Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady! Grammy-Nominated Songwriter Harriet Schock Dives Headfirst into the Dangerous World of Improv Comedy

(PRWEB) June 17, 2004

The scene is set: It’s cocktail hour on a Wednesday night at the Passaic Holiday Inn in northern New Jersey. The entertainment is a musical duo named Tony and Maria who have been playing together for a very long time. While they continue to sing together, they no longer live together, having recently divorced. The lights are low and Harriet Schock, playing Maria, has a world-weary cast to her face as she asks the audience to provide her with the suggestion of “an aspect of marriage,” so she and Dan Jablons, who plays her ex, Tony, can create a song, which, if they can keep a straight face, they will completely improvise. Schock gets the suggestion of “alimony,” and shoots the unsuspecting Jablons a dagger. The audience roars. This is the dangerous, unpredictable world of improv comedy.

Schock, playing piano, and Jablons, on guitar, create a pithy, funny, real song about alimony, to which the audience responds enthusiastically. Piece of cake. Or is it?

“Doing improv not only silences my inner critic but also laughs him off the stage. It allows me to be in the present moment in life. I’ve shortened the time between inspiration and execution. When I have from one to ten seconds to come up with an idea, instead of one to ten days, I may not write a masterpiece. But that I could come up with something at all belies the thought that creativity is a long, laborious process,” Schock said.

Schock is a Grammy-nominated, gold and platinum songwriter and singer who’s had her work recorded by artists such as Helen Reddy (“Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady”), Manfred Mann, Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, Nancy Wilson and Roberta Flack. In addition to an impressive performing schedule, Schock is also a much-loved songwriting teacher with five solo albums and a book, "Becoming Remarkable," to her credit.

The Really Spontaneous Theatre Company is a troupe of eight stage-trained actors that features "Whose Line Is It Anyway" alumni as well as familiar TV and film faces. Originally formed at New York City’s National Improvisational Theatre, RSTC entertained East Coast audiences for more than ten years before being seen in such LA venues as the Whitmore-Lindley Theatre in North Hollywood and the famed theater at the Improv on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.

For more information, contact Rachel Hutcheson at 323-969-4991 or rhutcheson@rstcimprov.com.