LA Premiere of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

L.A. premiere of 'bobrauschenbergamerica

January 20, 12:29 PM Candyce Columbus

TheSpyAnts Theatre Company presents the long-awaited Los Angeles premiere of Charles L. Mee's delightful, kaleidoscopic play, bobrauschenbergamerica. Director Bart DeLorenzo teams up with choreographer Ken Roht to dish up Mee's rollicking collage-montage tribute to Robert Rauschenberg that captures the happy, improvisational quality of the artist's singular vision. bobrauschenbergamerica opens at [Inside] the Ford on January 23, with Pay-What-You-Can previews on January 21 and 22.

bobrauschenbergamerica is a wild road trip through our American landscape, a play made as one of America's greatest artists, Robert Rauschenberg, might have conceived it if he had been a playwright instead of a painter. TheSpyAnts Breeze Braunschweig, Eric Bunton, Adam Dornbusch, Jennifer Etienne Eckert, Brett Hren, Mari Marks, John Charles Meyer, Danny Parker-Lopes, Mark Slater, and Maria Tomas create a collage of people and places, of music and dancing, of love stories and picnics and business schemes and shootings and chicken jokes and golfing, and of the sheer exhilaration of living in a country where people make up their lives as they go.

Artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) once said, "A painting is more like the real world if it is made out of the real world." This infatuation with art and everyday life led him to pioneer the idea of "Combines," provocative collages created out of nontraditional materials. Taking a single canvas, Rauschenberg would combine pictures, familiar prints, sculptures and everyday objects (like tennis balls and stuffed goats), blurring the line between art and sculpture, between art and life.
In bobrauschenbergamerica, the stage is the canvas, and TheSpyAnts create a living, breathing "Combine." The eclectic group of characters and collage of colorful vignettes and fantastical images may seem to unfold like juxtaposing elements, but when seen as a whole they produce a loving tribute to American life.

"The play is a celebration," enthuses DeLorenzo. "It's a collage play written by a collagist about another collagist - an appropriate homage to our crazy quilt of a country."

TheSpyAnts is a 26-member company that started as play reading group and quickly evolved into a formidable theater company that has developed numerous critically acclaimed hit productions including The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, The Birds, Hellcab, Edmond, Infinite Black Suitcase, Rudolph The Red Hosed Reindeer, The Reunion and Kidnapped By Craigslist. TheSpyAnts strive to provide a quality theater experience while challenging the audience to "think outside the box."

bobrauschenbergamerica previews 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, January 21 and 22 and performs 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 3 and 7 p.m. Sunday January 23 through February 28. General admission is $20; $12 seniors and full-time students with ID; Pay-What-You-Can tickets are available for previews and all Sunday matinee performances when purchased at the door (subject to availability). Call 323-461-3673 or visit www.FordTheatres.org.

[Inside] the Ford is located in the Ford Theatres complex at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East in Hollywood just off the 101 Hollywood Freeway across from the Hollywood Bowl and south of Universal Studios. On-site, non-stacked parking is free.