Royal & Derngate & Improbable present AN IMPROBABLE MUSICAL – a new musical created every night
Artwork: Rebecca Pitt
Royal & Derngate will present An Improbable Musical as part of its Made in Northampton 2021/22 season from 25 February-5 March.
With a brand-new show created at each performance, An Improbable Musical sees world renowned theatre company Improbable take to the Royal stage in Northampton, ahead of an autumn tour.
Directed by co-director of Improbable Lee Simpson, their cast of seasoned improvisers includes Josie Lawrence (Whose Line Is It Anyway; Good Omens, Amazon/BBC; The King and I, London Palladium), Janet Etuk (Satyagraha, English National Opera), Niall Ashdown (Tristan and Yseult, Kneehigh), Ruth Bratt (Showstopper! The Improvised Musical) and Adam Courting (Extreme Improv), along with versatile musicians Max Gittings on flute, Joley Cragg on percussion and Juliet Colyer on cello.
Some of the best bits of any show are the parts that audiences never get to see – beautiful moments of discovery, fresh minted gags, a story coming alive for the first time – all of this traditionally happens in the rehearsal room. With this new production, maestros of improvised theatre Improbable let audiences in on those moments by improvising from scratch a new show made especially for the room that night. Story, song and puppetry will be conjured from the unlikeliest materials and every moment of creation (or lack of it) witnessed. This is not an attempt to improvise the “classic” musical but an unapologetic experiment in starting with nothing and seeing where the night ends.
Lee Simpson said: “Improv has come of age. There are very successful make-it-up-as-you-go-along shows. Most often they take a genre we know and love and give us their improvised version. The best of these are brilliant. We love them.
“An Improbable Musical is a little bit different. Because the “frame” for the show is not a genre, it’s just what is in the theatre: a skeletal tower of stairs, puppets, musicians, actors and the audience. This is theatre made out of listening: performers and musicians listen to each other, to the audience, to the dreams swirling around the auditorium and from that they find the next moment of the show. A bit more listening in the world is worth a try, right?”
The show is designed by E Mallin Parry, with musical direction by Christopher Ash, and puppetry design and direction by Aya Nakamura, both of whom are part of the cast.
The lighting is by Colin Grenfell, with sound by Oscar Thompson and Will Thompson, and movement by Pauline Mayers.
The production has been developed as part of a five-year project which has seen Royal & Derngate lead a national consortium of partners to support 150 artists in nurturing the creation of new musical theatre.
For more information and to book tickets, please click here.
