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In late August, thousands of people descended on Chicago to attend the Democratic National Convention, a four-night production at the United Center that was televised live around the world. But just a few ‘L’ stops away, there was another live show coming together: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Each night, The Late Show was not only broadcast live from the Auditorium Theatre but it went on immediately after the DNC—with commentary on that night’s speeches. While speakers at the DNC were able to plan their speeches and zingers ahead of time, Colbert was not.
The effort to produce the live Late Show was monumental, and the story of how it came together brings us to Tom Purcell (BA ’85), a Late Show executive producer and a Loyola University Chicago alum.
In some senses, the story starts in the fall of 1988, when Tom Purcell was taking an improv class at Second City in Chicago. His class was one of two sessions that met on Saturdays. In the other session was a young man named Stephen Colbert. Before they met, Purcell had already heard about his talent.
“I was a little intimidated because he had a reputation,” he says.
The two crossed paths on the stairs of the Second City training center but they didn’t often take classes or perform together, due to their different class sessions and, later, different ensembles.
“We were like ships passing in the night at Second City,” Purcell says.
Purcell continued working with Second City, building on the love of comedy writing that began when he was young and that he continued to hone as an English major at Loyola, performing at open mic nights on campus. But eventually, it was time to move on.
“Leaving Second City is like leaving college,” he says. It’s difficult to say goodbye but “there are people younger than you who need an opportunity.”
So, Purcell moved to Los Angeles and was writing for television when he got a call from his agent, asking him if he wanted to work on Stephen Colbert’s new show, The Colbert Report.
“I was like, ‘I want a Second City guy to do well, right?’” he recounts.
Purcell sent him some jokes, thinking he could help out from afar. But Colbert liked what he saw, called up Purcell, and asked him to come on as a staff writer. Purcell moved to New York and got to know Colbert on a deeper level.
“He’s a great guy to work for because of how he deals with people. … He’s trying to be the best version of himself,” Purcell says. “I’m blessed to be able to collaborate with someone like that.”
Eventually, Purcell became an executive producer on The Late Show. He oversees the show’s writers and helps write and refine Colbert’s material for their normally-scheduled programming, as well as the live shows.
The live shows provide unique challenges. Normally the crew of writers and producers have some time to respond to the day’s news and create a monologue that riffs on those events. But, for the shows in Chicago, the DNC programming ended around midnight and The Late Show was broadcast right after, opening with a monologue that comments on the events that just wrapped minutes earlier. To do this, Purcell helps run a team of great minds through a carefully constructed process.
“I always say you cannot make the show until you build the machine that makes the show.”
These shows meant a ton to us emotionally, because it's not just Stephen. It's not just me. Half our writing staff is from Chicago, right? This was a homecoming.
— Tom Purcell (BA '85), executive producer on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert"
The machine works like this: as the DNC is happening, the writers, editorial team and Colbert himself are watching the broadcast, taking notes, and flagging certain segments. Different writers take different segments and write their bits in response, with the goal of bringing these pieces together to form the opening monologue. Purcell develops an outline of how the monologue should flow in real time.
Then, as the DNC program comes to a close and their own start time quickly approaches, Purcell advocates for calm.
“When it gets very stressful, slow down,” he says. “You get meticulous as opposed to rushing. Rushing will destroy you in that moment.”
Just before the show goes live, Colbert takes the monologue draft and makes his edits, changing phrasing for “mouth feel, vibe, for everything,” Purcell says. “Then he has to get ready and change himself from a writer to a performer.”
Finally, it’s go time. Those who have been to the Auditorium Theatre know it’s massive. During one night of the live show, Colbert said that the multiple balconies felt like “a wave that’s about to crash down on me.” After the shows wrapped, Purcell was struck by the full-circle moment.
“These shows meant a ton to us emotionally, because it’s not just Stephen. It’s not just me,” he says. “Half our writing staff is from Chicago, right? This was a homecoming.”
When he thinks of the students currently at Loyola, hoping to make it onto stages like that one, he says “my advice is always ‘Do it.’ Nobody’s stopping anybody from doing anything. There’s no such thing as a playwright. There’s somebody who wrote a play. If you think that you want to write a play, write a play,” he says.
“Stephen always says, ‘Get in trouble.’ Just book a theater space. Say, we’re going to do a play. What’s the worst thing can happen?”
When asked if he had been to a show at the Auditorium Theatre while living in Chicago as a Loyola student, aspiring to make it in show business, Purcell laughed.
“I was broke,” he says.
