Nina Metz’s exposure of female harassment in Chicago’s improv theater culture would never have happened if the venerable Second City’s Joyce Sloane were still alive. Her guidance and tutelage would never have tolerated such abuse. For 50 years or so, she oversaw the insecurities of many Second City and Saturday Night Live stalwarts — women among them — as a producer. She was, yes, a house mother to them. In Chicago’s theater scene, Charna Halpern rules a comparable roost. Like Sloane, I imagine she has mentored many performers through emotional angst.
Apparently there are not enough mentors of this nature in theater today. Comedy should just beget comedy — not a sexual advantage or its angst; it is dreadful for morale and bright careers forced to move on.
Sloane will never be replaced; she was always ready to take a phone call from Jean Doumanian, Lorne Michaels or Dick Ebersol. Always positive and helpful, she is an icon sorely needed again. Halpern must now fill that gap. Chicago’s reputation in theater today demands it.
— Vincent Kamin, Chicago
