OFF BOOK

January 7, 2022 11:27 PM

OFF BOOK: The Improvised Musical is a podcast where Jessica McKenna & Zach Reino accompanied by Scott Passarella, Brett Morris, and Dana Wickens create an improvised musical every episode. They recently featured on dropout.tv's Gamechanger show (paywalled, but songs on YT here) but what I'd like to draw your attention to is this live show from 2018 wherein you can learn more than you ever thought you wanted to know about high school mock trials.
posted by juv3nal (3 comments total)

Thanks for posting this! I love Off Book, and find I kind of jump in once a year and catch up; a weekly listen starts to feel a bit samey after a few weeks, but periodically jumping into the archives and cherry-picking ones that sound good is always super rewarding. My last listen was when it was just Scott accompanying, so it's great to get nudged to dive back in.

One of the things that podcasting in general amazes me with is how quick these people are. The speed that they can think of jokes, but jokes that rhyme, to music -- I can't conceive of how their brains work. It's staggering.
posted by Shepherd at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I got to Off Book from the Game Changer episode (like a lot of people recently, I'd imagine). I was kinda preparing myself for a disaster of an episode, just because the concept sounds so difficult. Absolutely blown away by their talent and quick wit.

I watched and enjoyed the live show too - does anyone have any particularly favorite episodes from the normal podcast archives?
posted by davidest at 12:11 PM on January 8, 2022

The first ever episode, with Paul F Tompkins, is a family favorite that we return to often. As Shepherd says above, there’s a sameness to listening to too many in a row, but that first one is a gem. My kids will often tell me I have to be “collaborative and humble” or sing, out of nowhere, “You are not good at this. You gotta do something else; so take that dream you had and put it on a fucking shelf”.
posted by lucasks at 1:48 PM on January 8, 2022