Sunday, August 2, 2009
And You Thought an Improv Musical Was Easy
Seven actors and one pianist – without costumes, props, scenery or effects – are sticking their necks out in One Night Stand: An Improvised Musical, currently running at the Hudson Theater Guild in Hollywood. And they’re hitting it out of the park at each performance.
While most musical comedies come complete with book and score, One Night Stand is a completely improvised hour long musical in that everything you’ll see will be invented on the spot. Everything. That means not only dialogue, but music and song lyrics as well. If you thought it was difficult to think on the spot when only saying the words, this sets the stakes much higher. Now the actors have to create melodies and rhymes, in addition to interesting characters, relationships, situations and a story too. It’s enough to make your head spin.
Each night the audience contributes the made-up title of the show, the location in which the musical begins, and the name of a song that will appear somewhere in the show. With that, we’re off and running.
The night I saw One Night Stand, we watched the very first (and very last) performance of Pockets With Holes in Them, about a young man (Quinn Beswick) who leaves his home in Nashville in search of his dream…not the dream of stardom you’d assume, but the dream of cleaning up after those stars. Twisted, right?
Of course, there’s the prerequisite fight with his father (Jonah Platt) who doesn’t understand him and the humorous sendoff by his sweet, long-suffering mother (Josh Margolin). Ending up in Hollywood, Quinn meets up with no lack of curious characters, like a “couple” of homeless men (Kobi Libii and Margolin) who provided some of the most hilarious moments of the night, a drunken celebrity (Mollie Taxe) on her last legs, and Quinn’s eventual love interest and on-the-rise country singer, Samantha Martin.
These young performers are all quick on their feet and easily up to the task of providing a satisfying evening of comedy. It’s definitely an ensemble effort, with each enjoying his or her own standout moments. And remember, they’re all doing this off the top of their head, without discussing it among themselves first. There’s a reason it’s called the "art of improvisation." And, when the set-up is constructed and the joke lands, there’s no finer reward for the actors than hearing the audience laugh out loud…over and over again.
Andrew Resnick provides the music and acts as musical director for the show. Executive producer is Broadway’s Marc Platt (Wicked), producer is Jonah Platt, co-producer is Max Glass and LA consultant is Michele Spears.
The troupe has performed previously to sell-out crowds at the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and will be appearing this fall as one of the special event performances at the New York Musical Theater Festival. Catch them now through August 22 at the Hudson Guild Theater in Hollywood. This is easily a show you can see again and again since no two nights will ever be the same. Tickets are available at http://bit.ly/2q6BA2.
