“First and most important, Second City gave me a place to go; it gave me a place to function. That was the main thing. And the second most important thing, which was very, very close to the first, was that it gave us a place to fail. Which doesn’t exist in this civilization anymore. There is no place to fail anymore. And failing at something is crucial. You don’t learn from anything unless you fail. And we were not only allowed to fail, but almost encouraged to take chances every night onstage. We knew that twenty, thirty, sometimes forty percent of what we were doing wasn’t going to work, and Sills never said anything about it, Bernie never said anything about it, and the audience didn’t mind. They knew that two things would fail and the next thing would be glorious.”
–Alan Arkin
Excerpted from The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Comedy Theatre … By Mike Thomas
“It gave us a place to fail.”
