Recap Running the Second City Letters To Santa marathon: an A.V. Club relay race

Second City’s 10th annual Letters To Santa marathon wrapped up at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7. The preceding 24 hours were full of improv comedy, live music, and, most important, giving. The Letters To Santa program raises money for impoverished families throughout Chicago, with a basic mission statement of “actual cash to actual families on actual Christmas Day.”

The show’s driving force was a power trio of improv hotshots—T.J. Jagodowski, Tim Baltz, and Brendan Jennings—who were joined by more than 50 of the city’s finest improvisers, as well as musical guests like The Mountain Goats, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and Jeff Tweedy live via iChat.

In celebration of this landmark event, The A.V. Club took up residence for the whole shebang, from 7 p.m. Tuesday until 7 p.m. Wednesday, and has wiped the sleep from its eyes to recount the entire hilariously fatiguing fundraiser.

Tuesday, Dec. 6, 7:04 p.m.: Jagodowski, Baltz, Jennings, and 10 other performers open the show by soliciting the crowd for a massive amount of suggestions, ranging from the mundane, such as “Rod Blagojevich” and “IT consultant,” to left fielders like “Nha Trang, Vietnam” and “open heart surgery.” The suggestions are collected on a white board, to be used to inspire scenes throughout the first portion of the evening. [Matt Byrne]

7:10 p.m.: SNL alum Tim Meadows appears onstage amongst a sea of improvisers, observing the onstage action before being solicited by Jagodowski to take on a scene in office holiday party. The climax of the scene comes when the “Cosby sweater” given as a gift to each employee is revealed to be a sweater with Bill Cosby’s face on it. Meadows’ nervous subordinate tries to convince him of his gratitude, closing the scene with a hilariously off-base impression. [MB]

7:32 p.m.: After a few more rapid-fire scenes, the improvisers take a break to hear from the evening’s first guest, Jeff Tweedy. Unfortunately, Wilco had a show booked in Minneapolis the same night, so Tweedy chatted with Jagodowski and several audience members over video chat. He was self-effacing in his explanation of his absence, chuckling, “It’s my fault I’m not here, because I’m an idiot.” The conceit of the Tweedy performance is revealed as such: Requests would be auctioned off to audience members, who bid money that goes directly to the Letters To Santa program. Several hundred dollars were raised this way, with Tweedy playing acoustic versions of “Born Alone,” “Via Chicago,” and, by crowdsourced request, “California Stars.” [MB]

7:55 p.m.: Jagodowski announces that a private house show from Tweedy would be put up for auction, resulting in a climactic bid-off between three extremely generous parties. Things come to an end when each party involved agree to each donate $25,000 to Letters To Santa in exchange for a show at each of their houses. Everybody wins! [MB]

8:46 p.m.: The improv scenes have slowly began evolving from quick, one-off gagfests into the more in-depth, long-form scenes pioneered here in Chicago. Leading the transition was an absurdist vision of the “Occupy Plymouth Rock” movement, led by a gang of wicked awesome Bostonian caricatures. [MB]

9:14 p.m.: As the evening goes on, musical improv and games are introduced to keep the performers on their toes. A song featuring a pimp at the dentist is among the highlights of the early musical games. [MB]

9:30 p.m.: The event’s first live musical performer (other than the singing pimp) is Nina Nastasia, a folk singer whose haunting vocals and nuanced songwriting is juxtaposed with a pleasant onstage demeanor, as Nastasia tells stories inspired by her songs and vice versa. Her holiday-themed tales of horrifying gifts and accidental theft of Christmas trees will go on to inspire improv scenes later in the show. [MB]

9:53 p.m.: Nastasia closes her first of two brief sets with a moving performance of an unreleased track called “Beautiful Day.” The gang of improvisers returns to the stage and navigate the jarring change in mood from quiet reverence to all-in improv comedy. [MB]

10:35 p.m.: With Tim Meadows spending most of the time hanging around offstage, another recognizable late-night TV face has thrust himself to the forefront. Kevin Dorff, perhaps best known for his ridiculous recurring characters on Late Night With Conan O’Brien and as Mike The Federal Agent on Adult Swim’s Delocated, has spent the last three or so hours firing on all cylinders, committing to every bit with the energy of an excitable first-year improv student. [MB]

