Face To Watch

The High Princess of Humor

Spain," a member of the audience cries. "Zamboni," shouts our another. "Paper clip. " "Banana." "Yes, banana." Without preparation, the six.actors on stage start improvising. They incorporate the word banana into a series of stream- of-consciousness scenes, riffing on the word until the audience is pulled into the aisles laughing. Work is this strange every- night for Rachel Dratch '88. For the past three years Dratch has been joking and joshing in the main stage troupe at Second City, the country's leading comedy company: Second City, founded in Chicago in 1959, has started the careers of many stars in comedy—Alan Alda, George Wendt ("Norm"), Bill Murray, the Belushi brothers, Joan Rivers, and Gilda Radner. A Second City show is half scripted scenes and half improvisation. "Fear is a major thing," Dratch says. "When you throw in the improv in the middle of the show, then suddenly the. action starts. You've got to follow your impulse and instinct. Not; knowing what you're going to say and where everything is going can be scary as hell." Dratch started her training at Dartmouth where she was a drama major and a member of the former student improvisation group Said and Done. Skits at Collis taught her the rules of improvisation: Always agree with your partner, do not deny his reality (that man eating the frozen banana really is Kissinger), and focus on the relationship between people, not die people themselves. After one year in North Carolina playing a fox, an owl, and a donkey for a children's theater and a run off-Broadway as Cindy in The Real Live BradyBunch, Dratch moved to Chicago and started doing improvisational acting. Since joining Second City in 1995 she has played a singing nun, a professor of comparative literature, a real estate agent, a veiled Muslim flutist, an intergalactic Superhero (special mode of transport: a pogo stick), a Led Zeppelin-playing cellist, and, at a petite 5'1", a high-flying NBA star. "Improv is a great community of people," she says. "I mean, even if you're a Superhero, you've still got to have friends."

Dratch