
The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is a not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group in Wellington, New Zealand. It is run by a committee elected by and from its forty to sixty active members. WIT performs both long and short-form improvisation.
SAK Comedy Lab (SAK) is a 250-seat Improvisational Comedy (Improv) theater in downtown Orlando, Florida. SAK's most notable alumnus is actor Wayne Brady, who has played as a guest player in several SAK shows since finding fame as a performer on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Let's Make a Deal, Chappelle's Show, and other projects. SAK's regular performers are referred to as the SAK Ensemble.
Jordan Black is an American actor and comedy writer.
Theatre Strike Force is the University of Florida's premier improv and sketch comedy troupe. The group also goes by TSF. The style of improv performed by Theatre Strike Force is a combination long form and short form. They both teach and perform improvisational comedy. They have six house teams which include both forms of improv as well as a sketch team. There are four long form house teams which are cast every semester and usually have six to eight members. The TSF Short Form Team is cast every semester as well and usually has fifteen to nineteen members. TSF Sketch is the final house team and usually has twelve to sixteen members, cast each semester.
The Fracas! Improv Festival is a three-day annual improvisational theatre festival held at The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. The festival is hosted by Second Nature Improv, one of USC's improv troupes. In addition to performances, the festival hosts discussion panels with professional improvisers currently working in television, film, and/or theatre, as well as improv workshops. While the performances and panels are open to the public, workshops are available only to registered festival participants.
Jessica McKenna is an American actress, comedian and singer. McKenna trained with The Groundlings and at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where she regularly performs. McKenna was one of the stars of Fox's Party Over Here, alongside Nicole Byer and Alison Rich, and hosted the podcast Off Book: The Improvised Musical until 2023.
The Free Association, or The FA, is an improvised comedy theatre and school, based in London. It is currently the largest provider of improvisation training in the UK.
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