Edmund O’Brien didn’t go to the University of Chicago in 1989 to become an actor. “Actually, my parents sent me there because it didn’t have a theater program,” he says, laughing. “My oldest brother had broken my parents’ heart by dropping out of a PhD program at Princeton to go into acting.”
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But before the year was out O’Brien was a member of Off-Off Campus, sacrificing all of his free time working on the group’s Second City-style revues. “It was insane, rehearsing three hours a night, every night, every night except Saturday, which was a performance night. Then on your own time writing and rewriting and learning lines. It really consumed my life.” A year later he was onstage performing for incoming freshmen. “I remember looking up in the middle of the performance and seeing 900 kids out there laughing, sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting to see where we were going with the scene, and I knew then, wow, this was it!”
When Sahlins held auditions for his class, more than 100 students showed up for 20 slots.
