Second City teachers on landing a contract with pay increases, ‘succession’ clause
Two members of the comedy center’s faculty union described to WBEZ’s Reset a separation between the private equity ownership, which took over in 2021, and what happens in the classroom.
By Landon Jones, Bianca Cseke
Second City teachers on landing a contract with pay increases, ‘succession’ clause
Two members of the comedy center’s faculty union described to WBEZ’s Reset a separation between the private equity ownership, which took over in 2021, and what happens in the classroom.
By Landon Jones, Bianca CsekeUnionized teachers at the Second City comedy company have reached a tentative contract agreement, averting a strike that was planned this week.
Members of the union — which includes about 200 active Second City teachers and workshop facilitators — still need to vote on the agreement before it becomes finalized. The full terms of the agreement will not be made available to the public until after members vote.
Second City teaching faculty Chelsea Hood and Corey Bradberry joined WBEZ’s Reset on Tuesday to discuss the background of the union’s fight for a contract, the specialized knowledge that goes into teaching comedy and how improv skills can be applied anywhere in life. Second City management did not respond to a deadline request for comment.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Here are highlights from the conversation.
How are you feeling about the agreement? It’s been a long time coming, right?
Bradberry: “I’d say that we are in a breathe in phase but not fully breathed out as we’re finishing out the final details. But yeah, there was a marathon 13-hour bargaining session between our bargaining team and Second City leadership, which is unheard of in this two-year process.”
What details of the agreement can you share at this point?
Bradberry: “We had a recent surge of public support from students, audiences, the actors in the building, and that was critical in getting us across this potential finish line leadership. We had a lot of [contract] issues, the biggest of which was faculty pay for the training center, but also things like the successorship clause. Second City is now owned by ZMC, which is a private equity firm [the New York-based ZMC bought Second City in 2021], and we want to guarantee that if that private equity firm sells off Second City and our contract is still in effect that our contract would continue to be in effect. That was a huge sticking point until last Friday, when suddenly we were able to get everything that we wanted there.
So there’s a lot of noneconomic as well as economic policies that we were going through for not just teachers, but also music directors, and then facilitators, the people that are going into businesses to create custom educational content.”
Why are those sticking points so important to Second City educators?
Hood: “As someone who’s been performing for 15 years, I mean, I have a degree in performance. I’ve worked very, very hard to have the knowledge that I have. And I think that’s everybody in your faculty. You’re hiring people because of their value. And I think it’s really important to show that value back to them.”
Bradberry: “This is highly specialized work. It’s not what you might think of, ‘Oh, a couple of people come into a room and suddenly like we teach a little bit about comedy.’ There are also improv for anxiety and prep for wellness programs.
I think it’s important that because there’s such a separation in the private equity world between what’s happening in the classroom itself, and then what happens on the top level of decisions, that they understand the level of expertise and experience that their employees are bringing in.”
Tell us about your job as a comedy instructor.
Hood: “I sometimes will have a retired doctor in my class alongside a recent college graduate. You have to pull from like a massive spectrum of life experience and comedy industry experience to be able to give them both a successful classroom experience.”
What’s your favorite part of the job?
Hood: “I think once you start [the students] out, they’re terrified. I mean, I specifically teach stand-up so it’s already kind of a bucket list item for some people or like, this is gonna be my entire career. And you have to get them into a competent mindset. But also there’s a lot of editing. I mean, you’re operating from a place of like, ‘Please don’t do this off color joke’ and kind of helping people navigate that while not hurting their feelings, and then kind of gassing them up to get them to a showcase point. My favorite part is the final show that they get to do for friends and family.”
How do you approach an improv class? Are there folks that just really shouldn’t be there?
Bradberry: “No, anyone can do it. And that’s what I love is seeing people that say like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about this, my friend told me to sign up and like, paid for my class.’ But to see just over a short number of hours how these people can open up and explore a side of themselves that is shut down by a lot of areas in life. You’re told not to be creative. You’re told not to speak your mind. But we’re also interested in emphasizing group play, like how to say yes to somebody else’s ideas. And these are skills that apply to everywhere in life, not just to the comedy realm.”
Landon Jones is a producer for WBEZ’s Reset. Bianca Cseke is a digital producer at WBEZ.