Howard Alk

Howard Alk was a central figure in the founding of The Second City in Chicago, credited with suggesting the theater's name, which was derived from an A.J. Liebling article satirizing Chicago published in The New Yorker. He co-founded The Second City in December 1959 alongside Paul Sills, who directed the inaugural production, and Bernard Sahlins, who served as producer, in a 120-seat theater at 1616 North Wells Street in Old Town. The three founders, all University of Chicago alumni and associates, launched the theater from the improvisational foundation that Sills had built through The Compass Players and subsequent ensembles, applying the game-based improvisational tradition developed through Viola Spolin's Theatregames to the revue format that became Second City's signature form. The founding ensemble included Barbara Harris, Roger Bowen, Andrew Duncan, Severn Darden, and Mina Kolb, among others, performing original scenes and characters developed through improvisation that were then shaped into repeatable revue segments.

Alk's institutional role at The Second City extended through the theater's founding period before he left in the early 1960s to pursue an independent path in filmmaking. He founded The Film Group in Chicago, a production company that became a center for independent and documentary filmmaking in the city during the 1960s, working with filmmakers and subjects that reflected the political and cultural upheavals of the decade.

As a documentary filmmaker, Alk directed American Revolution 2 (1969), which chronicled the political upheaval of Chicago's 1968 Democratic National Convention and its aftermath, including the police confrontations with protesters that became a defining event of the era. He also directed The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), which documented the circumstances surrounding the killing of Fred Hampton, the Illinois chairman of the Black Panther Party, by Chicago police officers in December 1969. Both films represented significant contributions to the tradition of politically engaged documentary filmmaking and were recognized as important historical documents of the turbulent social conditions of their era.

Alk developed a long-term collaborative relationship with Bob Dylan, working on several of Dylan's film projects as cinematographer, editor, and director across more than a decade. He contributed to Dont Look Back (1967), D.A. Pennebaker's documentary of Dylan's 1965 British tour, and served as editor or director on Eat the Document, Dylan's film of his 1966 European tour; Hard Rain (1976); and Renaldo and Clara (1978), Dylan's four-hour experimental film. His work on these projects made him one of the principal visual collaborators in Dylan's extensive film-related output during this period and situated him at an unusual convergence of the Chicago theater world, the politically engaged documentary tradition, and the rock music film culture of the era.

Alk died in January 1982 in Los Angeles.