Be Our Guest with Noel Katz (Rehearsing For Life)

Noel Katz is a composer and lyricist. He is best known for Such Good Friends, an original musical comedy presented at the fourth annual New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2007, here it won five awards, including Talkin’ Broadway’s Citation as the season’s best musical. It tells the story of three old friends working together in the early years of live television who are forced to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the consequences of the different choices each character makes. Katz composed Our Wedding, The Musical, a musical written for his own actual wedding, which was featured in The New York Times in 2003. Katz is also a specialist in theatrical improvisation. He has taught at Artistic New Directions’ Summer Improv Retreat and currently teaches at The People’s Improv Theatre. He has composed scores for a variety of Second City (NY) improv-based revues, including We Built This City on Rent Control, A Time For Heroes and Hoagies, and Generation F’d. He has also taught song improvisation at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Circle in the Square and the National Dance Institute. Rehearsing for Life sees eleven actors on the spectrum decide to form an improv troupe. We see them learn, rehearse and improve. Then, half of them do an actual improvised set, based on audience suggestions, and an epilogue illuminates how their lives have changed.