Philly Improv Festival: Q&A with Baby Wants Candy

POSTED: Friday, October 2, 2009, 10:08 PM

Filed Under: Comedy

We know, we know. We've been a little Philly Improv Festival-crazy today. Humor us once more:

Comedy troupe Baby Wants Candy's new musical, which premieres tonight at Society Hill Playhouse (507 S. Eighth St., 215-923-0210) at 8 p.m.,'for $15, is so raw that it still doesn't have a director, a script, or even a title. That's because you, yes, you, have to spontaneously suggest the title and Baby Wants Candy, the headlining group for this year's Philly Improv Festival, will make up and perform the entire show on the spot. I spoke with the troupe's executive producer, Emily Dorezas, before the show.

Critical Mass: You rely on the crowd to select a spontaneous title and topic of your improv musical. How much do you trust audiences?

Emily Dorezas: They will take whatever they hear and it doesn't really matter if it makes no sense at all. It can be a completely inside joke between two audience members and it could be in a foreign language, and the cast will make whatever they're given their own. We had "Barack Obama Baby Mama Drama,"Harry Potter in the Hood." I will say that most of the cast has read the Harry Potter books, but half the cast hasn't. So if they get a title like that, half the cast is just making up their own Harry Potter nonsense and the rest of the cast is really into it. One of my favorite titles is "I Slept With My Friend's Girlfriend Last Night," because that was like so real and you could tell that probably happened.

CM: How do you prepare for a show?

ED: Our prep is sound check and an opening number and vocal, and that's it. We don't talk about what we're going to do that night.

CM: You have a long list of performers. What's the transition like for newbies to the group ' any hazing?

ED: (Laughs.) There's really no process. We kind of throw them into the fire. We keep an eye on people and listen to recommendations and occasionally we'll do auditions, and then we really don't know about someone until we see them in front of an audience in a Baby Wants Candy show.

CM: My grandmother has a brand-new colostomy bag and she's ready for some good old diaphragmatic laughter, but I need to know that the crew is able to keep the show family-friendly.

EG: It's not necessarily family-friendly. It'll probably be PG-13. It's language and content. You're not gonna see anything like ' errrr, although you might.

CM: I know it's all improv, but are there any themes that surface often within the group?

EG: At its core it's a musical, so the one thing you can always guarantee is that the first song is going to be a group number that's like a big opening number of a musical. After that, it tries to follow the conventions of a musical and have some kind of connection by the end with an ending number, but sometimes it doesn't happen.

CM: If the players are this funny under pressure on stage, what's it like when you're all together in real, casual life?

EG: Lots of crossword puzzles. Quiet time and reflection.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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