10:55 p.m.: Jagodowski introduces the next segment, an improvised joke-off featuring jokes beginning with “1001 [blank]s walk into a bar ... ,” with audience suggestions filling in the blank. Once a suggestion is picked, 20 or so improvisers take turns offering up terrible puns and purposefully half-assed references, beating each topic to death before moving onto the next. The most successful (and absurd) topic was “Washington crossing the Delaware,” which made for an entertaining watch, as the performers grappled with the clunky mouthful of “1001 Washington crossing the Delawares walk into a bar ...” [MB]

11:32 p.m.: Riding the wave of energy from the “1001” jokes segment, another panel-based bit begins. The performers line up across the stage and each state their area of expertise, and the floor is then opened to questions from the audience. If an audience question stumps the performer, they must donate $5 into the Letters To Santa till, but if the performer answers correctly, the audience member has to donate. Topics range from ’90s-era pro skateboarders to demonology to the state of Arizona. [MB]

11:45 p.m.: The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle joins onstage, offering up “non-Ozzy Black Sabbath” as his field of knowledge. Unfortunately, no one picks this particular topic. But the trivia showdown is, by this point, a runaway success. The segment contributed a nice chunk of change and whipped the audience into a frenzy, with everyone going especially nuts when a performer correctly answered an impossibly specific question. [MB]

Wednesday, Dec. 7, 12:02 a.m.: The trivia portion comes to a close, and Darnielle retrieves his guitar from backstage. A bundle of nervous enthusiasm, Darnielle announces opens his solo set with the customary, “Hi, we’re The Mountain Goats,” before flying into a gleeful, transcendent performance, stomping around the stage unamplified, with his unique wail riling up the now packed house into a sea of enthusiasm and adulation. Darnielle’s wildly engaging stage presence and refreshing sincerity makes for an already legendary performance 10 minutes in. [MB]

12:14 a.m.: Audience members begin accompanying their requests with dollar amounts, and the fun begins. The remainder of the hour-long performance is dictated by generous fans, a healthy mix of longtime disciples and casual admirers, with the set list reflecting that. “No Children,” one of The Mountain Goats’ most popular (and soul-crushing) songs went for $40, while “Dance Music,” from 2005’s The Sunset Tree went for a whopping $300. [MB]

12:55 a.m.: Darnielle prefaces his final song with thanks to the evening’s improvisers, declaring “improvisers make something from where there was nothing, and that’s what God does.” This causes the crowd to explode with enthusiasm, which carries over when Darnielle launched into a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town,” capped off with a chorus from R. Kelly’s “Ignition (Remix).” Darnielle played a single-song encore on the piano, “Enoch 18:14,” a B-side from The Mountain Goats’ biblically themed LP, The Life Of The World To Come. [MB]

1:14 a.m.: Much of the crowd has cleared out following the end of Darnielle’s set, but the remaining group seems somehow exhausted and energetic at the same time, game for more comedy, but quite tired. In an attempt to bring back the energy after the cathartic Mountain Goats set, the cast performs a series of rapid-fire scenes based around a torrid love affair between Rod Blagojevich and a federal agent. This seems to work for the time being, but the reality of a 24-hour improv blowout has began its descent. [MB]

2:18 a.m.: An anonymous donor gives $1,000 to Letters To Santa in exchange for another song from Darnielle, who walks amongst the crowd, locking eyes with various audience members for extended periods of time throughout his moving performance of the infidelity tale, “So Desperate.” [MB]

2:30 a.m.: The slew of performers deliver a solid block of improv: Highlights included scenes about underage kids drinking in the woods and waxing philosophically about werewolves and vampires, what happened after “someone already having let the dogs out,” and a variety of aerospace programs arguing over who had control of a specific communication channel—Huston, a European program, a guy in Denver with a ham radio, a restaurant that makes Denver omelets, and Lance Bass. 
Choice quote: “I didn’t know vampires couldn’t have leftovers, that sucks!” [Leor Galil]

3:15 a.m.: Technical issues delay Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker, so a handful of improvisers quickly string together a hilarious scene about a high school choir teacher who mixes Christmas carols and math—“algebra mishmash Christmas songs”—in an effort to teach the one Jewish student a lesson. Parker and frequent collaborator Josh Abrams finally get going, but their elegant, melodic jazz numbers were a little too mellow for the hour. However, their take on Thelonious Monk’s “Played Twice” proves to be a livelier affair, as the two playfully engage one-another, and Abrams slaps his upright base with great fervor. That, and a short break for improv, keeps the energy from dipping too early. [LG]

