Yes, writing at The Second City. The Second City Training Center is in the comedy-instruction business, and writing sketches, screenplays, and TV scripts is part of the comedy business. There's a market, and a reservoir of expertise, so they teach it. 
 
Second, the resident (mainstage and e.t.c) and touring shows at The Second City are at least 80% scripted, formally or informally. Pure improv fails about half the time. If you're good. If you're an improv aficionado, even the failures are interesting, but most of the audience wants to see a show that is reliably funny. It is no small achievement to be reliably funny; it is in fact a good and honorable thing. The Second City process for developing revues uses improvisational skills to develop scenes that will make up a good show. 
 
In some few cases, a scene will start as a script; trial and rehearsal will change it considerably. In most, a scene will be born in improv before a live audience (or in rehearsal), and go through the same process of refinement (possibly beyond recognition). The goal is to preserve the authenticity of sentiment and character that come of good, pure improv, but shave out the irregularities and dead spots, and enhance the scene's relation to the theme of the revue.  
 
So writing, even if by a group process, goes on all the time in the preparation for sketch comedy shows like the Second City mainstage. That's not a bad thing, and is worth learning. 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

It is good to have goals. Goals give you something to work for, and a sense that what you're doing accomplishes something. What is my plan for my return to The Scene? 

 

• My principal, and ultimate, goal is to step up to Rachel Dratch and make that woman mine. I've been crushing on her since 1995, and I think this entitles me to priority. Only debilitating shyness kept me from making my Move in the late '90s. Of course, this goal is not entirely within my control, but on the upside it does not strictly depend on any of the rest of my plan.
 

• Next (and as a practical matter, probably ultimate), I want to take The Second City Training Center's Directing Program. Anne's book leads me to believe I might be better as a director than as an improviser. My handicap at improvising was always that I stopped to analyze and mentally write what I was saying, producing noticeable gaps and crummy scenes. These traits should not hamper a director, whose job is mostly asynchronous. Also, the great Mick Napier is said (by Anne) to be into Physics and computer programming. I majored in Physics, and program Macintoshes for a living. QED.
 

• The problem is that the Directing Program's class size is very small, and the students are described as "select." I've been out of The Scene for over six years, and there are significant gaps in my training. I am probably not "select." So I have to build my credentials, and rebuild my skills.
 

• Naïvely, this would suggest I dive back into improvisational acting classes and keep an eye peeled for opportunities to perform. However, there is a complication: I'm fat. Really, really fat. Fat enough that I'm considering, and am a candidate for, bariatric surgery. That I'm fifty already limits my play with other actors (who seem to average 22); being slow and awkward makes it that much worse. Improv is a contact sport: I'd expect a player to be able to dive to the stage and stand back up, without injury or noticeable strain, within three to five seconds. I'm not gonna make it as I am.
 

• So. How to fill the time I'll be losing weight (one way or another) while renewing and advancing my skills? Fortunately, there is an interim solution: The Second City Writing Program. (The Directing Program description says the trainees will undertake improv and writing classes, but remember I'm trying to become "select.") There are two choices, at the start: Accelerated Writing, eight weeks for experienced writers and Conservatory graduates; and the Core Writing Program, four terms of eight weeks each, for everybody else. Strictly speaking, I qualify for the accelerated course, but I'm inclined to the longer one. Remember I'm stale, and in need of the extra time.
 

• With my weight (I hope) significantly reduced, I can contemplate improv courses. In principle, I might simply retake the Second City Conservatory program, but it would be a repetition. I think I'd get more out of it a second time, but there'd be too much temptation to act as though I had nothing to learn. Besides, I am weak on long-form improvisation. The place for that is what used to be called the ImprovOlympic, and is now known as the i.O. Theater. That will take a little over a year.
 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson

So I'm thinking of getting back into improvisational theater. If you've read my résumé — as who has not — you know that between 1996 and 1999, I took the beginning and Conservatory courses at The Second City. I also took two classes at Mick Napier's Annoyance Theater, but stresses in my real life made me spit sparks, emit smoke, and generally collapse there. I've been out of The Scene (but for an abortive audition at The Playground) since then. 
 
Why go back? In the rest of my life, I was at my best when I was in The Scene. I don't mean I was so awfully good at improvising (though I was high-average as a Conservatory student), but my interactions with work and others were unusually good. Second, I've just read Anne Libera's Second City Almanac of Improvisation, a fine book that recaptured the feel of the improv world for me. So it's back to The Scene for me. The question is: how? 

Posted by: Fritz Anderson