Fri 4/9 @ 7:30PM

Sat 4/10 @ 5PM & 8:30PM

Sun 4/11 @ 7PM

 Playhouse Square and Baldwin Wallace University’s nationally celebrated music theatre and arts management & entrepreneurship programs have been collaborating for the last 14 years on an annual production that gives BW’s students — who routinely go on to careers on Broadway and in touring shows, TV and movies after graduation — the opportunity to participate in a professional-style production on a big stage.

This year the show goes on, even if it’s only online and not onstage. While they’ve previously presented scripted musicals such as Lizzie and Be More Chill, this year’s production breaks that mold, just as the format does. BARS (Beatboxing, Acting, Rapping, Singing) is an original improv-based show that mixes classic music theater with the hip-hop skills of beatboxing and rapping, based on a concept by Baldwin Wallace Music Theatre alum Jay Ellis aka JEllis, who also directs the show.

As in much sketch improv, the cast will be creating both scenes and songs on the spot based on audience input. So each show will be very different.

“The primary source of inspiration for BARS is the storytelling of hip-hop,” says JEllis in the show’s press release. “I wanted to amalgamate the classical presentation of music theatre with the off-the-cuff nature of improv through a hip-hop-fueled production.”

The show will have four performance Friday April 9-Sunday April 11. Tickets start at $20 and are available at playhousesquare.org/bars or 216-241-6000.