Girls Girls Girls
| Girls Girls Girls Musical Improv | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Primary Theater | Various |
| Years Active | 1998, 2003 - Present |
Girls Girls Girls is Austin's longest running all female musical improv troupe. The Gals of GGG create full-length improvised musicals from a single audience suggestion. In other words using the talent of real live musicians, GGG makes up all of the songs, dances, characters, and stories to create one complete, blow-your-socks-off improvised musical.
History
In 1998, Austin Theatresports was founded with male and female members. The Girls of today started as a lab show of female members of Austin Theatresports. Goddess Improviser Rebecca Stockley came to Austin to teach a workshop and while visiting, she gave the girls in the troupe some essential advice for having an all girl improv troupe: Never, under no circumstances, let the boys come. The girls in the troupe first put up a lab show under the name Rock Star Girls Galactica 3000. Original members included Amy McCurdy troupe founder, Kacey Samiee, Chelsea Gilman, Lauren Zinn, Kari Malek, and Shana Merlin.
The girls started out with a mix of longform and short form. Shows included a wheel with names of improv games on it that you could spin to choose what was performed next. Also there were buckets onstage with suggestions in them. The girls even invented their own longform format called “Telephone.” The show included an opening number which featured a choreographed dance to Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison.” They gave themselves Rock Star aliases for the show as well such as Casiopia, Zelda Moonbeam, and Chelsea Gilman. But as improv troupes do, this one lost momentum. No shows were scheduled no rehearsals held for over a year.
Thankfully, Amy McCurdy boldly decided to remount the show not as a part of We Could Be Heroes, but as its own troupe, called Girls Girls Girls. The opening numbers were so much fun and went over so well, that the girls got together and decided they wanted to do improvised musical theatre. New Members were added including Andrea Young, Shelly Miller, Monique Daviau, and Katy Shea and the Girls as we know it today had begun. In 2003, the Girls decided to become an improv collective and work together to manage the troupe. In 2004 they added new members Tara White and Annette Jurcevic and began performing regularly at Arts on Real Theatre. In 2005, the Girls grew even bigger with the addition of Kimberly Tortorrici, Jennifer Cargill, Julie Lucas, and Caitlin Sweetlamb. They also added a new format, GGG Beneath The Music, an improvised parody of Vh1 Behind the Music.
They have participated in the Out of Bounds Improv Festival and Putt Putt Golf Tournament, Waffle Fest Sketch and Improv Festival, Dallas Comedy Festival, and FronteraFest, where they won “Best of the Week”. In the future the Girls plan on hitting the road playing at other venues, cities, and festivals. We will continue to keep making up musicals on the spot.
