You may have seen an improv show, you may have even seen a musical improv show, but I guarantee you’ve never seen anything like Bad Dog Theatre’s Holiday! An Improvised Musical.
The stalwart improv company’s production is exactly what its title promises: a holiday-themed musical, improvised right on the spot. The concept sounds almost ridiculous. Writing a musical usually requires many months of time, effort, and collaboration; Lin-Manuel Miranda took seven years to finish Hamilton. So how in the world does Bad Dog create a new 75-minute musical comedy every night?
To make things more complicated, the production features a rotating cast of comedians, meaning each performance feels like an entirely different show. With so many moving parts, creating a musical from scratch each night must require some intense rehearsals, right?
In order to discover the secrets of this Dora Award-nominated production, I met one-on-one with members of the team over Zoom as they prepared for the show’s third-annual run (presented, like last year, at Factory Theatre).
“The tension of doing any improvised musical is being really good at preparing as little as possible,” said Scott Christian, Holiday!’s musical director and pianist. “I’m sort of composing on the fly. I try not to plan my bits. I really want it to be authentically improvised.”
Though the ensemble does get together beforehand, I am told that rehearsals are short and focused. “You can’t really prepare for it,” said Reid Janisse, entering his third year performing in the show. “In a traditional musical you’re learning songs, you’re learning harmonies, you’re learning lines, and getting into character. For this one you have to be ready for anything, really. So to prepare for it involves working as much as we can with the people that we’re playing with.”
Creator-director Jan Caruana laughed a bit, then told me: “You’re kind of preparing for any improvised show your whole life.”
The team follows a loose structure to play within: a suggestion from the audience, a parody of the opening number from Stephen Sondheim’s Company, and — in reference to that musical’s protagonist — a party host named Bobby. Unlike most other musical improv shows, the narrative follows Company’s lead in that it tends to focus on the complex relationships between characters, rather than an A-to-B type storyline. “One of the beautiful things about [Company] is that it’s not completely linear,” explained Caruana. “It’s kind of a series of vignettes that take place in one specific time and location. [So in Holiday!], you may not see a beginning, a middle, and an end in a conventional sense, but you will see characters’ stories being played out.” (Talk Is Free Theatre happens to be producing Company next month at The Theatre Centre.)
On opening night, the ensemble improvised a work holiday party for employees of Plenty of Fish, the dating app. The scenes revolved around the characters’ romantic relationships with one another, with a curveball email from the CEO abruptly banning the dating of coworkers. Over the course of the show, the cast developed storylines for characters involving secret trysts, the leaking of family secrets, and an over-worked HR department — with many key moments performed through expertly improvised song.
This is Trevor Martin’s first year performing with the Holiday! cast, though he’s a familiar face on the musical improv scene. “I’m the new guy, right? I’ve never done this before,” he said. “And what I noticed in the rehearsal and the strength of this particular group is the commitment to… relationships. We really want to have strong relationships and that’s what is going to guide you through the songs.”
For the Holiday! team, the importance of relationships doesn’t stop at the level of character. “In order to be an improviser you have to be able to be a good friend and a good partner because improv is all about listening. If you can’t listen, you can’t improvise,” reflected Janisse. “This work is so intimate and extreme that having trust with the people that you’re working with is so important.”
“I still get nervous,” echoed Martin, “and I have to trust that it’s going to work out.”
Collaboration between the ensemble, Christian, and Caruana seems to give this show its magic touch. “Everybody is so incredibly talented that when they step onto that stage, they’re working as a cohesive unit,” said Caruana.
As we approached the end of our conversations, I asked each artist what they thought audiences should know about the show. Though I spoke to everyone separately, the answer was unanimous.
“The thing that I want people to know most of all is that it’s all made up,” said Caruana. “Every time.”
“I’ve been doing musical improv for 25 years and people will always come up to me like, ‘You didn’t make that up! You had that in your back pocket!’” said Martin. “There is a very, very loose structure but none of the songs are made up [beforehand].”
“We constantly have to explain to people that [the songs are] brand new,” said Janisse. “When it goes well I understand how people can refuse to believe it’s completely and totally improvised because it seems like it’s not possible. But if you come and watch a few of the shows, you’ll see it.”
Holiday! An Improvised Musical runs at Factory Theatre until December 20 . More information is available here.
Melissa Avalos wrote this feature as part of Page Turn, a professional development network for emerging arts writers, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and administered by Neworld Theatre.
This feature is unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Melissa Avalos
Melissa is a multidisciplinary artist, young reviewer, box office aficionado, and Toronto-born Filipina-Latina woman. She studied at The University of Toronto and earned a degree in biochemistry and linguistics, but her love of theatre outweighed her need for a job in a stable industry. She wants to change the culture of Toronto theatre to be more inclusive and accessible. Her biggest goal is to become a producer of the arts, or to win Jeopardy (whichever comes first).
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