On Theater: Playhouse getting ‘More Pacific’

For the past 50 years, hundreds of funny people have passed through the doors of Chicago’s Second City. Among its alumni are Alan Alda, John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Ratner, Alan Arkin, Elaine May, Mike Myers, Barbara Harris, Stephen Colbert, Catherine O’Hara and today’s TV favorites Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Simply put, Second City knows the Long (Shelley) and the Short (Martin) of comedy.

But just as Chicago no longer is America’s second city (Los Angeles has long possessed that title), the Second City isn’t confined to the Windy City. Its tentacles have reached far and wide, and next weekend they’ll stretch all the way to Laguna Beach.

Specifically (or, more accurately, Pacifically), the Second City will bring its sketch comedy talents to the Laguna Playhouse for a production titled “Can You Be More Pacific?”

“If you have lived in Orange County for any length of time, you will see yourself, your neighbor or your favorite plastic surgeon highlighted on stage for a good ribbing,” the playhouse promises. “From real housewives to finding sand in all the wrong places, this California adventure is a comedy ride that can’t be missed and won’t require a toll road.”

The Second City is the leading brand in improv-based sketch comedy with theaters in Chicago and Toronto, training centers in those cites as well as Hollywood, 11 full-time touring ensembles, corporate communications and theatricals divisions as well as television and film operations.

This internationally acclaimed sketch-comedy company has custom crafted a production for the playhouse to take comic potshots at Orange County in general and the Art Colony in particular.

The Laguna production is one of a plethora of Second City offerings created with pun in hand, such as “Disgruntled Employee Picnic or the Postman Always Shoots Twice,” “Economy of Errors,” “Take Me Out to the Balkans,” “Inhale to the Chief” or “Iraqtile Dysfunction.”

“Can You Be More Pacific?” will be presented through April 11 and reservations are being taken at the playhouse box office, (949) 497-2787.

If You Go

What: “Can You Be More Pacific”

Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday

Tickets: $30 TO $65

Information: (949) 497-2787 ext. 1 or www.lagunaplayhouse.com

TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Coastline Pilot.