4:07 a.m.: Things begin getting goofy with an epic game of freeze tag where improvisers choose other performers to switch into a scene, as things eventually devolve into scenes rife with in-jokes—ensemble player Sam Richardson played “Ultra Sam Richardson”—and celebrity impersonations. Other highlights include a scene of a one-person protest against eating chicken and a few fizzled attempts to build scenes based on entries in a dictionary of dreams from 1984. 
Choice quote: “If that chicken starts speaking English then, by God, you’ve got a protest!” [LG]

5:05 a.m.: Bonnie “Prince” Billy And The Cairo Gang start their first of three sets with a few upbeat ditties propelled by Emmett Kelly’s nimble flamenco-esqe guitar work and sprinkled with light xylophone notes. The band’s choice to cover a song off a compilation called Fun Tunes For Recovering Kids called “My Nurse Smelled Like Coconuts” ratcheted up the fun tone of the set, as members of the band held back laughter every time Billy sang the hilarious lyrics (sample: “She smelled like coconuts / Hairy brown coconuts”) with a humorously inflected tone of anger. The final two sets present a warm, somber sound anchored by some dazzling vocal harmonies. The improv sets slated in the middle of Billy and company’s performance felt lacking, particularly after the band closed its set with Billy and Angel Olsen recruiting a couple of friends to stand in front of them and mime their singing and dancing for the final tune, “Quail And Dumplings.” [LG]

6:08 a.m.: The space clears out after Bonnie Prince Billy leaves, and diehards get to catch lines about reading the novelization of the Catch 22 movie, T.J. Jagodowski rapping about Black Friday (“Aaaah shit, scarves!”), and an adept interpretive dance recreating The Shawshank Redemption. Punk icon and Letters To Santa organizer Steve Albini introduces a new competitive game, “What do you bring to the table?” where act people tell a unique story that two teams then act out. Unfortunately the original stories—such as Albini’s tale of briefly getting stuck in quicksand in France—often best the improvised recreations.
Choice quote: “There’s a cake for everything in this family!” [LG]

7:42 a.m.: Everyone knows kids say the darndest things, but improvisers trying to perform with kids—having them guess certain words, play a game of freeze, and act out a fairy tale with a reference to My Giant—ranks up pretty high on the scale of things that can be labeled “darndest.” It also makes for one adorable performance. [LG]

8:15 a.m.: With the audience down to a baker’s dozen at one point, some improvisers begin to lose their grip on scenes. Fortunately, a musical about eating too much popcorn ends the stint of comedy on a high note, and Jagodowski gives everyone a reprieve from the space by asking folks to write something nice on a slip of paper and place it on the windshields of cars in the parking lot adjacent to Second City.
Choice quote: “You know that thing where I get a super-big popcorn and show off by eating it all?” [LG]

8:52 a.m.: Danielson members Daniel and Elin Smith roll out three sets of spritely, quirky stripped-down indie-folk, as Daniel’s high-pitched yelp and casual, intimate demeanor—as well as his invitation to have people clap or form a conga line for “People’s Partay”—help keep things upbeat despite the obvious signs of fatigue. The improvisers turn things up a notch between the musical sets, stringing together a surreal storyline involving a group of campers who won’t sleep, a deadly limbo contest, and a series of court cases for one funny callback after another.
Choice quote: “Yeah, but learning’s for forgetting.” [LG]

10:08 a.m.: A short scene about the James Bond of Wisconsin—packed with lots of “you betchas” and cheese jokes—proves to be the brightest spot in a particularly rough block of improv. [LG]

11:00 a.m.: “The toughest part is not the overnight, it’s the early morning,” says Paul, an audience member who has attended for several years. “That’s when you realize that you’ve been here for 12 hours.” But one gets the idea that this event would not be possible without such a supportive audience. Paul is not an improviser of any kind, and doesn’t know any of the performers personally, yet for years he would travel from his home in New York City to make it through the long day with them. Luckily, he now lives in Chicago. “It’s easy,” he says, modestly. “There’s a 24-hour Starbucks downstairs, and a 24-hour Walgreens across the street.” [Samuel Zelitch]

