What if you wrote a Broadway hit song? A good song title would be a great start. Audience members for the improvised play, “Broadway’s Next Hit Musical” can suggest song titles to win a “Phony” in the show.
Dream up a fabulous, fanciful, family-friendly song title and drop it in the bowl as you enter the Fox Tucson Theatre lobby. Your song title could become a one-night-only, improvised-on-the-spot, Broadway-worthy musical, including songs, sets and costumes. It’s magical, and you could be a winner.
“Really step out of your comfort zone and make it up,” said cast member Deb Rabbai, who is also a co-producer and co-artistic director of “Broadway’s Next Hit Musical.” “Our aim is to be enjoyable for all audiences,” she said. “We need the audience suggestions. Without you, we’re just us.”
Audience participation starts building from the moment the emcee walks onstage for an opening chat. With much fanfare, four of the audience’s title suggestions are drawn from the bowl. Inspired by each title, the cast improvises the title song, including music, lyrics and stylings. It’s all made up on the spot. And the fun is just getting started.
“The conceit of the show is — you’re familiar with the Tony Awards? This is the Phony Awards,” Rabbai explained. “The first half of the show is exactly like an award ceremony. We’re dressed in our finest gowns and tuxedos, and we present each nominated song. Obviously, it’s never really been nominated because it’s being made up on the spot.”
For each song, a different cast member creates a name for the Broadway musical in which it’s featured. Then they invent the whole story of the musical and, engaging other cast members, they improvise the scene in which that song appears. After each song and its context are revealed, the audience votes by applause to determine which song will win The Phony Award.
But, wait. Then, incredibly, according to Rabbai, “We go off stage for about 5 minutes just to change out of our formal wear. Then (the whole cast) comes back and we improvise that entire musical, from start to finish, including the winning song. We reprise that winning song!
“The very last thing we do is reprise the finale (of the whole musical), and we have the audience sing the chorus along with us. Then we just wave at them as we walk off stage.’
There is one more thing, though. If you provide your email address, the company will send you a recording of the finale for the show you watched. Nowhere else will that song, or any of the music you have just seen, be performed again.
Now co-directing with fellow improv veteran Rob Schiffmann, Rabbai has been in the leadership of this iteration of “Broadway’s Next Hit Musical” for nearly 12 years, touring all over the world. Hard-to-impress New York Theater critics have piled praise on the show, which, when not on the road, makes its home in NYC’s Tony Award-winning cabaret club, 54 Below.
Rabbai noted the advantages of travel for the company’s “theater of imagination.” “One of the wonderful things about an improv show, or at least ours, is we don’t have any sets that need to be constructed. We construct things using our words and imagination to help the audience see where we are. We can kind of be anywhere. We recently performed in a stadium that’s been used for bull riding, and we’ve performed in gorgeous old theaters.”
Rabbai was all but born to this work. She grew up in New York City, where almost every school teaches acting, and her father was, for years, first clarinetist for the Metropolitan Opera, a pinnacle of classical musicianship.
She was 16 when she fell in love with improv. “I went with my high school acting class to an improvised show called Chicago City Limits.” Although New York based, CCL had been founded in 1977 by actors in a workshop program of The Second City in Chicago.
“They were a short-form show,” she said. “There was no ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ at the time. There was no improv on TV. There were only two improv companies in New York City, and this (CCL) was one of them. I was completely addicted, so I just kept going back every weekend to see the show.
“And I just thought, ‘My God, they seem so confident and intelligent and funny and, you know, comfortable on stage. If I could be one tenth of that, I’d be made in the shade for the rest of my life.
“So I started taking classes there, and I took five classes a week for three years. After high school, when I was going to acting school, I joined every improv company that would have me.
She played with Theater Sports New York for 10 years as that company grew and evolved into improvisational innovations. “We would do things like a two act . . . improvised Tennessee Williams or Shakespearean play. The audience could choose if it was a history, a tragedy, a comedy . . . . And we rehearsed. We didn’t just go ‘Hey, let’s just do a spoof of this.’ We did our best to learn the language and (patois). So that’s where I started experimenting with musical improvisation.”
She said the cast of Broadway’s Next Hit Musical continues to experiment with musical improvisation as the character of Broadway’s actual hit musicals have evolved.
“The scope of Broadway has changed,” Rabbai said. “The stylings of the music in general have changed. You’ve got ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ versus a ‘Phantom of the Opera’ versus ‘Hamilton’—musical styles that at another time in our lives would not immediately have been thought of as a Broadway musical style.”
There is one thing that never changes, Rabbai said. “We usually go out and talk to people after the show and sometimes people are, like, ‘How many times did you do that show?’ I take that as a compliment. That’s where our joy comes from, finding something new, creating something new — that’s our wheelhouse. That’s what we love.”
Other shows this week
El Jefe Cat Lounge, 3025 N. Campbell Avenue, Suite 141, 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, eljefecatlounge.com, reservations $18. hosted by Lady Ha Ha Comedy, 21+, BYOB and snacks, lineup includes Precious, Kath O’Lick, Meow Urban, Purrsilla Furnandez, Tamale Chairman Meow, Nicole Cat-astrophie Risk, Morgan “Cat-Holic” Kuehn
The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress Street, 7 and 9 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 4, screeningroomdowntown/lady-bits, $10, 7 p.m. lineup is Morgan Kuehn, Zo Thomas, Allana Lopez, Loca Lola, Jen Blanco hosts, Rebecca Fox headlines; 9 p.m. lineup is Nic, Nice, Jen Blanco Roxxy Merari, Allana Lopez hosts, Phyllis Voren headlines.
Laff’s Comedy Caffe, 2900 E. Broadway Boulevard, 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, and 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, laffstucson.com, $15, $20 preferred seating, Patrick Deguire jokes about, among other things, the obstacles of relationships and raising four children. Seen on Comedy Central and Telemundo, he’s toured with George Lopez and Paul Rodriguez.
Tucson Improv Movement/TIM Comedy Theatre, 414 E. Ninth Street, tucsonimprov.com, $7 each show, $10 for both shows, same night, free jam and open mic. Thursday, Feb. 2, TBD. Friday, Feb. 3, 6:30 p.m. Improv Jam; 7:30pm, “The Soapbox”; 9 p.m. Stand Up Showcase. Saturday, Feb. 4, 11 a.m. Kids Show, 7:30 p.m. “Como Se Dice” (en español) and “LOL and Order”; 9 p.m. “The Dating Scene.”
Unscrewed Theater, 4500 E. Speedway Boulevard, unscrewedtheatre.org, $8, live or remote, $5 kids. 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, “From the Top improvised Musical; Saturday, Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m., Family Friendly Improv; 9 p.m. The Backyard Improv Playground (pay what you will admission, Monday, Feb. 6, 6:30 p.m. Improv Drop-ins, in person and online, free.
