What comes to your mind when you hear the word "Musical theater"? Large sets, bright lights, elaborate costumes, dramatic performances, and, of course, music! Musical Improv is the art of creating a musical theater performance completely on the spot, from scratch, based on audience suggestions. The music, the lyrics, the melodies, and the rhythms all come together live on stage, spontaneously.
I've been playing music since 2001: at school shows, family gatherings, open mics, satsangs, and concerts. I also wrote songs about the different things I found interesting in the world around me. Around 2010, I started recording and producing music as a way to share my musical stories online.
My improv journey began in 2017 when I attended an improv show for the first time. I went on to watch about 10-15 shows before finally signing up for a class. From that moment, I was hooked. I began volunteering as a pianist for different shows at Courtyard Playhouse, and over the years, we were fortunate to learn from some of the world's best improvisers. They shared their expertise in short-form, long-form, musical improv, genre work, character building, storytelling, and much more.
After performing in dozens of shows, I founded Musical Improv ME to focus exclusively on musical improv. Before long, we were producing our own shows built entirely around spontaneous musical theater, bringing the energy and excitement of a Broadway musical to the stage - completely improvised. Now I bring that same energy to almost all of Improv Lore's shows.
At our Make an improv song Jam, I'll walk you through the exercises we use to build a song from nothing - and by the end, you'll have sung it out loud to people (if you're feeling up to it - it's voluntary). That's usually the scary part, so we build up to it in small steps rather than throwing you on stage cold. And this jam is for extreme beginners - it doesn't matter how much (or how little) experience you have, feel free to join as a total noob.
Here's some of the feedback from our most recent jam:
“It was a lot of fun, I have only seen this on whose line is it anyway and other shows like that. Now I feel, I understand a bit more about how people just wing it and do it on stage!”
— Rasagya
“It was a lot of fun. I didn’t even realize that we were building up to something. The steps were really small. It was fun to see where we got to at the end.”
— Madhu
“I was pretty ass at making music… now I’m slightly less ass… I found the group to be very accommodating – even if you somewhat mess up – it’s easy continue things. Nobody really judges, everybody accepts you.”
— Yashas
Want to see it in action first? Come check out our brave musical improvisers at the next Musical Improv show.
Still have doubts? Hit us up on Instagram - see you at the jam!