Mastering Broadway-Style Openers

About this Workshop:

The most important moment in a musical improv show is the first few minutes, when big choices are made to establish the reality and context for the show to follow.

In this workshop, Flash Mob Musical's Debra Schifrin will teach a deep exploration of the environmental opener, in which you'll learn how to establish important context before a single lyric is even sung and how to to work together as one organism to create a rich, theatrical experience.

Students will learn how to make quick choices that build out the location through dialogue, greetings, rhythmic sounds, and space-object work to make your world feel vibrant and lived in, while also learning several different styles and approaches to environmental opening numbers.

Date, Time & Location: This two-and-a-half-hour workshop will take place on Sunday, April 19 from 2:00pm to 4:30pm at the Endgames Improv training center at 2989 Mission St, San Francisco.

Intermediate/Advanced Students Welcome: This workshop is open to those who have studied or performed musical improv at the intermediate or advanced level.

Maximum Capacity: In order to ensure the best possible experience for those taking part, we are capping this workshop at a maximum of 14 total students.

About the Weekend: The 2026 Weekend of Workshops is a two-day event run by Bay Area Musical Improv, featuring eight workshops all taught by local musical improvisers and concluding with our annual FREE Jam & Bread community event--a combination potluck and social gathering, plus improvised songs with a live band! See a full list of all events here.

About the Instructor:

Debra Schifrin has been performing and teaching improv for over 15 years. She is a founding member of Phasers on Stun (Improvised Star Trek, 2014) and Flash Mob Musical (musical improv, 2015). She also performs with Ragtag, which brings different genres to the stage each show, including Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, The Twilight Zone, fantasy, and epic sagas, to name just a few. She performs in the duo Snafu with Michael Astrauskas and the trio 3’s Company. She teaches improv at Stanford, and in 2017 she created an applied improv leadership course that she teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business and beyond. Since 2007, she has trained and/or performed at San Francisco improv theaters including BATS, Leela, Endgames, and Made Up Theatre, as well as iO (Chicago) and UCB (New York).