FUN WITH DONALD AND HILLARY: The Second City comedy troupe pokes fun at the presidential campaign with a show at NJPAC on October 29. Princeton-bred Carley Moseley, fourth from left, is a member of the cast.

The current presidential campaign is a gold mine for Carley Moseley and her fellow performers from the Chicago-based comedy troupe, Second City. Please Don’t Feed the Candidates, the title of their touring show at Newark’s New Jersey Performing Arts Center this Saturday night, October 29, says it all.

“I’m sitting here watching part of the speech Trump gave laying out his first 100 days in office,” said Ms. Moseley, who grew up in Princeton. She spoke last weekend from a hotel in Michigan, where the troupe was appearing as part of its current tour. 

“With Trump, it’s just been insane,” she continued. “In this show, we have plenty of direct references to him and Hillary and a lot of blackouts and really quick scenes. They give us an opportunity to use punch lines as they’re happening. It’s very funny. Or let’s say, it would be funny if it weren’t so awful and dangerous. It’s just unreal.”

Ms. Moseley, whose grandfather is Dr. Roger Moseley, was in town a few weeks ago to attend a memorial service for her grandmother, Caroline Moseley, who died in June. “It was hard,” she said of the service. “But it was great to meet so many people who were part of my grandmother’s life.”

A 2006 graduate of Princeton High School, Ms. Moseley appeared in a few plays while a student. “But I wasn’t very good at it,” she said. “I think the only real acting I did was Mercy Lewis in The Crucible.” She credits her drama teacher, Pat Wray, with sending her on her current path.

“She was so great and so generous, and cast me in weird, comedic relief parts,” Ms. Moseley said. “And then when I got to college, I was in a sketch comedy group. I majored in Art History at Vassar, and I really did love school, but my favorite thing was writing and performing with my friends.”

During her senior year at Vassar, Ms. Moseley attended the annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival. Chicago is one of the training centers for Second City, the 47-year-old comedy club, theatre, and school of improvisation. “I’m embarrassed to say that I really didn’t know what Second City was,” she admits. “But I saw one of their shows, and some other groups. And while I was there, I decided that when I graduated I would try out.”

She auditioned, she got in, and she moved to Chicago. Second City, which also has centers in Toronto and Los Angeles, has been the launching pad for scores of actors and comedy performers including Martin Short, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Gilda Radner, and John Candy. The premise is built upon improvisation, but there is structure involved as well.

“We write a lot of the shows. They are almost entirely scripted, but are generated through improvisation,” Ms. Moseley said. “So I might come in to rehearsal one day and say, ‘I want to write a scene about Donald Trump on a bus.’ And then in rehearsal, we’d improvise on the idea. Things get tweaked. We bring in different characters. And at some point, a bit of a script is generated. It’s kind of this ever-moving and shifting thing. Seeing a show develop that way is really cool, especially now with the campaigns going on. To respond to that in real time is fun for us. It keeps our work fresh and makes the audience feel we’re doing our job.”

The troupe travels all over the country, including locations that might not look favorably on Trump-trashing. “My cast and myself are definitely on the liberal side of things,” Ms. Moseley said. “It’s interesting. When we go to places that are definitely not liberal, and we’re driving past 15 Trump/Pence signs in the same week he’s assaulting women and banning Muslims, it’s weird. But we do a piece in one of the shows where the whole point is to reach across political lines.”

As part of Second City shows, cast members ask the audience questions. “I’ve asked what they like most in the world, and people have yelled out ‘the idea of Hillary behind bars.’ People are so angry. There is so much in this campaign that has been hateful. But for every incident like that, there are many more that feel much better,” she said. “It’s good to remember that people are a whole bunch of things. Some make me upset, but most are okay.”

Ms. Moseley is looking forward to the crowd of friends and family who are planning to attend the NJPAC show this weekend. “A big chunk of family is coming,” she said. “I’ve never performed in New Jersey with Second City, so I’m just so excited. Selfishly, I wish we could stay for a week and have dinner at my dad’s house and a slumber party at my mom’s, but that won’t happen. But I can’t wait!”