online improv elective: IMprovising Songs in Genre

Level: Experienced

Take your genre improv up to another level by adding in the magic of songs in character within scenes in genre. Imagine enhancing your geeky genre authenticity with a Victorian music hall number for Sherlock Holmes, or a regency style vocal duet between two rivals for the affections of a Mr-Darcy-a-like. Think how genre characters could express themselves more fully using modern musical forms: a Hamlet type’s ‘Prince of Denmark Blues’ or a Hermione-Granger-esque pop number. Consider how we can use song to better paint a picture to the audience through song to evoke scenes, backgrounds and worlds from genre – especially those which usually contain music.

This six-week course will be an extravaganza of song and genre and will give you an excellent grounding in using songs to give another dimension to your genre improv and characters.

This course is for you if you have some experience of scene work and narrative and love genre improvisation: we hope you will come along with some genres in mind that you would like to play with. We don’t need you to have had any musical improv experience or knowledge or to have a ‘good singing voice’ – we are experts in making this bit much easier than it looks! If you are nervous about this aspect then check out the reviews for our music drop-in classes (or even try one out yourself).

What to expect:

Getting your genre geek on: Explore using some song structure and musical styles which feel appropriate to specific genres to enhance how true to genre your improv can be.

Levelling up your genre characters: Create impressive-sounding, but easy to improvise songs in character which express emotion in a way it’s hard to do in dialogue

Building worlds with a whole new palette: Enjoy adding an extra level of detail and colour to our genre improvisation through music and song.

If we have to cancel the event due to low numbers, we will do this with 24 hours notice.

This Experienced course runs Thursdays, 9th Sept- 14th Oct, 7.30 – 9.30 pm UK time zone.

Like the sound of this course, but can’t make these dates? Fill in this form to let us know what days and times suit you.

Experienced (12 months+) A class for skillful players, especially those who have finished improv training programmes at their school and are looking to widen their horizons. These classes will make the assumption that you are comfortable performing longform improvisation and will push you.

Whatever the level of ability required, all of our classes are safe, supportive environments led by our experienced teachers. Please email us if you are unsure whether a class is suitable for you. If you sign up for a class inappropriate to your level the Nursery/Maydays reserved the right to remove you from the class without refund.

Scholarships and Bursaries:

We offer full and partial scholarships for all online courses in order to make sure that the fun and community of improvisation is available to as many people as possible across the globe.

You are encouraged to apply if you would not normally be able to:

Afford these courses

Be unlikely to attend a course for any other reason

No set criteria

Apply HERE for any course that is live on the Nursery website

Closed captioning is available in all of our classes and courses. If you need any information on how to access this in zoom, please contact classes@thenurserytheatre.com

The Nursery / Maydays do not tolerate harassment of any kind, be it in our virtual or live spaces, or on our social media. People who engage in this kind of behaviour at The Nursery, or at any other organization, will not be allowed to participate in our community, in any capacity, online or in person.