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Canberra Today 12°/15° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Crescendo for Impro ACT

Chicago's Lyndsay Hailey
“IN a band, it’s always a drama”, say the masterminds at Impro ACT  as they embark on one of their biggest projects for the year.

The title of their show, “Crescendo”, tells only part of the story.

Ten performers progressively arrive at a band rehearsal, where the audience is a fly on the wall.

They learn who has issues with who, and what the band-members’ attitudes are. By Act II, however, they perform the actual gig, straight to the audience, And to deliver a fully improvised result, the audience will create the name of the band and the song titles they will play, during interval.

Impro ACT, directed by Nick Byrne, can now rightly claim to sit “at the very centre of the Australian unscripted theatre scene”.

Its international festival of the spontaneous arts, “Improvention”, has a place on the international calendar and as Byrne points out, it’s more than  just fun–their production “The Displaced” was a full-length unscripted drama about displacement in common people’s lives.

“Crescendo” is the the relocation of a dream for Byrne, who says, “in most improvised theatre shows, musicians are essentially accompanists. This time, we wanted to end the demarcation. Whilst there will be a few different performers in the cast on any given night, there will usually be three or four dedicated theatrical improvisers attempting to turn their hand to music, plus three or four dedicated musicians attempting to turn their hand to improvised theatre, and three or four with experience in both areas”.

He’s especially chuffed that American artist Lyndsay Hailey, from Chicago’s “Second City” company, will be here to take part in the March 2 and 3 performances. Hailey has her own long-running improvised musical show in Chicago, and will hold workshops for improvisers and other performers while she’s here.

“Crescendo,” 7:30pm at The Street Theatre March 1-10, inquiries about workshops to impro.com.au and bookings to thestreet.org.au

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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