Voices from the Fringe: Kat Primeau of Improv Troupe Robot Teammate

After taking 2018 off, the award-winning improv musical comedy troupe Robot Teammate is making a welcome return to this year’s Fringe with Pockets, a brand-new production.

Kat Primeau, Robot Teammate member and producer, co-writer, choreographer and co-star of Pockets, was happy to speak with ArtsBeat LA about the troupe’s Fringe comeback and the new show.

ArtsBeat LA: Tell us a bit about the genesis of Pockets.

Kat Primeau: Robot Teammate completed our “T-Trilogy” of musicals (Timeheart, Thug Tunnel and Turbulence!) with an off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse in 2017. After that, we had been joking about doing a “P-Trilogy,” with Perm, a parody in the realm of Hair, when Dave [Reynolds] pitched a story about “Pockets, a young female thief.”

We thought it could be a perfect vehicle for Molly [Dworsky] to star in, and our story grew from there. We actually wrote songs and a script for the first version of Pockets that got completely thrown out, but we love the story now and hope it will be our funniest, most touching tale yet!

ABLA: What about the music? Was it a collaborative effort?

KP: Everything about a Robot Teammate musical is collaborative, and each song has a different origin story. Our musical director and teammate, Branson NeJame, has crafted a beautiful theme for the kingdom of Crumpeton and shaped every improvised and demo’d idea with loving attention. Some songs were lyric-driven, whereas others were inspired by a melody. Others are hammered out through many rounds and rewrites and deliberate arrangement. It’s quite different than what we are used to as musical improvisers, so we always relish the songwriting process.

ABLA: Since it’s a period piece, what style — or styles — is the music? And how were the sets and costuming created?

KP: Aside from a bardic tone, the music is modern. Branson has been inspired by ELO to create a fusion of pop, rock, disco and classical music, with a little tango and reggae thrown in. Our production elements are limited to due to the nature of 15-minute Fringe load-ins, and our costumes are a mishmash of borrowed period pieces and modern basics. The book and lyrics go a long way in filling out our world, so we are able to leave room for the imagination.

ABLA: Who’s playing whom?

KP: Pockets stars Molly Dworsky as Bellamina Crumbledunk, the precocious thirteen-year-old daughter of The Duchess of Crumpeton, Winifred Dolores Crumbledunk, played by me. When Bellamina rebels against her mother, she enters society’s underbelly and befriends the mischievous crook, Veegan (Chris Bramante). Dave Reynolds rounds out our main cast as Town Crier — Rob Crier, The Clutch to the Duch — Barkly St. Piggins, and the revolutionary Jim Val Jim. We also have an ensemble cast of friends joining us again this year.

ABLA: What can audiences expect when they attend the show? What makes Pockets a good fit for the Hollywood Fringe?

KP: We are lucky to have an incredible live band led by Branson NeJame on keys, Harrison Lee on cello, trombone, and guitar, Chris Sousa on bass, and Sam Kirsch on drums, so expect the music to be completely original and totally rockin’! The British-ish world we’ve built together is charming and wacky and fast-paced, so audiences may experience deep belly laughs and perhaps even a bit of “The Feelz.”

We have a dynamic female protagonist and a fresh take on the mother-daughter story, so we hope to present a thoroughly modern piece of musical theater that delights and truly does us justice as writers and content creators. We have poured our hearts and lives into this musical, and we believe there’s something for everyone — woman or man, young or old — to fall in love with.

ABLA: It’s been a couple of years since Turbulence!. What has Robot Teammate been up to?

KP: Robot Teammate spent 2017 working on Turbulence!, taking home awards for Best Musical, Best World Premiere, A Little New Music’s Outstanding Songwriting and Better Lemon’s Critics’ Choice at Hollywood Fringe before traveling to NYC to do an Off-Broadway run at the historic SoHo Playhouse. It was an exhilarating and exhausting endeavor, and finding a way to follow up our success hasn’t been easy. We’ve kept up our improvised musical performances at venues like Westside Comedy and Impro Studio Theatre, and recorded some podcast material we may or may not release.

Personally, I lost my dad to a bewildering form of early-onset dementia known as Frontotemporal Degeneration, wrote a children’s book for my niece, and recorded an album with my band, Sumeau. We’ve had all manner of life experiences pop up since then, and two of our teammates left our collective to focus on their solo projects, so we really just took the time to regroup and refine the kind of stories we want to spend time scripting and bringing into the world. Each musical is an intensive, collaborative labor of love, so we didn’t want to rush things.

BL: What keeps you coming back to the Fringe?

KP: Fringe is an incredible breeding ground for creativity, and the energy around new works is unparalleled in LA. Since 2015, we’ve devoted our Junes to this community, and the payoff has been incredible. We love the artists we meet, the connections we make, the fun we have, the shows we see, and the feedback we receive. It is such a stark contrast from any improv festival we’ve been a part of, and there’s truly nothing like the deadline of Opening Night to really light a fire under our butts and make an idea come to fruition.

BL: What other shows are you interested in seeing at the Fringe?

KP: I am so stoked to see Four Clowns returning to HFF with a new show, Shakedown at the Dusty Spur!! There are several new shows promising badass women from medieval times, so we will definitely be checking those out. The Duchess & The Stripper, 45 Milligrams, Earth To Karen, Hamiltunes, and Tabletop Musical are all on my must-see list this year.

Pockets plays June 15-29 at the Broadwater, 1076 Lillian Way. Ticketing information and specific dates and showtimes can be obtained on the Fringe site.

Feature photo (l-r); Molly Dworsky, Kat Primeau, Dave Reynolds, Branson NeJame and Chris Bramante are Robot Teammate in POCKETS. Photo by Dave Newberg.