Before “Hamilton” or “In the Heights” hit Broadway, Lin-Manuel Miranda honed many of his artistic skills by performing live, improvisatory hip-hop with a group of like-minded friends.
Now Mr. Miranda and his tight cadre of post-college collaborators are bringing that group, Freestyle Love Supreme, back to the stage; Mr. Miranda will be a producer and an occasional guest performer, but not a regular member of the cast.
“It is as addictive as Twitter once you realize you can get in front of an audience and make up a hip-hop show in real time,” he said. “I am going to jump in for as much as my life allows. But the show will not be dependent on me being there.”
Freestyle Love Supreme, which first hit the stage in 2004, performs spoken and sung numbers, accompanied by keyboards and beats, that are formulated in real time based on suggestions — words or themes — from audience members. The group’s name is a tribute to “A Love Supreme,” the John Coltrane jazz suite.
The group has performed at a variety of festivals and venues around the world and had a brief life on television. It will now reconvene for a sustained Off Broadway run from Jan. 30 to March 2 at the Greenwich House Theater; each show will be 80 minutes long.
“Freestyle Love Supreme probably has shaped my writing more than any other creative endeavor I’ve been a part of, because it’s writing in real time in front of an audience with nothing but your brain and your friends,” Mr. Miranda said.
The regular cast will feature Andrew Bancroft, Arthur Lewis, Bill Sherman, Chris Sullivan, Anthony Veneziale and Utkarsh Ambudkar; the producers hope guest performers will include alumni Christopher Jackson, James Monroe Iglehart and Daveed Diggs, all of whom have performed in “Hamilton,” as well as Mr. Miranda.
Embracing a practice used by some comedians, the show will require that patron cellphones be checked at the door.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The New York Times