T h e S H O W !
Best Musical! is a two-act improvised musical with one host, five improvisers and one musical director. The first act is a mock awards ceremony, during which each improviser presents an audience-suggested song title as one of five best musical nominees. At the end of the act, the audience votes on which song it would like to see as the basis for a full-length musical. That musical wins the coveted "Bestie" award and is presented in full act two, complete with an overture, costumes and choreography. All music and lyrics are completely improvised, and the show can be performed in a 50-seat black box or a 1,000-seat hall.
Best Musical! premiered in Chicago in March 2012 as a part of Porchlight Musical Theatre's "Off the Porch" series. Artistic director Michael Weber was seeking a show that could marry the worlds of musical theater and musical improv, both prevalent in Chicago's artistic community. Matthew Loren Cohen, a pianist and musical director who had moved to Chicago in 2011, proposed the format of a show he had done in New York City called The Next Big Broadway Musical! With a few modifications, the show was produced at Porchlight as Best Musical! The two-act show had three critically-acclaimed runs at Stage 773 in Chicago (during which Time Out Chicago named it one of the top five comedy picks of 2012) and enjoyed its final Chicago run at UP Comedy Club in Chicago's famed Piper's Alley.
The two-act, five-song/one-musical format of Best Musical! was originally created by improviser Kat Koppett for a production called Spontaneous Broadway that premiered in 1995 in New York City. The format was slightly modified in 1999 for a show called The Next Big Broadway Musical! also produced in New York City and still running as Broadway's Next Hit Musical!
The two-act, five-song/one-musical format of Best Musical! was originally created by improviser Kat Koppett for a production called Spontaneous Broadway that premiered in 1995 in New York City. The format was slightly modified in 1999 for a show called The Next Big Broadway Musical! also produced in New York City and still running as Broadway's Next Hit Musical!