Noon: With 17 hours behind them and seven still to go, and the improvisers are on their last tank of wits. Two women begin a scene endowed with “dubstep” and, not knowing what “dubstep” is, manage to create their own unique genre of music. A trio of men is asked to play carpenters who dance burlesque. A couple of golfers sing reggae. [SZ]

1:00 p.m.: What does it take for a person to improvise for this long? Some suggest 5-Hour Energy Drink, while others swear off all caffeine. Tami Sagher, who now lives in Los Angeles and writes for How I Met Your Mother, suggests Earl Grey as a pick-me-up and lemon ginger tea to relax. “The breaks are great,” she says, referring to musical interludes between improv sets when the improvisers would get to sit down with the audience for as long as the musician played. Letters To Santa veteran Rebecca Sohn, who performed at the very first show, treats the whole ordeal like a trip overseas. “I dread it for about a month and a half beforehand, and then, about a week before, I try to make a list of things I think I’ll need and get as much sleep as possible.” At the very least she tries “not to go crazy with carbs and sugar” despite all of the candy, cookies, and pizza brought backstage. Sohn’s most memorable line of the night comes during a game of “Sex With Me”: “Sex with me is like a pinball machine: It only costs a quarter.” [SZ]

2:00 p.m.: Robbie Fulks doesn’t remember how many Letters To Santa events he’s performed at, but he guesses it’s around eight or nine. His percussionist, Gerald Dowd, came equipped with only two sets of drumsticks and the jug from an Ice Mountain cooler. That’s the kind of show this is. Just before launching into an lovely duet with Nora O’Connor, Fulks realizes that Dowd has never heard the song before, a Jimmy Driftwood number called “Shanty In The Holler.” Fulks tells him, “Just give us a ‘tiki taki tiki taki,”” and strums the first chord. [SZ]

3:00 p.m.: Heather Whinna, one of the original organizers, is always impressed by the crowds—even the people who only come for the improv. “A ton of people in the audience are people who don’t listen to music, but they’re totally intrigued because they can recognize when someone has talent and skill.” Many audience members had, in fact, come with the intention of seeing any one of the musical acts who rounded out the event: O’Connor, Fulks, The Blisters, and Helen Money, who flew in from Los Angeles for her set. It’s clear that the culture inside of the E.t.c. stage is supportive and fun, with almost everyone open to new experiences. But the embryo was Jagodowski’s love of improv, and its DNA hasn’t changed. In order to support the cast of actors, O’Connor “tried to pick songs that had a good story,” but still had fun when her songs were reinterpreted as two darkly comic scenes, one about people stuck down a well and another about oral sex in heaven. No one (actors, musicians, or Second City staff) gets paid for working on Letters To Santa. [SZ]

4:00 p.m.: After watching Steve Albini personally set up the sound equipment for Helen Money, one would think they’d seen it all. Turns out, one just hasn’t heard Noah Gregoropoulos tell his story about appearing on Merv Griffin’s Crosswords yet. [SZ]

5:00 p.m.: Letters To Santa is 10 years old this year, and the only one in the room present during the original conception is Jagodowski. And he’s happy to tell the story, even during his cigarette break. In 2001, Jagodowski and scene partner Andy Cobb were performing in the Second City revue Holy War, Batman! During one evening’s improv set, Jagodowski commented offhandedly that he wished he had the chance to improvise more. Cobb took him seriously, and replied, “So, why don’t we do it for 24 hours, man?” Though Cobb is not performing this year, Jagodowski has returned every year since, and only will shyly admit to being the host (he prefers to say he “helps to host”). “It’s hard make it through all 24,” he says, and will offer the first invitations only to the improvisers he can trust with the task. His own strategy combines intermittent doses of caffeine, water, whiskey, nicotine, and (new this year) tri-color tortellini. [SZ]

5:54 p.m.: The Blisters are packing their gear to go home for the night, stopping to comment that they had just played their “greatest show ever.” Inside the theater, Jagodowski returns to the stage to explain how the rest of the evening will look. “We’ve got one hour and six minutes left,” he tells his fellow actors, loud enough for the audience to hear, “so let’s just plow through and not take a breath.” [SZ]