TORONTO -- One of the original Chicago Second City gang -- class of '60 -- Alan Arkin took the improv lessons he learned and made a career of it. Now he's giving back.

"Every time I direct a play, the actors will need improvisation to understand the scenes," says the dry, deadpan acting great, who'll host an actors workshop during next week's Alumni Week at our own Second City.

"I've used it in probably two-thirds of the movies I worked on," he said on the phone from his summer place overlooking the ocean in Cape Breton, N.S.

Take the hilarious Grosse Point Blank, where he played hitman John Cusack's decidedly-worried psychiatrist. "I didn't like the part, and they said, 'Well we really badly want you to do it, do you have an idea?'

And I said, 'Why don't we get John on the phone and we'll see what we can do with it?' And John and I spent an hour and a half on the phone improvising all the scenes in a lot of different ways. And a secretary wrote it as we improvised it on the phone."

But the man many of us remember most fondly as Capt. Yossarian in Catch-22 will only improvise in rehearsal. To this day, the only movie where he is seen improvising is his first, The Russians Are Coming, directed by Norman Jewison, and featuring Arkin as a Russian sub officer whose vessel runs aground in New England.

"I didn't know anything about film technique, and after a scene Norman would just keep the camera running. He wouldn't say, 'Cut' very often, and I'd just keep going because I was afraid of stopping. He left some of that stuff in the film. That was the only time I've ever improvised on film."

So the closest the public will get to seeing Arkin improvise is when he spontaneously answers questions next Friday in An Afternoon With Alan Arkin, the $20 admission for which will go to Gilda's Club (as will the rest of the Alumni Week proceeds).

We won't, however, see Arkin take the stage during any of the three nights of classic sketches and alumni performances (though he promises he'll be there). "God no!" he says of performing. "I'm looking forward to it, but I'll just be sitting and laughing."

"Until three years ago, I hadn't been onstage for 30 years. Then Elaine May and I got together with three one-act plays; she wrote two and I wrote one. We did them in New York, and I wanted to see if I hated it as much as before. And by God I did."

'SECONDS' CITY: Alumni Week this year features three different eras of Second City casts performing sketches from their time on the boards.

The first, on Sept. 3, directed by John Hemphill, will feature the likes of Jayne Eastwood, Joe Flaherty, Robin Duke, Deb McGrath, Tony Rosato, Linda Kash, Maggie Butterfield, Sandra Balcovske, Don Dickerson, Deb Kimmet and Bob Bainborough.

Sept. 4, directed by Bruce Pirrie, will have Pat McKenna, Albert Howell, Marc Hickox, Lee Smart, Doug Morency, Geri Hall, Ed Sahely, Kathryn Greenwood, Chris Earle, Johnathan Wilson, Andrew Currie, Jack Mosshammer, Aurora Browne and David Nathan Shore.

And on the Sept. 5 gala, Bob Martin directs Colin Mochrie, Gavin Crawford, Paul Bates, Pat McKenna, Doug Morency, Joe Flaherty, John Hemphill, Kathy Laskey, Deb McGrath, Melody Johnson, Lindsay Leese, Lee Smart, Pat Kelly and Aurora Browne.


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