North Coast_2017_Fri_0119
North Coast
NORTH COAST IMPROV (New York City, NY) is New York City’s premier hip hop improv comedy team. With a cast of improv comedy veterans, North Coast’s explosive performances have been packing comedy venues, universities, and festivals nationwide since 2009. Built around a single suggestion from an audience member, the show’s improvised scenes escalate into full-blown hip-hop songs, facilitated by resident beatboxer, Doctor Brick. With their seamless melding of comedic timing and freestyle rapping abilities, North Coast frequently blurs the line between comedy show and concert, drawing audiences from the comedy, hip-hop, and theater communities for an experience that has been hailed as “mind-blowing” and “next level” by critics and audiences alike.
The Cast
Michael Crisol AKA “Dr. Brick”
Ralf Jean-Pierre
Stephanie Rae
Douglas Widick
MICHAEL CRISOL (AKA DOCTOR BRICK) is a beatboxer, born and raised in the Bronx. As of 2022, Doctor Brick is ranked as the 16th best beatboxer in the US. He has been competitively beatboxing since 2016 in cities all over North America, including Boston, Atlanta, New York, and Toronto. Some of these battles include the American Beatbox Championships, East Coast Beatbox Battle, and the Great North Beatbox Battle. In a number of these competitions, he tackles the tag team division with his partner, Alex P, as the duo known as Snakes and Ladders. Outside of the competitive scene, Brick performs with New York's premiere hip hop improv group, North Coast, blending hip hop with improv comedy as their resident beatboxer.
RALF JEAN-PIERRE (AKA PRECIOUS GORGEOUS) is a first generation Haitian-American rapper-songwriter, actor, and comedian from Brooklyn, NY. He earned a BFA in Performing Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He has studied improv comedy at the People’s Improv Theater, and has studied clown with Christopher Bayes, Virginia Scott, and Eric Davis. In 2012, Ralf and his collaborator, Jolie Tong, developed a one-man musical chronicling the true account of how Ralf spent all of 2012 riding his bicycle across the United States, performing a one-man Shakespeare on the streets called WHAT SHOULD BE THE FEAR, which debuted at Gamba Forest in 2017. Precious Gorgeous released the self-produced record Tryna Get My Live Together, the mixtapes TRIP and Brooklyn Petting Zoo, and Everyone Dies From a Bullet vol 1, a covers record. Ralf currently hosts the weekly improv comedy podcast No Suggestion, where he chats and does improv with the funniest comedians in NYC, and he is currently teaching as an adjunct professor for the Brooklyn College BFA, NYU Tisch BFA, and Columbia University MFA Acting programs.
STEPHANIE RAE is a full-time applied improv practitioner who has been studying the form for twelve years. She’s directed a Boyz II Men-themed show for UCB's Del Close Marathon, guest played with everyone from ComedySportz to The Groundlings, and taught classes and workshops for improvisers from Louisiana to Liverpool. As founder and president of the Black Improv Alliance, she’s created scholarships and free programming for hundreds of improvisers of color, and as a facilitator for FLS+, she’s taught the science of play alongside members of Broadway’s Freestyle Love Supreme. Stephanie is passionate about amplifying diverse voices and seeing more melanin onstage. She also has a law degree from Georgetown - but mostly uses it to win arguments online.
DOUGLAS WIDICK is a founding member of Hip-Hop Improv group, North Coast, which was named one of Timeout NY’s Top 10 Comedy Shows of 2014 and tours internationally. He just wrapped a tour of Sonja In Your City and a year-long run of Toxic Masculinity: The Musical at UCB Theatre. Follow his new Comedy Group, Cum Laude, on Instagram @cumlaudecomedy. Douglaswidick.com
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Festival Workshops
Dive into your own spontaneity with Sarasota Improv Festival Workshops! Our offerings allow you to learn from the experts with intimate trainings led by Festival artists from across the country and around the world. Featuring workshops in a wide range of improvisational styles and techniques, there is something for improvisers of all experience levels at the 2023 Sarasota Improv Fest. All workshops take place Saturday, July 22.
