ABSTRACT
There are intriguing parallels between improvised music such as jazz and improvised theatre such as the Commedia dell’Arte. Both genres require that the performers have a flawless sense of rhythm and style; they must make their entrances on cue and play their parts in character. Most saliently, both art forms stand or fall on the performer’s ability to embroider upon some kind of skeletal structure, whether it be a plot outline in a scenario collection or a single melodic line with chord symbols in a “fake book.”
