The Groundlings Celebrate 50th Anniversary With Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri and Jon Lovitz

The legendary Groudlings Improv Theater and School celebrated its 50th anniversary on Oct. 19 with a party in at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles.

The guest list was a gathering of Groundlings alumni, including Laraine Newman, Cheryl Hines, Nat Faxon, Jon Lovitz, Julia Sweeney, Cheri Oteri, Michaela Watkins and Mindy Sterling.

Sandy Helberg got teary-eyed on the red carpet remembering his times at the theater in the 1980s. “I got married when I first joined The Groundlings, and we went to New York,” he told Variety. “We got married at the Plaza, and we had the honeymoon suite, and I told my wife, ‘I want to leave by Friday.’ She said, ‘Why?’”

An emotional Helberg recalled telling his new wife, “They’re doing a show [at the Groundlings] and if I’m not there, I’ll be out.’

Lovitz also remembered his first day The Groundlings: “I get on the freeway in the valley and I’m sobbing because I was so scared, because I really wanted to be a comedian,” he said. “I got to the Groundlings, and Randy Bennett was my teacher who is here tonight. So, I did an improv and he goes, ‘Well, that was good, but you could have been funny this way. You could have been funny that way, funny this way.’ And in my head, I went, ‘Oh, I’m home. I’m home!’” 

Oteri reminisced about having the opportunity to watch her colleagues’ sketches during her time as a student, attributing much of her comedic knowledge to observing. She rarely missed the opportunity to support her fellow alums whether she saw the performances through the Friday show students got to watch for free or by running back and forth from the stage to the audience when she was on. “I used to run in the back during the shows that I was in and see my other people and see other people’s sketches that I would crack up at every week I’d run up the back so I was In the audience as well as on stage,” said Oteri at the carpet.

Newman was a founding member of The Groundlings as well as an original cast member of “Saturday Night Live.” “What’s great about a company like the Groundlings as well as ‘SNL‘ is that it evolves with the culture, and as long as it’s inclusive of different styles and different voices, it’s always going to be relevant. And I think Groundlings and ‘SNL’ continue to be for that reason.”

The evening included a silent auction, which raised $40,000 for the theater.