Spotlight at The Second City: December Review

Since September, one of my favourite monthly activities has been checking out the Spotlight at the Second City showcase of emerging sketch comedy troupes. The two-night show — produced and hosted by Taylor Hreljac and Gabe Meacher — has illustrated just how much promising up-and-coming talent there is in the city.

It’s a win win for everyone. Troupes get to perform half an hour of material — hard enough to organize at any venue, let alone at such a famous institution. Audiences, meanwhile, get to enjoy themselves by watching funny things that aren’t on their cellphones. 

This month’s show, which featured two fine comedy duos, was a revelation. I knew nothing about the first pair, Glen and Vinny, except that Glen’s alter ego, Ben Kopp, had performed in some Bad Hats Theatre shows and wrote the music and lyrics to the acclaimed recent Fringe musical Iris (says goodbye).

Turns out Kopp and Calvin Rea (Vinny) met in theatre school at TMU, and studied with instructor Leah Cherniak, one of the city’s pioneering clowns. 

That explains the duo’s clear, grounded work as red-nosed friends Glen and Vinny in three sketches. In the first, they take a simple interactive card trick and add a few variations you won’t find in most magic shows. There aren’t many character beats involved, but they provide some absurdly funny images, resulting in a clever blackout line. 

You get a better sense of their personalities in their next sketch, in which they’re separated as one goes off to college and the other constructs something that will, er, make them feel like their bestie is nearby. Some amusing physical comedy ensues. 

Their most polished sketch involves taking music lessons, where one turns out to have more natural talent than the other. Besides being a sharp allegory for trying to make it in any creative industry, it showcases different aspects of their clown personae, something that will only deepen as they continue to perform. Can’t wait to see more of their clowning around. 

The second act was Andy Assaf & Vivek Srikanthan, whose smart, subversive act would work well on any alternate comedy show in the city. 

Their opening sketch finds them in period costumes as a sailor and fighter pilot on leave in Europe in 1942, trying to find love, or maybe just a hookup, with local women. Their old-timey pickup lines meet major resistance, however, resulting in some truly absurd laughs. 

Their next sketch shows us what would happen if Oedipus Rex (Assaf) returned home and tried to take up political duties again. His proclamations, about everything from how to spell gyro to whether he’s in the Epsteinopoulous Files/Scrolls, are very funny. And a line about Emma Stone’s collaborations with Yorgos Lanthamos hits just the right note of Letterboxd hipsterism the two are clearly aiming for. 

A couple of sketches — one about a comic trying to make TikToks, the other about how computers make people racist — need some tweaking. 

But when Second City mainstage veteran Assaf slaps on a blond wig to play Jack Reacher as Jack Reach Around, stopping Srikanthan from committing crime in a unique way, things are gloriously, hilariously unhinged. 

Best of all? We all got a happy ending.

Spotlight at The Second City continues with new troupes in 2026
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