Late Live Show Debuts
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 25, 2010 9:20PM
Post By: Kristy Mangel
A new late night comedy-musical-theatrical experience is coming to Second City’s de Maat Theater this Saturday, taking residency in the cozy venue every Saturday at midnight until August 7. Co-hosts CJ Toledano and Joe Kwaczala will be welcoming Chicago personalities from a variety of disciplines to the first Late Live Show, including graphic novelist Paul Hornschemeier, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, AV Club head writer Nathan Rabin, musical guest Tom Schraeder, and more.
Toledano has been a fan of the late night talk show for seemingly his whole life, Conan O’Brien being an obvious source of inspiration. He came a few millimeters close to working with his hero about three years ago, nearly landing a coveted script intern position at Late Night with Conan O’Brien. However, at the last minute the position was offered to Luke Russert, son of famed journalist Tim Russert. Toledano then scratched his NYC plans and moved to Chicago, where he entered Second City’s Comedy Studies program in 2007 and continued studies at the Conservatory, graduating from their program in 2009.
Toledano remembers his first exposure to the late night talk show. “At an early age, I had a fear of sleeping alone and when my brother got his own room, I used to try and sleep in my parents’ bedroom all the time. They watched late night talk shows like [Jay] Leno and [David] Letterman so that's how I got introduced to it. Although I never really became fans of Leno or Letterman’s personalities, I was definitely into the idea of a talk show host presenting new and different comedy five nights a week. It gave me reason to try and tune in every night. My fear of sleeping alone gradually turned into just a reason to watch television way past my bedtime,” he said.
In envisioning the format of their new show, Kwaczala says, “We're really trying to make a new live entertainment experience in the city by combining all the elements that have made Chicago comedy so popular (sketch, improv, stand-up) and presenting it in the classic late-night format that up until now you could only see on television.”
In addition to striving to be an exciting live experience, the Late Live Show will be recorded and eventually broadcast on the Internet and CANTV, Toledano said. The staff, which includes Andrew Smreker (head writer), Joe McAdam, AJ Conover, filmmaker Daniel Kibblesmith, Ethan Peldo, and Kevin Lee, have already been hard at work, creating and launching a video countdown over the last thirty days.
“The thing about the early ‘90s Saturday Night Live cast (guys like [Chris] Farley, [David] Spade, [Adam] Sandler) was that they all genuinely seemed like best friends. It gives evidence to my theory that the best comedy is created when you’re at your most comfortable and you’re at that point when hanging out with your best friends. That’s the approach I had when assembling our staff for The Late Live Show. Our dynamic is that we’re friends first and we create comedy organically through hanging out. Nothing is forced in our process,” Toledano says.
The Late Live Show starts tomorrow, June 26, through August 7, at 11:59 p.m. Second City’s de Maat Theater, 1616 N Wells St., tickets can be purchased here.