Musical Improv

One of my favorite activities that I do on campus is Fordham Experimental Theater's (FET) Musical Improv group. FET has a number of interesting non-traditional theatrical groups including Sketch Comedy, Improv, and Theatrical Outreach. Musical Improv is one of its newest branches. We perform long-form improv shows, based on just a suggestion of a title and a setting with developed characters, major conflict and musical numbers. We're still getting our group together (over half the members are still pretty new, including myself), but we should be putting together a show sometime later this semester.

The most fun technique we developed last night was our song improvisation. Based on a single suggestion, someone would make up a chorus to a song off of which everyone else bases their own verses. It sounds difficult, but we actually did a really good job with it last night with topics ranging from a town without barbers to an unwelcome female race car driver. It's a little bit bizarre at first, but it's tremendously rewarding.

I also think that I was only cast because I can sing, seeing as I'm not great at improv. I love just singing really crazily and showing off a bit.

I'll let you know when we do a show. We're planning on going to see a musical improv show in the city sometime in the near future. There are a lot of professional and semi-professional groups that perform weekly.