Get yourself comfy and get ready to chat all things stagey!

Hi Lee, how are you doing today? Thanks so much for chatting to Stage to Page! Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us how you first got into the industry?

Hi, I’m Lee Apsey, co-creator of ‘CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation’, ‘Your Flaws: The Musical’ and ‘SadoMusical’, as well as an independent filmmaker. I got into the theatrical side whilst I was unsuccessfully trying to get a TV show commissioned from a flat in Tokyo. I took an improv class for the sake of making something immediately and then, like most things, I took it too far.

You've just performed in London with CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation. Can you tell us about the story and the role you play within the show?

The fun part is that the story is never the same! Every show the audience creates a bizarre murder and then joins us on the hunt for the culprit (without leaving their seats). We spin a brand-new world and characters inspired by that initial input and then invite them to interrogate the suspects and ultimately decide who’s guilty in the final climactic moments.

You're no stranger to the world of improv. What is it about improvisation that brings you back time and time again?

A combination of challenge and laziness. Challenge in that I love coming in empty handed and trusting we can make a brand-new hour of comedy. Laziness in that, for Crime Scene Impro, we cast people significantly funnier and more talented than I am so a large part of this show is just me getting to be amazed by them and the audience.

It's no secret that even the cast aren't aware who the killer is at each performance. How do you navigate this each night and what challenges, if any, have you had arise?

It’s a very willing trapeze act! The audience can choose any character they want to be the killer in the final scene and we have to make that make sense retroactively. As long as we really listen to our castmates and the audience, we have a rich soup to pull from after an hour so we don’t really worry about it. The biggest challenge would be keeping it satisfying if the audience choice was too obvious. However, they rarely take the simple route and, when they do, we have even dafter and less expected explanations waiting for them.

My blog is called Stage to Page. But if you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?

I’d really love to see the Zhuangzi with some of the boundless creativity and mixed craft mastery of the recent My Neighbor Totoro adaptation. It has a really playful combination of illusion and deconstruction which would suit the parables. I think visible tree orchestra and puppetless puppetry are burnt into my soul.

And finally, why should people book tickets to see CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation?

Because we built this show from the ground up to make the audience win no matter what they throw at us. Every year at our sell-out Edinburgh shows, a large portion of the audience is made up of people coming back for a third or fourth time, which suggests we’re doing a decent job.

You can find out more about CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation here.