For many years I worked happily in Chicago community theatres playing major roles in important plays, both classic and avant-garde. In 1967, Bernie Sahlins, Sheldon Patinkin and Paul Sills invited me to join a new company they were forming what’s now called The Second City. It was an opportunity not to be missed. The first play of the first (and last) season, Norman Mailer's The Deer Park, was a dismal failure, enlivened only by the pickets outside who were protesting the play's racism and misogyny. The set design had a fatal flaw: hanging on the back wall, center stage was a large electric sign with the number of scenes in reverse order, changing from 20 to 19 to 18 and so on as the play progressed (regressed). The bored and restive audience seized on the dwindling numbers with a greater interest than the action onstage. Their palpable relief as we hit zero was a kind of marvelous, if negative, demonstration of audience participation. The company folded soon after, but I finally had my Equity card.
