Inside the Ford, it's all about Mee

Inside the Ford, it's all about Mee

January 15, 11:59 AM

Evan Henerson

That’s Charles Mee, the kaleidoscopic human grabbag of a playwright whose works include Big Love, First Love, Wintertime and A perfect Wedding among many others. Mee puts his plays up on the Internet at Charlesmee.com and, via his (re)making project, encourages fellow writers to take from them freely (“pillage” is the word he uses).



“Pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece,” Mee writes, “--and then, please, put your own name to the work that results."



Those who elect to do Mee’s plays largely as written should pay him royalties.



Kicking off the year at the Ford Amphitheatre’s [Inside] the Ford space series, the SpyAnts Theatre Company and director Bart DeLorenzo are offering the L.A. premiere of bobrauschenbergamerica, a tribute to collage artist Bob Rauschenberg.



Billed as a trip through America as Rauschenberg might have envisioned it, Mee’s play features “Rauschenberg’s childhood home a human martini, a pizza delivery boy and the world’s worst collection of chicken jokes.”



Choreography is by Ken Roht and the cast members include Eric Bunton, Adam Dornbusch, Jennifer Etienne Eckert, Brett Hren, Mari Marks, John Charles Meyer, Danny Parker-Lopes, Mark Slater, Maria Tomas and Breeze Braunschweig who – if her moniker is real -- may well have hit the top 5 in my most memorable actor name list.



For this play, however, I suspect Ms. Braunschweig -- who will play Roller Girl -- will fit right in bobrauschenbergamerica.

opens Jan. 23 and plays 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sun.; through Feb. 28 at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E, Hollywood. $12-$20. (323) 461-3673 (GO 1-FORD) or www.FordTheatres.org