Philosophical Principles of Musical Theatre Education from an Improvisational Perspective

The dawn of the twenty-first century witnessed an incredible expansion and sharing of information across the globe. The mining of new academic territory concerning improvisational theory and it’s interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary adaptations stemmed from the introduction?of early 21st-century improvisational offshoots in transcultural, psychological, ethnomusicological, cognitive science, and gender and performance studies, advancing upon the primary philosophical interest of improvisation and music at the end of the twentieth century. New directions exploring the interconnectedness between theatre, musical theatre, and contemporary vocal and instrumental music practice with improvisation’s adaptability as an art form, pedagogic methodology, and collaborative genre, might possibly enhance aspects of performance and performativity, teaching techniques, skill development, and historical and cultural global awareness within a musical theatre education program.?

Much of my early performance experience as a master’s student at the New England Conservatory of Music around the turn of the new century involved gigs around Boston, primarily working with college-level musical theatre department productions as a music director and accompanist. Since there isn’t a codebook on the dos and don’ts of music directing a Broadway show, I had to learn the ins and outs based on pure instinct, intuition, and the desire to become a stellar professional musician. The collaborative ensemble preparation, extensive rehearsal engagements, and hard work involved in musical theatre is extremely rewarding when one knows they have gone beyond the task they set out to do; the elated feeling of accomplishment during the first performance of a production is still something I deeply cherish.

As a practitioner-researcher of contemporary classical solo piano improvisation, in addition to my primary position as a musical theatre music director and vocal coach working in today’s rapidly expanding multicultural climate, my primary focus is on advancing the fusion of improvisational theory with musical theatre music direction and vocal performance practice in higher education institutions. From my recent research studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance in London, I discovered that Robin Nelson’s Practice-as-research theory can be an advantageous model to adapt for performance-oriented educational philosophy: we are not just performers and educators, but we are also embodied researchers, in the sense that we are constantly providing and receiving a fluid feedback to and from our students, by their interconnectedness within our educational environment.

Post-structuralism as derived from Jacques Derrida, is a philosophy which can posit an inclusive, interdisciplinary approach within an arts-based education system. Robin Nelson has written extensively about PaR, and attributes the founding of his methodology from Derrida’s concept of Différance/Difference (Nelson 105), the idea that individual words alone are not sufficient to imply a meaningful definition: their placement within a context of plurality is necessary to establish a communal belief. Specifically, Derrida’s concept of free play is to break down previous structuralist hierarchies and grand narratives: “the possibility of infinite deferral suggests a free play beyond rule-governed activity” (Nelson 109). Since “art is inherently reflective and reflexive” (112), the goal of performer-educators is to allow for the multiplicity of opinions and observations, and foster a continuous perception-in-motion, a re-translation of the translation. Nelson states:

“…post-structuralism fosters a skeptical and radical mode of thought which resonates with experimentation in arts practices, insofar as play is a method of inquiry, aiming not to establish findings by way of data to support a demonstratable and finite answer to a research question, but to put in play elements in a bricolage which afford insights through deliberate and careful juxtaposition.” (109)

Persevering to discover the interlocution of meaning should be an underlying principle for emerging trends in arts education philosophy. As Madison Finney has noted, “musical theatre is extremely intertextual,” and “extremely interdisciplinary” (Finney 14). Borrowing from Millie Taylor and Dominic Symonds’ book, Studying Musical Theatre: Theory and Practice (2017), Finney observes that due to Taylor and Symonds’ theory concerning how each and every reading of a text should be negotiated with the most interpretative freedom allowable, “collaboration, innovation, and artistic exploration are born in Musical Theatre” (13–14).

In translating my experiences as a music director and accompanist at the university level, I have observed the difficulties in attempting to introduce improvisational theory to musical theatre departments that haven’t embraced new methodological trends, in contrast to the dance departments I have worked with who share an exuberance for improvisation as a pedagogic dance tool. As a contemporary classical improvising pianist who has collaborated successfully with at least two collegiate-level liberal arts departments in the United States, I strongly believe in the power of spontaneity and the heightened sense of freedom which improvisation calls for. In negotiating cooperative assurance between the three divisions of musical theatre training – voice, acting, and dance – a bridge of improvisational conception needs to be constructed to allow historical trends to reemerge in the teaching classroom and rehearsal stage, such as methodologies from Viola Spolin’s seminal text, Improvisation for the Theatre, and Judith Butler’s comparisons of gender fluidity to theatrical performativity which pave the way for improvisation’s potential at deconstructing gender performance hierarchies (Seham 393). As Amy Seham writes, Spolin had “great faith in spontaneity’s ability to transform reality and allow for free expression” (394). Improvisation, then, can be used not just as a teaching methodology on the theatrical, text-based speech side, but also as a tool for aspiring actors learning musical theatre vocal repertoire and as an agent for cooperative feedback in the musical rehearsal arena. Seham clarifies:

“For many idealistic teachers, directors…improvisation can look like an ideal mode of group creation offering both individual agency and a sense of connection to the whole. Everyone can play. Everyone’s story can be told. Every possibility can be imagined and embodied.” (394)

Butler’s contextualization of performativity is not strictly centered on the act of performance per se, but rather as an alternative understanding of how the body is its own imaging system and constructs fluid, cultural definitions as a byproduct of phenomenology. In her critical examination of Butler’s performativity theory, Jena Zelezny observes:?

