Baby Wants Candy Improvises Time Machine

Distinguished American revolutionary figures stomped across the stage and performed original melodies during a improvised musical-comedy stage by Baby Wants Candy this past Saturday. The members of Baby Wants Candy, a Chicago-based musical theatre improvisational troupe, used their wit and quick-thinking skills to perform an instantaneously formulated hour-long musical. Every musical Baby Wants Candy creates is performed once. Each aspect of the show is completely improvised, including the songs which are accompanied by the live band that is a part of of the group. Prior to the start of the show, the Baby Wants Candy performers chose an audience member, Sydni White ’14, and asked her questions about her life, including what her family dynamic is and who her favorite teacher and celebrity are. Baby Wants Candy then performed a five-minute-long musical skit depicting White’s life, chronicling her adventures with her action-figure-obsessed older brother at home in Southfield, Mich., as well as the experiences she had in an English class taught by Tasha Hawthorne, Instructor in English. The musical ended with White as a famous neurosurgeon who donated one of her two brain lobes to save her favorite celebrity, Darren Criss. “Having a musical about your life is one of the most amazing things that could happen to you,” said White. After spotlighting White with their musical, Baby Wants Candy performed another set of musicals with inspirations from show titles provided by the audience. Erin Strong, Chair and Instructor in Theatre and Dance, had collected title ideas from the audience the week before and picked one title out of the box during the performance. Strong picked out “Adventures in a Time Machine—The Musical,” a title submitted by Sophiya Chiang ’14. “When they chose my title, I felt that my life was complete. It was amazing,” said Chiang. Using the title as inspiration, Baby Wants Candy created their performance. “Adventures in a Time Machine, the Musical” was set in the year 2026 and was centered around a teenage girl, Sam, who is mad at her father for not letting her drive the family time machine. Her father, a caveman who found the time machine and decided to settle in modern times to raise his family alone, allows Sam’s younger brother, Alex, to drive the time machine, a move which fuels Sam’s anger. On Sam’s 16th birthday, Alex decides to sneak some of his friends on a trip on the time machine and asks Sam to join them. Landing in the American Revolutionary era, the teenagers encounter several famed historical figures such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross. After being deserted by Alex and his friends, Sam decides to dress up as a boy. In a bar, she accidentally runs into Thomas Jefferson, who invites her to stay with him and his wife, Martha Jefferson. During Sam’s dinner with the Jeffersons, Mrs. Jefferson realizes that Sam is a girl and is immediately fond of her because she had always wished for a daughter. Fortunately, Sam feels a similar degree of affection towards Mrs. Jefferson, as she has always longed to have a mother. Sam’s father joins the time machine journey and instantly falls in love with Mrs. Jefferson when he meets her for the first time. Mrs. Jefferson then realizes she is unhappy with her marriage to the eccentric Mr. Jefferson. Eventually, she agrees to go to the future and join Sam’s family. In between the different scenes, Baby Wants Candy incorporated several musical performances. Highlights from the evening included a comical duet between Mr. Jefferson and Sam, which was sung completely in French. In the song, Sam performed a solo section lamenting her empty life without a mother. “Personally, my favorite song was the song ‘Je Suis Français,’ especially considering that the troupe managed to improvise a song simple enough in [French] so that others can understand it, although they themselves [haven’t] studied the language since seventh grade,” said Julius Ross ’13. “From start to finish, the actors were hilarious, and the plot was engaging. It was an amazing experience, and I hope they will come to Andover again in the future,” said Frances Yackel ’15. “Baby Wants Candy was hilarious! There’s already stir of a musical improvisational group starting on campus. Talking to the performers afterwards, they kept on talking about how the [Andover] audience was one of the best they’ve ever had. Watching them was so much fun and made me want to start singing and goofing around with them,” said Arianna Chang ‘13. On the afternoon before the show, Baby Wants Candy led a workshop for about dozen students interested in improvisation and musical theatre. The students participated in several improvisational warm-up games as well as workshops that focused on the techniques that are necessary to improvise songs to fit specific themes. “During the workshop we did exercises that worked not only improvisational skills but also musical cohesiveness. We were shown how to progress the scene and play off of one another. They [the members of the group] really stressed on how it’s your duty to make the other person on stage look good and visa versa. Creating a song on the spot was tricky at first but once you get the formula down it’s a piece of cake,” said Vincent Mocco ’15. During the workshop, students were given the chance to try the techniques in order to get used to them. “It was a lot of fun. We ended up doing the opening musical number for ‘Gunga Runs for President, the Musical,’” said Hemang Kaul ’13, a member of Under the Bed, Andover’s improvisational comedy group. Eliana Kwartler ’12 brought Baby Wants Candy to campus after seeing the group two summers ago on an Andover Theatre and Dance trip to the Fringe Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Baby Wants Candy performs shows year-round in locations such as New York and Chicago. Each troupe of Baby Wants Candy consists of around six cast members as well as a live band that includes drums and piano. Past cast members of the group have included famous comedians such as Seth Meyers from “Saturday Night Live” and and Eric McBrayer who plays Kenneth in NBC’s comedy show “30 Rock.”