Famed comedy group The Second City performed last weekend in the CFAC in front of a sold out house. The event, which coincided with homecoming, attracted students and their younger siblings, parents and even grandparents.

It was difficult to tell whether the large turnout was due to the sheer number of people on campus looking for something to do, or because The Second City simply resonates with people from all generations.

The Chicago-based comedy troupe opened back in 1959 and has since grown to become the longest running comedy theater in the United States. The troupe offers classes to those who are eager to learn, and perfects and evolves the art of making people laugh. Many of the troupe’s alumni, including John Belushi, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Amy Poehler and Steve Carell, among others, graduated to successful comedy careers in SNL and film.

None of these legendary figures made it to Calvin College, but the troupe traveling the 50 states under The Second City: Fully Loaded tour still brought huge laughs.

The night opened with Calvin Improv, which allowed students to both get to know some of the new faces on the team and hoot and holler at long-time members of the group.

Then it was The Second City’s turn to take the stage. The troupe opened the show with a sketch that dismantled the barriers between gender and race before diving head first into their routine.

The majority of the group’s material is sketch comedy, but throughout the night the troupe worked in some truly talented improvisational work that often involved heavy participation from the audience.

Although some of the jokes throughout the night might have been considered immature, many of them were smart, cleverly constructed and poignant deconstructions of our society’s accepted ways of doing things. Some of the more thought-provoking sketches were political in nature, addressing timely social issues such as feminism, gun violence and gun control, immigration and the institutionalized racism that hinder minorities. At a conservative college like Calvin, it was obvious that some of the material ruffled some feathers, but much of the crowd seemed overjoyed to be challenged by a joke that also made them laugh.