Improvised show coming to Theatre Royal
Showstoppers! The Improvised Musical is coming to Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds next month.
The cast transform suggestions of setting, genre and style into a full length musical, with dance routines, moving story-lines, amazing songs, full-group harmonies and hilarious characters.
The audience can even name that night’s show which is then added to the Showstoppers’ archive.
In their last appearance at Theatre Royal the musical was called I Predict a Riot, set in real-time inside an entirely beige-decorated women’s prison, featured songs based on the styles of Hamilton, Camelot and (of course) a reworking of the famous Cell Block Tango from Chicago.
The show began life in 2008 as a workshop at the Actors’ Centre in London, when Dylan Emery, Adam Meggido and Ken Campbell took a group of actors with little or no improvisation experience and within a week attempted to get them to perform an hour-long extemporised musical in front of a packed house.
This was such a success that Dylan and Adam decided to gather a group of professionals and create a fully-fledged show, over 10 years later it’s still going, stronger than ever thanks to the year-round tours, Edinburgh Fringe runs and most recently a London West End residency at The Other Palace, on top of their monthly Mondays at the Lyric, Shaftesbury Avenue.
The cast of eight always includes creators Dylan Emery (who plays the musical’s producer co-ordinating audience suggestions) and Adam Meggido, with the remainder varying by performance from a wide ranging group including Ruth Bratt (Derek, Channel 4 and Mongrels, BBC3) Pippa Evans (The Now Show, BBC Radio 4 and Drunk History, Comedy Central) and notably Sarah-Louise Young, who Theatre Royal audiences may recognise from her roles in Goodnight Mister Tom last year.
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical has two performances on Friday and Saturday, February 15 and 16.
Tickets are on sale at the Box Office, call 01284 769505, book online at www.theatreroyal.org/shows/showstopper-the-improvised-musical-5/ or visit the theatre in person.