Artist 7 Day Shorts

Shrinking the gap between Second City and Saturday Night Live even more, the improv-comedy titan has imported a tradition from its West Coast theater and brought it here: Every Tuesday night, participating Second City students, alumni, and faculty alike are all given a single suggestion to use as a jumping-off point of inspiration with which to make a two-minute digital short. You don't have to participate to watch these, so, just like every night on NBC, you can scoff at what isn't funny or you can man up and try your hand at crafting, shooting, and cutting together 120 seconds of funny. To help get people started, there's always a faculty jam—boasting the likes of Playground co-founder and SC teacher Scott Goldstein and physical-comedy specialist Dean Evans—that gets the ball rolling on riffing off the suggestions, which can be as widespread as "Lego" or "potatoes."

Updated 03/04/2010