Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino create a completely improvised musical in an attempt to combat the notion that musicals should be “carefully crafted” or “thought out a
Jessica McKenna and Zach Reino create a completely improvised musical in an attempt to combat the notion that musicals should be “carefully crafted” or “thought out at all.”
Zach Reino and Jessica McKenna are a versatile musical comedy duo better known as The Zach & The Jess. They currently write and compose music for the WGA award winning Peacock Series Baking It starring Maya Rudolph and Amy Poehler. The duo has also written songs and musical sketches for the Peacock series Bumper in Berlin, the hit animation show Rick and Morty, Party Over Here (a Fox sketch show produced by The Lonely Island), Buzzfeed, FunnyOrDie and Nickelodeon. Zach and Jess recently sold a live-action musical comedy feature with David Wain attached to direct and Elizabeth Banks’ Brownstone Productions for Amazon. They also created and starred in Serious Music, a digital series for ABC.
Their weekly improvised musical podcast Off Book has been praised by various online publications including Indie Wire, USA Today, Parade, AV Club and Splitsider and been featured at Comedy Central’s Clusterfest Festival, Moontower, the world renowned Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, and the upcoming Netflix Is A Joke Festival in LA. Zach and Jess were listed as one of Vulture’s “Comedians You Should and Will Know” and in early 2019 they released their first full-length musical comedy album The Calendar Album with Comedy Dynamics.
https://www.thezachandthejess.com/
“Off Book has managed to make an entertaining, funny and musically impressive podcast that only gets better each time you
listen….This is the ONLY time that after listening to a podcast repeatedly I have wanted to hear the same excerpt again.” -CBC
“Every entirely re-listenable song, and the way characters fold into each other’s narrative, is awe-inspiring and totally delightful.”
“Warning: Downloading Off Book may cause you to laugh uncontrollably in a public space.” -AV CLUB
“There are a very select number of people that can do what Jess McKenna and Zach Reino manage on a regular basis, coming up with a continuous stream of award-worthy improvised musicals in any number of styles.” -INDIE WIRE
“Every episode of Off Book is an amazing feat of comedic and musical synchronicity — even the ads are must-listen.” -SPLITSIDER
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