Okay, this musical game is admittedly on the sillier side, but it enjoyed some brief glory days during my run of Gorilla Theatre at Sak Comedy Lab, and the thought of it still makes me chuckle!
The Basics
A premise or title for a musical inspired the action. The scene starts with dialogue. When a suitably “musical moment” arrives, the accompanist provides a set up-tempo vamp to inspire a quick, high-energy, four-line song that then ends as abruptly as it began. Throughout the game, the exact same lead-in and accompaniment is used for every following number, with full-on “show stopping” choreography and commitment.
Example
The scene begins with a parent and child entering the storefront of their family business that has just gone bankrupt. Player A carries a big empty box as Player B pulls the door closed behind them
Player A: “I really thought it was going to work out this time. We’ve worked so hard…”
Player B: (looking sadly around the store) “This just doesn’t seem to be the neighborhood for a dog-grooming business… Make sure you get anything of sentimental value…”
Player A: (putting down their box) “It all has sentimental value…”
The musician starts a song with a cheerful vamp as other players take the stage to serve as chorus dancers…
Player A:
“I really love my grooming store;
It got raves on all the blogs.
But now my store it is no more,
It’s all gone to the dogs.”
The actors all hold their final pose while breathing heavily, perhaps a few beats too long, before the chorus disappears and the scene continues…
Player B: (clearing some papers from the counter) “Well, there’s no point in postponing the inevitable. I’m assuming you want these records…”
Player A: “I don’t know if I can bear to look at any of it. I’m just such a failure…”
Player B struggles to find any comforting words as Player C, their landlord, enters the shop.
Player C: “I’m glad I’ve caught you both. There is the matter of your outstanding rent…”
The musician repeats the exact same play-in as the dancers return, and a song with the same structure and length is improvised…
The Focus
Enjoy the stylistic snaps between the scene and songs, and sell every number as if it was the only show stopping number in the musical.
Traps and Tips
1.) Commit… to the scene and the world of the play. Heighten the contrast of your musical by basing the scene in something grounded and real and perhaps even a little on the heavier side. As you throw in a series of songs, the tone will quickly shift to the absurd, but if you keep fighting for some whisp of reality, the dynamic will still have room to grow and deepen.
2.) Commit… to the theatrically of the songs. Similarly, exploit all the wonderful energies and traditions of larger-than-life classic musicals. We generally used every available body as chorus dancers when the music strikes up, and the soloists would assume equally elevated movement qualities and choreography. As the accompaniment should remain the same, even interludes that might more typically become ballads should have an elevated and exaggerated feel.
3.) Commit… to the silliness of the transitions. The intro to each song should consist of an identical short up-tempo vamp, which should clearly cue a dramatic shift in the staging and energy. As each song concludes, there’s still more fun to be had. I like the choice of having everyone hold their finale pose (while audibly beating heavily) as if waiting for thunderous applause. And then waiting just a little too long after this doesn’t come each time before resetting back to the scenic needs. (It can be helpful to have the featured singer be the layer to finally break the hold just be keep these moments clean.)
4.) Commit… to the repetition of the accompaniment. There are a lot of great improv games that thrive on musical variety – this more irreverent option benefits from musical consistency (although, admittedly, this also means it’s unlikely to be successful if it becomes over-featured in your venue). Think of each new song as actually one identical verse in a much larger number that spans the length of the whole scene. In this way, the music, key, tempo, and ideally rhyme scheme don’t change from appearance to appearance. As the context of each song shifts radically, the unchanging music creates a surprisingly jarring baseline when it remains doggedly the same time and time again!
In performance
This game will have limited replay value, in my opinion, as it’ll get old (and difficult to breathe new life into) if you return to it every weekend. But for those of you who have a limited set of musical games in your roster, and enjoy these types of scenes, this whimsical offering delightfully pokes fun at the conventions of musical theatre while providing a joyful energy boost to your proceedings!
Cheers, David Charles.
www.improvdr.com
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