Improv is back on Broadway. A special variety of improv, mind you; while there have not been many shows of its type on 45th Street, this is perhaps the most exuberantly entertaining thing of its kind since Mike Nichols and Elaine May set up at the Golden in 1960.
Just what is Freestyle Love Supreme, you might well ask? That title is enigmatic enough to make you wonder if you even want to see a show called Freestyle Love Supreme. The answer should be, yes indeed. (The title, it turns out, is in homage to John Coltrane’s 1965 LP, A Love Supreme.)
What you get is five actors—or, rather, lightning-quick improv artists—with keen talent for words, movement and music along with an uncanny ability to play well together. That is, intermix their improvised words and actions like a jazz combo.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
We cannot describe the plot, as there is none. There is a framework, which has been distilled over the years, since 2003 when a trio of friends—Anthony Veneziale, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail—first created the show. Yes, that Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with his eventual In the Heights/Hamilton director Kail. An early production of Freestyle was done at the then-new talent incubator Ars Nova back in November 2004. The present production premiered in Greenwich Village at the Barrow Street Theater this past February.
Yes, there is an apparent framework; but this is a theatrical piece in which words, music and staging are improvised each night. There is a rotating cast of sorts: Seven actors are listed in the Playbill, four of whom appear at any given performance joined by one unannounced “cameo performer.” At the press performance attended, Veneziale served as the genially canny emcee; a fleet-tongued fellow named Utkarsh Ambudkar was the primary improvisatory rapper; and Chris Sullivan—with a hand microphone more or less permanently attached to his mouth—provided beats and percussion. Given the excellence of these three, one guesses that they play the majority of the performances. They are accompanied by conductor/performer Arthur Lewis and one of two additional musicians. The eighty-minute show plays eight times a week, including 7 and 10 PM shows on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
The cameo performers, we are told, include otherwise unengaged actors like Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson and James Monroe Iglehart (all of Hamilton) plus Mr. Miranda himself. At the press preview attended, Jackson was on stage. When the subject of politics came up, one of the others pointed to him—he created the role of George Washington in the hip-hop pageant at the Rodgers—and said, “I want him as my president!” to cheers from the audience. (Jackson, now a regular on the television series Bull, is listed as one of the seven “founding members of Freestyle Love Supreme,” the others beings Kail, Lewis, Miranda, keyboardist Bill Sherman, Sullivan and Veneziale.)
How does the improv work? Veneziale (or whomever is playing “Mic 1” at a given performance) canvasses the audience for words, anecdotes or even life-changing tales. Having selected suitable responses, he leads his cast in what might be seen as brief one-act plays based on the audience prompts. Hence, they are making up Freestyle Love Supreme every night on their feet, as the evening progresses. Miranda has described it as making up “a hip-hop show in real time.”
One of the set-pieces includes a built-in rewind of events, requiring the cast to babble their way backwards, recreating the words and movements they have just made up without consultation or rehearsal (and hope that their castmates will be in the same place at the same time). Impressive. Then they have to do it again, with different story/words/movement/music, at the next performance.
While critics generally try to avoid audience participation, I decided under the circumstances to test just how these improvisers take audience suggestions. I sent up the word “subpoena” and sure enough, Veneziale and his companions wove the word into the dialogue four times over the rest of the evening.
Is Freestyle Love Supreme traditional Broadway fare? No, certainly. Would this production be ensconced at the fabled Booth on Shubert Alley without the Messrs. Miranda and Kail serving as co-creators and co-producers? Assuredly not. But based on a back-of-the-ticket-envelope tally, I calculate that Freestyle Love Supreme easily merits inclusion on my list of the six most entertaining shows currently on Broadway. So those of you interested in keen and knowing fast-paced topical humor fueled by high intellect and political insight might want to try to get over to the Booth.
Freestyle Love Supreme opened October 2, 2019, at the Booth Theatre and runs through January 12, 2020. Tickets and information: freestylelovesupreme.com
