Spontaneous Broadway: Jubilee!
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Spontaneous Broadway: Jubilee!

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“A young girl who was nine wrote the song title, ‘IKEA is the gutter that drains my soul’, because she has been dragged around IKEA that morning with her parents,” explains one of the shows founders Russell Fletcher, most recently seen in the Yes Prime Minister stage show. “That became a musical set in IKEA. Her parents swore that they did not coach her in composing that song title. We call the bucket (where the audience places song suggestions) the bucket of dreams, and we get so many great ideas. The generosity of the audience coming in a sharing is wonderful and they get to experience what it is like to be a songwriter. It creates a great spirit. Every show is a brand new show.”

So how does an improvised musical actually function? The set up of the show is this: the audience all put their ideas in a bucket and the performers go through the ideas, turning them into songs. They each pitch their songs to the audience. They improvise the song and set up the story of the musical. The audience votes on which one they want and that’s the first half of the show. The second half is the musical itself. “The danger of it, it could collapse into chaos and meaninglessness at any moment,” Russell laughs. “The show is fantastic because in a way I am a safety net, in the second half I direct and narrate the musical, so I poke the story along in different directions. Also I am a mean, Machiavellian puppeteer, who makes sure if the actors are getting too comfortable I challenge them. We also get a lot of fun out of the improvisers trying to rise to the challenges that myself or an audience member has written down.”

Spontaneous Broadway has a core cast of four performers as well as an all-star guest list of cameos on any given night. “Over the last few years we have evolved a bit, with some fantastic people who either have a comedy background or a musical theatre background or an improvisational background or a combination of those skills,” says Russell. “It is an exciting time, we have been workshopping with people like Brent Hill, who was in Rock of Ages, musical theatre star Sally Bourne (Moonshadow), Gillian Cosgriff a WAAPA graduate who is a singer-song writer, Mike McLeish who was Keating in Keating! The guy who wrote Keating! The Musical Casey Bennetto, will be featuring with us in the last weekend. He is amazing, he is a fantastic comic performer, he has also done John’s role as the musical director, but he also appears as Chooka the great Australian rock and roll musical roadie.

“Cal Wilson, who everyone should know about, a fantastic stand-up performer and improviser. Emily Taheny, the last thing she did on TV was Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell, she has done a lot of sketch comedy and is an amazing performer with a beautiful voice. One of the improv gods of the world, Rik Brown is a staple performer with us these days, great to watch. And Andrew McClelland is the fourth core member of our team for the Fringe, he has been a very solid performer in the Melbourne Comedy and Fringe scene over the last ten years and he is looking very trim.” Other guests lined up include Scott Edgar (Tripod), Marney McQueen (Hairspray!), Amanda Buckley (Impro Australia) and George Kapiniaris (Il Dago, Underbelly).

Given that songs are being made up on the fly, one can assume that there is a fair bit of rhyming knees with please, the oldest rhyme in rock’n’roll. “There is a lot of rhyming work with jerk,” confesses Russell. “We try not to be too original and too clever because we will only fail, so what we try and do is have a really fantastic time and make sure our team mates are as well. We try and challenge ourselves as much as we possibly can. We throw each other dodgy rhymes, rhyme with orange, rhyme with chimney. See if you can rhyme with petulant. We throw those at each other and sometimes to ourselves, sometimes you open your mouth and you don’t know what you are going to say, then something comes, it’s very exciting. The feeling of love that is in the room, the audience are on the roller coaster with us, we are making it up on the spot, living and dying by our wits. So I love that experience, it is unique to improv. For me it is entertainment for everyone. I believe the show should be able to entertain everyone in the room, from every demographic, it’s not elitist. If you hate musical theatre you will love the show, you will just delight in the skills of the performers and the heart they have.”

BY JACK FRANKLIN

Venue: Lithuanian Club, 44 Errol St, North Melbourne

Dates: October 3 – October 7

Times: 7.30pm (Sunday 6.30pm)

Tickets: Full $28, Conc. $22, Tuesday $20