‘Blank! The Musical’ Is Extraordinary

There was a time when improvisational comedy and musical theatre existed as mutually exclusive realms, separate from the other. Fortunately, this is no longer the case, because there now exists a show that satiates our need for the fusion of these two art forms, a need we didn’t even realize was there until it happened. The show that has been helmed to fully realize this peculiarity is, of course, the new off-Broadway production Blank! The Musical, currently playing at New World Stages for a limited engagement through December 14. In a seemingly impossible and bizarre manifestation of creator Michael Girts’ brainchild, Blank! The Musical takes six actors, three pit musicians, and several other run crew members, and destroys the notion that a Broadway musical—or any musical or play for that matter—takes years to go from conception to opening night by creating a full-length musical from scratch in front of the audience’s very eyes. The audience, of course, plays a crucial role in how this unique show pans out, and what the show is even going to be. As they repeat over and over, nothing is prepared beforehand. In a Whose Line Is It Anyway fashion, audience members are asked to shout out suggestions for song titles, musical themes, dance styles, and even lines, which are then voted upon using smartphones connected to the show’s Wi-Fi network, after which, the show begins. It seems overly audacious and risky to have prepared nothing, zilch, but if the 90 minutes that followed were any indication, the cast and crew of Blank triumphantly proves that even when the painstakingly long and complicated process of making a musical is reduced to a mere ten minutes, and that when extensive rehearsal and preview periods are replaced instead by a generous dose of human ingenuity and wit, not only can it be done, but in fact, the results can be quite spectacular.