Grab your families and get ready to laugh, sing and crush some serious IPAs — a musical comedy is coming to Downtown St. Pete.
Called Choose: The Musical, the one-hour show (to be hosted by Spitfire Comedy House) will feature seven St. Pete residents improvising a Broadway-style performance based entirely off of audience suggestions. Drinks will also be sold at the event, ensuring an extra hilarious time.
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So, if you like live comedy, live theater or simply getting drunk in the dark, read on. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming performances.
An entirely improvised musical comedy
“Choose is an amazing show that gives people exactly what they want,” Hadas Cassorla, general manager of the theater, said. “First, we get a word from the audience as inspiration, then three of the improvisers step forward and pitch a musical based off that word. The audience then ‘chooses’ which of the three options they want to watch, and that’s the musical we end up performing.”
Over the course of the audience-selected show, Spitfire’s comedians will sing, act and dance — all without a script. Ballads will be made up on the spot, jazz numbers will be pulled from thin-air and characters will develop in front of viewers’ eyes. This requires multiple different talents, as cast members need musical chops as strong as their comedic abilities.
Cassorla, however, is not concerned.
“The director of Choose is a New York-trained musical theater artist, Danielle Trczinski, who’s been doing both improv and musical performance for a long time,” she said, “So the performance level of this cast is going to be upstanding, just from her direction. They had to go through a thorough audition process to be selected, too, because it was important that we find performers who were not just great singers, but who were also funny. And vice versa.”
Making ‘difficult improv look easy’
Trczinski, who Cassorla mentioned, has performed in multiple Florida-based improv shows and nationally toured with two musicals (Dora the Explorer! Live and Spank: The Fifty Shades of Grey Parody). She’s also produced her own musical, Little Black Dress, which she starred in across 26 states.
Under her guidance, the team believes, Spitfire’s local cast will soar.
“Danielle is a great director for multiple reasons,” Francesco Sclafani, musical director of the theater (who will be playing live piano accompaniment for Choose), said. “Her incredible enthusiasm makes it incredibly fun to go thru the process of creating a show. And, two, she has a clear direction of what to do and where she wants the show to go. She makes sure the performers — even though it’s improvised — know exactly what they’re doing.”
And as for those performers?
“It’s an absolutely incredible roster top to bottom,” Sclafani continued. “They make difficult improv look easy.”
Ready to sing, dance and laugh?
If you’re into Broadway, laughing and interactive experiences, Choose: The Musical opens at Spitfire Comedy House on December 16. The show will run every Saturday night through January, and tickets ($25) can be purchased here.
And, if you’re still not sure that spontaneous song and dance numbers are for you? Go anyways.
The theater has M&Ms and beer. So, you really can’t lose.
Spitfire Comedy House is located at 1920 1st Ave. S. To learn more about the theater, visit its official website; spitfirecomedy.com.
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