Spontaneous Broadway is an advanced long-form improvised performance, usually based on audience suggestions. The audience typically submits titles of "songs that have never been written", and the performers choose ten suggestions to create songs, the audience votes through acclamation on their favourite song, which is then used as the core of a brand new Broadway musical.
The format received a favorable review from The New York Times when it premiered in New York in 1995.[1]
Though not required or necessarily encouraged by improv professionals, elements of hilarity and humor inevitably surface in the performance, in the form of typical Broadway stereotypes, like a character's tendency to break into song for no evident or good reason. The performers' songs are supported by an onstage musician churning through parodies of typical show tunes in all their many, but amusingly predictable, styles.
The format was presented in a series of performances in February 2008 at the Upstairs At 440 theatre, part of the Proctors Theatre in Schenectady NY, and was brought back by popular demand in September 2008 to the same venue.
The Spontaneous Broadway format was created by Kat Koppett in association with Freestyle Repertory Theatre in New York. Koppett is a 20-year improv veteran, having worked with Freestyle Repertory Theatre) and San Francisco's BATS Improv. She is currently a performer with and Training director for the Mop & Bucket Company, an improv troupe based in the Capital District of New York State.[2]
In 1995, TheaterWeek Magazine named Kat one of the year's "Unsung Heroes" for her creation of Spontaneous Broadway, which is now performed regularly by teams of actors all over the world.
In addition to performing, Kat is a well known corporate trainer who specializes in the use of improvisation and storytelling to enhance workplace effectiveness. Her book Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning was published in 2001 by Stylus Publishing, Inc.
Sources
- Koppett, Kat (2001). Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, Inc.
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