On July 5th at the beautiful Theatre West venue nestled between the top of the Hollywood area and the bottom of Studio City, the dynamic cast of this year's production of 'Without Annette' took the stage. The work is written by Hope Juber and Jeff Doucette and follows as the cast takes audience members on a journey that is unlike anything you've seen before. Combining the commitment and consistent work of a prepared production, with the magic, spontaneity and trust of an incredible Improv class, complete with audience participation, the direction of Charlie Mount creates an entire theatrical experience that you're sure to remember!
Starring the incredible Heather Alyse Becker, Shaun Brady, Yancey Dunham, Jason Frankovitz, Jeremy Klein, Kyle Klein, Maria Kress, Charlie Mount, Claire Partin, Chloe Rosenthal, Andrew Walker, and Andrew Villarreal this is truly an all-star team that is our here in Los Angeles creating some serious "theatre magic." Each member of the cast works together flawlessly to create a streamline production that incorporates not only, an obviously intense rehearsal process but also a seamless Improv technique that keeps both the audience and the actors literally at the edge of their seats as no one in the room is quite sure what to expect next.
Now for those of you who don't know too much about improv, you are in for a real treat, and this show is the perfect balance of an introduction to Improv technique and a snapshot of what amazing things can happen on stage when these techniques are executed properly. Short for improvisational, improv theatre technique is a form of live, staged theatre in which the plot, characters and the dialogue of a theatre game, scene, story or sometimes entire show are made up in the moment, right there in front of all of us, in the audience. Often improvisers will even take suggestions from the audience, or draw on some other source of inspiration from the current situation or space they are in to get started. And the incredible cast of 'Without Annette' was able to do exactly that.
The most memorable scene of the play is when the characters are asked to improvise an advertisement for an everyday, household product. Product suggestions are taken from the audience and the players have little to no time to prepare, catchy jingle included. It is also one of the only times where all of the characters at once participate in an improvisational scene. The night that essenceLA was in attendance, the product being advertised was a plunger made of gold. You can only imagine the type of hilarity that ensued. In addition to the hilarious dialogue and tagline, the players dominated the scene with use of their physical bodies and mimicking motions. The actions of the human tampon also had me #crying, #dead from laughter.
Whirling together humor, emotions, passion, content and character development Theatre West's production of Without Annette enables us to truly witness, firsthand, all of the beautiful work and unwavering commitment of all involved. We congratulate the cast, venue and crew for this amazing production and we encourage you all to go out and see it before it ends it's run here at Theatre West in August. For tickets, details and information please visit Theatre West online here.
