“Can I please get a suggestion for the title of a musical?”

Hands raise in the audience and ideas are called out, anything from ‘Life Alert the Musical’ to ‘Cars the Musical.’ That’s when Riff! Musical Improv begins their show.

President Primula Stonebraker started the musical improv group in early 2024 and has been building the club ever since. The group combines improv with music to create hilarious, one-night-only musicals. 

“In April, I called my two buddies Xander and Keira,” Stonebraker said. “I’ve been in all the comedy clubs on campus and ran them, so I know how to get a club going.”

Stonebraker was inspired by a trip to Chicago where she saw musical improv in action. She decided to bring that to the University of Missouri, as there had been no such club on campus previously. 

Various pieces have to fall into place to make musical improv happen. It goes beyond just what the actors are doing on stage. The group’s live band also improvises its music, and even elements such as lighting come in clutch at key moments in a performance. 

“It’s definitely the hardest club tech-wise because there are a lot of moving parts, where [with] stand-up, you set up a microphone and that’s it,” Stonebraker said.

The group consists of 12 cast members broken into two groups, an A cast and a B cast. They perform on different nights, in addition to the band which performs at every show. 

“I just have so much fun playing characters, singing, sometimes rapping,” B-cast member Lane Duncan said. “I just love doing it. I love creating something that will never be done [again].”

Riff! attracts comedians with a variety of interests and cast members vary in improv, theater experience and musical knowledge.

“We have a good handful of people who don’t watch musicals and they like just improv, and then this [concept] is all new to them,” Duncan said. “They’re learning about musicals through this [organization].”

The group practices twice a week to prepare for their Friday evening shows at The Shack. During some rehearsals, they do research on musical improv or take notes on musicals. Other rehearsals consist of running sets.

The practices help set up the group for successful shows, but things don’t always go as planned.

“If you’re blanking, if you can’t have a rhyme come to mind or if you’re just on a different wavelength than everybody else performing, you just have to make up for it with energy and never let the audience in on the fact that you are blanking,” A-cast member Parker Cohen said.

At the beginning of every show, Stonebraker tells the audience that everything on stage is completely improvised — the acting, dancing, singing and the music the band plays. 

Each member of the band brings in years of experience, but guitarist Mike Harleman says that improvising music with a band is a skill different from just playing an instrument.

“I think communicating definitely is important,” Harleman said. “You just can’t be in your own world. That’s when things get messed up. We try to communicate before and after songs. We’ll be like, ‘yeah, that went well. Let’s save that and try it again.’”

Whether they’re singing a song about driving school or acting out a family attending a Dallas Cowboys football game, Riff! Musical Improv strives to provide comical entertainment to its audience.

“I just want them to have a good enough time to where they will want to come back,” Cohen said. “I just want them to laugh.”

Edited by Ava McCluer | amccluer@themaneater.com 

Copy edited by Jackson Cooper and Emma Short | eshort@themaneater.com

Edited by Annie Goodykoontz | agoodykoontz@themaneater.com