Rap meets improv meets R&B meets live theater at its most magical in the Tony-winning Freestyle Love Supreme, the most entertainingly original audience-participatory show you’ll see all summer.

Entirely improvised by a supremely inventive, multi-talented cast, the Pasadena Playhouse treat opens with a promise that every sound, beat, word, and note that audiences will be hearing will be heard for the first and last time at the performance they’re attending.

To begin the evening’s entertainment, audience members are invited to shout out verbs (or at least that was part of speech asked for at the performance I attended), upon which cast members integrate as many of them as they can recall into a rap sequence invented and performed on the spot.

(Note that this and other Freestyle Love Supreme highlights mentioned in this review may be entirely different from what you see at a future performance.)

Another audience participation sequence solicits “things that you downright dislike,” after which the Freestyle Love Supreme gang once again work their improvised magic linking such dislikable things as rental scooters, wet jeans, and alternative milk into yet another rapped-sung-and-acted production number par excellence.

Next up, a request for audience members to shout out in headline form things they wish they could do over, the winner of which gets to tell their sorry tale from start to finish, upon which said unfortunate incident gets retold in rap.

(That the tale teller at the performance I attended was actor Peyton Crim, who only days before had won an Outstanding Feature Performance Scenie for A Little Night Music, was a delightful surprise, and the woeful tale he had to tell was of the day he attended his grandmother’s funeral and fell into the open casket, a sorry story which inspired the evening’s most show-stopping show-stopper.)

An audience-prompted list of “things you love” inspires the bluesy “Imagination,” leading to the evening’s grand finale, one that has the Freestyle Love Supreme cast reenacting events in one audience member’s (hopefully eventful) day, and it’s a tribute to their ingenuity that even though audience member Anthony’s day turned out to be far more unremarkable than its highlight (“goat yoga”) would have suggested, the reenactment they created from it made even the ordinary quite extraordinary.

Under Kail’s on-the-nose direction, raptastic cast members Andrew Bancroft (the most charismatic of hosts), Jay C. Ellis, Aneesa Folds, Kayla Mullady, and Venezale reveal mind-boggling gifts of quick-thinking ingenuity, in addition to their considerable talents as rappers, vocalists, and in Mullady’s case, of creating story-telling sound effects (aka “beatboxing”) made only with a mouth and a mike, and musicians Richard Baskin Jr. and Victoria Theodore do their own remarkable improvising up on stage as well.

Like the show’s director and cast, the Freestyle Love Supreme design team is made up entirely of out-of-town visitors, and Broadway buffs will quickly recognize such illustrious names as scenic designer Beowulf Borrit, costume designer Lisa Zinni, lighting designer Jeff Coiter, and sound designer Nevin Steinberg, who make Freestyle Love Supreme as much a feast for the eyes and ears as it is a spectacular performance showcase.

Last but not least, Andrew Garvis (whose name is buried way too deep in the program to do his contributions justice) receives deserved onstage mention for his improvised lighting design, no mean feat considering how often the unexpected might happen.

Not appearing on stage at the performance reviewed were cast members Mark Martin, Morgan Reilly, and James Rushin. Some performances may include a surprise guest star, though the one I attended did not.

Freestyle Love Supreme was conceived by Venezial and created by Thomas Kail, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Venezial. Cody Renard Richard and Patrick Vassel are associate directors. McKenzie Murphy is stage manager and Angela M. Griggs is assistant stage manager.

The winner of a 2021 Special Tony Award, Freestyle Love Supreme may not be homegrown in L.A. the way most Pasadena Playhouse productions are, but if you love live theater as much as I do, this is one SoCal theatrical event you won’t want to miss.

For all-around crowd-pleasing entertainment, Freestyle Love reigns supreme.

Pasadena Playhouse, 39 South El Molino Ave., Pasadena.
www.pasadenaplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
July 16, 2022

Tags: Anthony Venezial, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Los Angeles Theater Review, Pasadena Playhouse, Thomas Kail