About the Class:
Have you ever wondered how people make up songs on improv shows like “Whose Line is it Anyway”?, or improvise a musical? Laura Hall (Musical Director, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, The Second City Chicago) and Rick Hall (Actor, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, The Second City Chicago) teach music improv workshops that will show you how it’s done. Rick & Laura have taught music improv at comedy clubs, theaters, high schools and universities all over the world. You’ll work with two seasoned improvisers and get two different perspectives; from an experienced improv actor and musician. Rick & Laura create a lively, supportive environment where you can grow, explore, and move out of your comfort zone, starting with warm-ups and games to help ease into singing. You'll build vocal confidence and learn to listen to each other and the accompaniment. We’ll look at musical form and structure, rhyming, harmony singing, communicating with a Musical Director, and more. All in a positive setting where you can explore, stretch out, and most importantly, have fun. Before you know it, you'll be belting out your own great improvised songs!
Long Form Workshop
We’ll explore integrating music into any kind of long-form show, including the Harold, Armando, and Improvised Musical. We’ll focus on music improv as a natural extension of scenic work, digging deep into character, story, and emotion to create rich and interesting songs. We’ll also look at how to support each other with background vocals and movement.
Testimonials
“What a great teaching team. Within the first two hours, we learned how to advance scenes with song; we built confidence and had fun...lots of it.–Gerry Orton, Director, MontereyImprov
“I was blown away by how supportive and encouraging you both were. You've made me feel better about myself as an improvisor as a whole, not just musical improv.”-Heather D, Toronto, ON, Canada
“The workshop was fantastic.Rick and Laura make one helluva team.”-Michael Descoteaux, Artistic Director, Improv Boston
Rick & Laura Hall
Rick & Laura Hall
Rick and Laura met in Chicago in The Second City National Touring Company, and continue to write, teach and perform, both separately and together. Rick & Laura teach music improv workshops at colleges, comedy clubs, festivals and theaters around the world, bringing a unique dual perspective as an improvising actor and musician. They have performed with and taught countless improv groups, including iO Chicago, iO West, ComedySportz, Unexpected Productions (Seattle), ImprovBoston, Impro Neuf (Oslo), ICC (Copenhagen), “Opening Night: The Improvised Musical!” (LA).
Laura Hall is best known as the improvisational pianist and Musical Director on all 21 seasons of the hit TV show, “Whose Line is it Anyway”, with both Drew Carey and Aisha Tyler hosting. Laura has toured extensively with “Drew Carey and the Improv All Stars” and performed with “Whose Line Live” at the Adelphi, the Palladium, and Royal Albert Hall in London. She is currently touring around the country with “Whose Live Anyway”. At iO Chicago she co-created “Phony Award Winning Musicals”, which are improvised musicals in the style of an existing musical.
While at The Second City, Laura was Musical Director and Composer for the Jeff Award winning E.T.C. revue, “Channel This!” Laura has written scores and songs for several indie films, including: “Slice of Pie”, by Rick Hall; “The Long Isolation”; two award winning holocaust documentaries, “Swimming in Auschwitz” and “After Auschwitz”; a romcom, “Anatomy of a Breakup” by Judy Minor; and “The Wheels on the Bus” children’s video series, starring Roger Daltrey as an 8 ft dragon.
Laura has recorded “Improv Karaoke”, fully produced tracks to help improvisers learn music improv. She’s created an in-depth online video course, “A Musician’s Guide to Improv Comedy” and a book, “The Improv Comedy Musician: The Ultimate Guide to Playing Music with an Improv Group” which both teach musicians the specialized skill of playing for improv. To find out more about Laura, visit www.laurahall.com
Rick Hall was a founding member of Chicago’s Improv Institute. At The Second City he created and performed in two Main Stage shows, “John Paul Sartre & Ringo” and “Catch 27”. Rick currently improvises with “Phony Award Winning Musicals” at iO, and the long form group, Blunch.
Rick was a series regular on the improv-based TV show “The Factory”. He played Agent Johnson on 28 episodes of the hit Disney show “KC Undercover” and has been on many other television shows including “NCIS”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, “24”, “The Middle”, “Key & Peele” and “Seinfeld”. He's been in commercials for AT&T, Centrum, Sabra Hummus and many more. Recently, Rick can be seen on the indie film circuit as Detective Chowder in “The Long Isolation”, written and directed by Deb LaCusta and Dan Castellaneta from The Simpsons.
Rick played Bilbo Baggins in Chicago Shakespeare’s “Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale”. After a successful run in Chicago, the show ran for 6 weeks in Auckland, New Zealand.
Rick is an accomplished writer and storyteller, headlining at “The Reboot”, “The Otter Story Hour”, “Story Salon”, and “Open Words Expo”. His one man show “Pigboy”, featuring stories about growing up on a farm in Central Illinois, was chosen for the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and enjoyed successful runs in L.A., Chicago, and across the Midwest. Rick has recorded a cd of several of his stories and turned one of them, “Slice of Pie”, into a short film, which won numerous awards on the film festival circuit.
To find out more about Rick, visit www.therickhall.com
