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Who's At Second?

In his first production with The Second City-Detroit, resident director
Michael Gellman joins Motown's comedy big leagues.

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to The Jewish News

club at the University of Chicago
doing Brecht and Moliere," the new
resident director explained. "The
material now is much shorter, a stacca-
to kind of presentation instead of a
two- or three- or five-act play."
Gellman debuted his improvisa-
tional humor as a class clown in ele-
mentary school and knew that he

would make humor his career when
he became a teen-ager watching top-
draw comics.
He took acting and directing classes
at the University of Minnesota, where
he studied television direction in grad-
uate school.
"Mostly theater people learn their
craft by doing," said Gellman, who

here is more than one
Michael Gellman in show
business, but that doesn't at
all bother the Michael Gell-
man who directs Second City comedy
revues.
When visiting New York, the
humor-driven showman gets some
perks for having the same name as the
often on-camera producer of "Live
With Regis and Kathie Lee."
"I'v - e gotten lots of great tables at
New York restaurants after I've called
to make reservations," said the Mid-
west-based name sharer, in town to
work on "Down Riverdance," the
12th original live comedy revue at
Motown's Second City.
"I walk into a New York restaurant
and hear, 'You're not Michael Gell-
man,' and I say, 'Yes I am.' I tell them
I'm from Second City, and they give
me the table anyway. It really is very
funny."
Gellman, 45, is one of eight direc-
tors who travel among Second City
theaters to direct specific shows, which
are put in place during several weeks
of rehearsals and two weeks of pre-
views.
"I've really enjoyed a couple of
things the Detroit cast is evolving and
developing," he said.
"One is [a segment] about corpo-
rate culture and how we're becoming a
part of that in terms of our society as
well as our workplace. The other [has
to do with] the resurgence of the mar-
tini, cigar bar attitude and how that
parallels the times of the late '50s and
early '60s."
Gellman is working with cast mem-
bers Larry Campbell, Margaret Exner,
Catherine Worth, Keegan-Micheal
Key, Eric Black, Brandon Johnson and
Mary Jane Pories and wants to encour-
age their individual styles of humor
without overriding the ensemble
expression.
- He hopes audiences will understand
that Second City is a comedy theater,
not a comedy club.
Michael Gellman, center, surrounded by the cast of The Second City — Detroit's
newest production, "Down Riverdance."
"Second City started as a theater

7