“Performativity has no objective – it is not a thing – it is an understanding of continuous subjectivity, an understanding of the way in which a subject is produced and acts within and through various conditions, and degrees of coercion.” (Zelezny 15–16)

The continuity of subjectivity then, can be molded into a completely holistic, spiritual, and metaphysical temporality, as well as a uniquely thrilling, embodied experience. Thus, heightened sensations of spontaneity can lead to an incredibly satisfying state of being defined as flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist and scholar-researcher who pioneered positive psychology (Beard 353). Because flow is a “very positive psychological state that typically occurs when a person perceives a balance between the challenges associated with a situation and their ability to meet the demands of the challenge,” it is therefore a “useful theory for educators” (353). A large context of improvisational research has been phenomenological to investigate the emotional resonance and extra-musical, cognitive perception which permeates cooperative instrumental and vocal group improvisation. Jazz at it’s core is a flow state: the act of improvising an instrumental or vocal solo enables the improviser to reach heightened levels of awareness, absorption, and communication. It would be beneficial to align flow theory to some aspect of a musical theatre education model, whether prolongating the collaborative efforts between actors and directors during a scene rehearsal or encouraging a contemporary vocalist to evoke the finer inflections of jazz singing in a Golden Age ballad. Maintaining any sense of flow is usually limited to a student’s final performances on stage, and whilst liberties may be acknowledged within individual coaching by forward-thinking instructors, the introduction of interdisciplinary approaches to flow theory would help foster students’ self-esteem, self-reflection, and self-experimentation, specifically with singers trying to master the stylistic differences of musical theatre technique.

The teaching tool of side-coaching could also be adapted more regularly into the musical theatre vocal coaching and rehearsal classroom. Originally evolved out of Spolin’s concept for improvisational theatre – “a collaborative art form in which performers co-construct unscripted narratives often based on audience suggestions, and always guided by a set of central principles” (Barker 23) – Lisa Barker uses “side-coaching as a key practice in developing speaking and listening skills, and…to provide feedback to students during whole-class discussion of texts” (23). Side-coaching essentially grew out of Spolin’s necessity for constructive responses when she initiated group improvisation exercises to help actors acclimate to each other. As Barker states:

“Side-coaching is feedback delivered by an expert while participants practice a targeted skill. It differs from other forms of feedback in it’s immediacy; it is offered during a rehearsal, rather than after.” (24)

Barker’s side-coaching, “although directed to an individual, is made audible for the entire community” (24). The public nature of her constructive criticism and suggestions means that she must “take care to deliver side-coaching feedback in ways that keep students feeling safe and looking good – the central goal of improv” (25). Further explorations with this technique could enable a cast to develop an acute awareness of their actions, as in-the-moment responses from the rehearsal community would prompt a higher level of learning efficiency.

The core principle in any developing musical theatre program is to ensure that the objectives, goals, and framework of the institution is properly assimilated by the administration, faculty, and professional staff. It is also imperative that opportunities are created for regular and selective assessments of the students’ progress, as it reflects the teaching syllabi and curriculum evolution. It might be necessary to create an assessment guide in addition to the required accreditation standards as exhibited by the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST). In a recent survey and study by Ozaki, Worley, and Cherry on the assessments of twenty BFA musical theatre programs nationwide, a four-part framework from Gale and Bond (2007) was used to aid in analyzing how effective a program was in the creative arts, consisting of “a) knowledge building, b) creative production, c) integrative contextualization, and d) critical communication” (Ozaki et al., 14). According to their research, an important reflection of an institution’s effectiveness is how well a student is able to retain knowledge, and produce creative work that reflects a transcultural and interdisciplinary understanding:

“…integrative contextualization reflects the student’s ability to understand creative production within it’s social and historical context and the broader intellectual discussion. This…requires that students utilize knowledge building, in addition to developing the ability to frame creative production within historic, political, cultural, and artistic contexts.” (15)

Therefore, a well-structured, goal-oriented, and feedback-friendly musical theatre program, offering an abundance of performance and recruitment opportunities and reflecting the core values of inclusivity and diversity, should thrive exceptionally well, knowing that it’s students are the ultimate test of the program’s effectiveness.

Works Cited

?Barker, Lisa M. “Invoking Viola Spolin: Improvisational Theater, Side-Coaching, and Leading Discussion.”?The English Journal, vol. 105, no. 5 (2016): 23–28.?www.jstor.org/stable/26606367. Accessed 6 Nov. 2022.

Beard, Karen Stansberry, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Theoretically Speaking: An Interview with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow Theory Development and Its Usefulness in Addressing Contemporary Challenges in Education.”?Educational Psychology Review?27, no. 2 (2015): 353–64. www.jstor.org/stable/43548480. Accessed 6 Nov. 2022.

Finney, Madison, "Putting it Together: Musical Theatre as an Academic Discipline" (2020).?Honors College Theses. 311. https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/honorscollege_theses/311.

Nelson, Robin. “Practice-as-research and the Problem of Knowledge.” Performance Research, vol. 11, no. 4 (2006): 105–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528160701363556.

Ozaki, C. Casey, Deborah Worley, and Emily Cherry. “Assessing the Work: An Exploration of Assessment in the Musical Theatre Arts.” Research & Practice in Assessment, vol. 10 (2015): 12–29. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1064752

Seham, Amy.?“Performing Gender, Race, and Power in Improv Comedy.”?In George E. Lewis, and Benjamin Piekut (eds),?The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, Volume 1, Oxford Handbooks, (2016): 393–404. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195370935.013.27.?Accessed 5 Nov. 2022.

Zelezny, Jena A. “Judith Butler: Performativity and Dramaturgy.” Performance Philosophy, vol.10, no. 6 (2010). www.performancephilosophy.org/2014/10/06/judith-butler-performativity-and-dramaturgy/.