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Meet the Beans!
Formed in 2024 when they met in an improv 101 class, String and the Beans is a four-person musical improv team based in Pittsburgh, PA, specializing in long-form narrative musical improv. Winners of the Pittsburgh City Paper’s 2025 Best Comedian award, the Beans create fully improvised musicals filled with laughs, catchy songs, and surprisingly heartfelt moments.
Known for their themed productions, including Bean My Valentine, HomeComedy, This One Time at Summer Camp, Happy Hallowbeans, and Your High School Musical, String and the Beans brings musical talent, theatrical energy, and warm, playful comedy to every performance.
Amy Bean
Favorite Bean: Garbonzo
Amy moved to the Steel City in 2023 with her 15-year-old tortoise, Stedman, in tow. Originally from Alaska, she began doing improv in 2024 and is currently training with UCB.
Amy has spent her life making up little songs for family and friends, and now she has found the perfect place for that particular talent with the Beans.
When she is not improvising, Amy likes to see local music, attend events, and make small clay ghosts.
Lelaina Bean
Favorite Bean: Coffee
Lelaina is pure bean through and through, having joined us from Bean Town itself, Boston, MA.
Lelaina is a devout scholar of Shakespeare, though these days she has traded the Bard’s immaculate words for the dangerous thrill of making up her own in real time. To bean or not to bean? For Lelaina, it is not even a question.
By day, Lelaina works in tech. She is also a playwright, director, popper of corn, and Honey enthusiast.
Raquel Bean
Favorite Bean: Jelly
Raquel is an actor and improviser. She is a member of the improv comedy team Fool Moon and previously performed with Kevin’s Garage and Arcade Comedy Theater’s house team, Worm. She is currently continuing her improv training with UCB.
Offstage, Raquel serves on the board of Arcade Comedy Theater and lives with her two dogs, two cats, and an impressive collection of unfinished craft projects, including half-made bracelets and felting experiments.
Michael Bean
Favorite Bean: Sean
Michael was born in Canada, handed a hockey stick, and told to go “oot” into the world and be polite.
He recently cracked the list of the Top 100 Funniest Canadians, right after Mike Myers and just ahead of Ryan Reynolds on a list he made up himself and recites every night as he falls asleep.
Outside of improv, Michael is a published children's book author, professional D&D Dungeon Master, hockey player (obviously), and pupper parent to two silly goldendoodles.
String (the guitar)
Favorite Bean: "Help me, my soul is trapped in a guitar!!!"
String is an acoustic guitar. Before becoming a guitar, String was a mahogany tree that provided a home for a family of squirrels, until he was chopped down, ripped away from his home and family, and mutilated into the shape of a guitar.
Things only got worse from there. Now String is subjected to a fate worse than death: having to listen to hours and hours of musical improv comedy.