Standup the Musical

Music, improv and standup col­lide at Hole in the Wall. For free admis­sion you can wit­ness this chem­i­cal reac­tion. The result is lots of laughter. 

Standup the Musi­cal is an excit­ing con­flu­ence of comedic forms, but a sci­ence exper­i­ment anal­o­gy would just as well suit its spir­i­tu­al pre­de­ces­sor. Com­e­dy Fusion, co-host­ed by Austin com­ic Kris Walk­er, has a sim­ple but effec­tive premise. Comics on stage per­form a tight five min­utes, fol­lowed by an improv set based on that standup. When the cat­a­lyst for improv is a chain of jokes it leaves a lot for the impro­vis­ers to play with. This is what Walk­er appre­ci­ates about his now 7‑months run­ning show at the Fall­out The­ater. ​“It’s real­ly charm­ing to see your mate­r­i­al expand­ed on by a team of impro­vis­ers,” says Walk­er, a standup com­ic and impro­vis­er him­self. ​“It’s all the fun and joy of a writer’s room with the per­for­mance acu­men of a very tal­ent­ed troupe”.

Walk­er took this base con­cept to Hole in the Wall and turned it up a notch. Now, after comics tell their jokes, they are treat­ed not only to the unpre­dictabil­i­ty of an improv scene, but also a set of impro­vised songs. 

Musi­cal improv troupe Tem­po Tantrums com­pris­es the vocal tal­ents of Hay­den Har­trick, Lucas Bradani­ni, Mark Beach, Zoe Dunk, and Wal­lis Brown. The role of key­board accom­pa­nist is trad­ed off between Yuki DeS­ouza and the troupe’s own pianist Ben Cer­vantes. On this par­tic­u­lar show, DeS­ouza played the keys, and just the trio of Har­trick, Beach and Bradani­ni round­ed out the impro­vis­ers. You’re guar­an­teed a good show no mat­ter who’s on stage, but in light of cer­tain mem­bers part­ing ways soon, I urge you to see Tem­po Tantrums in their next two out­ings. Their show on April 25^th at the Fall­out The­ater is your last chance to see the full ensem­ble. The troupe have made reg­u­lar appear­ances on shows at Fall­out and Cold­Towne The­ater, on top of hold­ing a month­ly slot of their own at each. Where Standup the Musi­cal sees the troupe ren­der the­atri­cal songs based on five min­utes of mate­r­i­al, stand­alone Tem­po shows are full musi­cals spurred on by a sin­gle sug­ges­tion from the audi­ence. Need­less to say they were already sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als before Walk­er brought them on as his house act.

Mak­ing up the standup line­up for the night were comics Carl­ton Wilcox­son, Brit­ney Ledes­ma, Jason Rodriguez, and Com­e­dy Fusion’s oth­er co-host Dil­lon Jar­boe. An open­ing set by Walk­er and a mag­ic act by Gary the Magi­cian kicked the show off to a fun start com­plete with a smoke machine that, as Tem­po Tantrums lat­er acknowl­edged in song, quick­ly filled a small stage usu­al­ly meant for karaōke.

The excite­ment at the out­set of Standup the Musi­cal was main­tained through to the end with the spon­tane­ity you can only get from an improv show. There’s an inher­ent thrill in see­ing a com­ic per­form know­ing full well that any­thing they say might be inter­pret­ed musi­cal­ly; in some comics you could see the gears turn­ing. Wilcox­son deci­sive­ly delved into risqué mate­r­i­al as a way of test­ing Tem­po Tantrums com­mit­ment. Ledes­ma roast­ed the troupe direct­ly, inspir­ing a group song in response (and in self-defense). In the fin­ish­ing num­ber the trio ref­er­enced jokes from through­out the night. Even the audi­ence sang along, which as far as I know is a Tem­po Tantrums first. It goes to show that the impro­vis­ers pro­vide as much inspi­ra­tion for the comics as the comics pro­vide for them.

It might seem nov­el that a his­toric music venue is home for an improv com­e­dy show. For Walk­er, Hole in the Wall is a space where the mar­riage of music and com­e­dy makes per­fect sense. ​“Over­all, I think improv deserves a wider scope of rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” Walk­er says. ​“When venues lend them­selves to the craft, I love to try and bring the two forms together”.

If you’re look­ing for a match made in heav­en, see Standup the Musi­cal every third Thurs­day at Hole in the Wall.