25 North Coast Bkg
North Coast
2025 Sarasota Improv FestivalNorth Coast
North Coast
2025 Sarasota Improv FestivalNORTH 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.
Running Time
A lot of shows proclaim, ‘You’ve never seen anything quite like it.’ In North Coast’s case, that is actually true.
North Coast Cast
Mel Rubin
Billy Soco
Raquel Palmas
Michael Crisol
Mel Rubin is a hip hop improv performer, instructor and beatboxer based out of New York City. She studied long-form improv and musical improv comedy at the Magnet Theater (NYC), and is a performer on the hip hop improv team North Coast, who has been featured in The New York Times and Time Out New York. Mel is also an active performer, workshop facilitator and public speaking coach with freestyle+. If you ever catch Mel around Brooklyn with her tiny dog Milo, be sure to say hi to her (after you say hi to Milo, of course).
Billy Soco is a first-generation actor, voice artist, and improv teacher of Chilean and Filipino descent based in NYC. He has trained and performed with The Second City, UCB, Magnet Theater, ComedySportz, Freestyle+, Baby Wants Candy, Shamilton, and The Story Pirates. Billy performs regularly with North Coast, Big Whoop and Kittyhawk bringing his talents to stages and classrooms worldwide like the Vancouver Improv Festival, Birmingham Improv Festival (UK), and Teatro Lospleimovil (Chile) to name a few. He currently teaches and serves as Artistic Director for Megawatt at Magnet Theater. He also teaches on faculty with The Second City. Learn more at billysoco.com
Raquel Palmas is an New York based improviser, actress, and musical comedian. She has just arrived back from a two year contract with international comedy theater Boom Chicago. Whether she is wowing crowds with comedic freestyling or hosting corporate gatherings, her joy is infectious.
Michael Crisol, aka Doctor Brick, is a professional beatboxer, born and raised in the Bronx. As of 2022, Doctor Brick was 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. He tackles the tag team division of beatbox battles 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, and internationally-touring a cappella ensemble, Backtrack Vocals. In addition to performing, Doctor Brick uses beatboxing in a teaching capacity under the Academy of Noise, providing beatbox workshops to schools all across the tristate area. For the last two years, Brick has utilized beatboxing in conjunction with the music program at the Lavelle School for the Blind in the Bronx.
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 2025 Sarasota Improv Festival. All workshops take place Saturday, July 19.