Check out our 2008 promo video for "Kidnapped by Craigslist"

This is a promo video we shot for our first production of "Kidnapped by Craigslist" in 2008. So if you didn't catch it the first time, it'll give you a taste of what to expect. We're back with it with a preview on Friday, and our official opening on Saturday (which includes our ten year anniversary celebration) at the Elephant Lab Theatre in Hollywood. So check out the video, and then click here and make your reservations now. Note: the space we're performing in seats only 40, so the sooner you act, the better. :)

Thanks, and we'll see you there!

TheSpyAnts present "Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift"

Only two weeks left to witness this

eerie and risqué new comedy…..

TheSpyAnts Theatre Company presents

"Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift"

written by Katie Goan,

created by Katie Goan and Nitra Gutierrez

and directed by Lori Evans Taylor

at The Elephant Lab.

…these actual postings from Craigslist give you a ride just

over an hour and set you off to your evening with
just the right rush.

This weekend Fri. 8pm, Sat. 8pm and 10pm, Sun. 7pm.

Late Night Show Sat., November 6th 10pm, ONLY $10!

“…crack ensemble in an unrelentingly frenetic fusillade… Taylor's transfer of her original staging's carnival sideshow to the creep show (courtesy of Adam Haas Hunter's effective lights and spiderweb-festooned, haunted-house set) turns out to be more than just seasonally fitting.”

- LA Weekly

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world of anonymity? Say anything you want? Be anyone you can? Even if people think it is bizarre or disturbing? Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift is an eerie and risqué new comedy that explores the carnivalesque, cult-like phenomenon that is Craigslist, bringing actual postings to life from the website with scripted material and music. This unique and creative one-hour play tells the true stories that are locked inside an online community that has shaped and inspired today's internet generation. There’s a place for you here. There’s a place here for everyone, straight, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender or questioning. We all have a dark side, you know.

Fri. and Sat., 8pm, and Sun., 7pm

One Thu. Show - Nov.11, 8pm

Late Night Shows - Sat., Oct. 23rd and Sat., Nov. 6th, 10pm

Pay What You Can (at the door) Sun., Oct. 24th and 31st, 7pm

The Elephant Lab Theatre

6322 Santa Monica Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90038 (just west of Vine)

Tickets $20

Make reservations here or at (323) 860-8786

starring Eric Bunton, Jennifer Etienne Eckert, David Goryl, Patrick Hancock, Florian Klein, Brett Mack, Mari Marks, Dawn Merkel, John Charles Meyer, Amy Motta, Marina Mouhibian, Christopher Mur,Danny Parker-Lopes, CB Spencer, Alison Zatta

(Alternating cast, click here for performance schedule.)

lighting design Adam Hunter

set design Adam Hunter

costume design Marina Mouhibian

choreography Scott Hislop

publicity Eric Bunton

photography Jeff E Photo

graphic design Churchie Graphic Design

New Postings! New Cast! New Show!

Backstage Review of "Kidnapped by Craigslist"

From Backstage

Kidnapped by Craigslist
December 10, 2008

by Neal Weaver

This zany, rollicking show by Katie Goan and Nitra Gutierrez is essentially an evening of sketch comedy derived from actual postings on Craigslist, making it a catalog of human oddities. It's played out in the frame of a carnival sideshow, presided over by the Barker (Amy Motta), who emerges from a trunk in a wonderful, form-fitting, shabby-elegant costume and boots. Motta has a spectacular figure, a dazzling smile, and a boatload of charm. She introduces to us the other oddballs: the mortally embarrassed woman (Shelby Kyle) who farted repeatedly on a first date, the bigot in the Santa Suit (Danny Lopes) who hates everybody including himself, the extremely pregnant woman (Kyle again) who's fed up with strangers wanting to touch her baby-bump, the man (Scott Krinsky) driven 'round the bend by the cockroaches in his apartment, the woman obsessed with cake (Dawn Merkel), the Right Sneaker (Lane Maser) who has lost her Left Sole Mate, and the exasperated gay man (Eric Bunton) who can't sleep because he's too distracted by the naked, sleeping teenager who's visible through a window across the way. And Motta plays a sodomy-averse woman who sings a song memorably titled "Don't Touch My Butt-Hole."

Director Lori Evans Taylor deploys her clever and versatile cast (all of whom play multiple roles) with style and dispatch on a jewel-box set by Matt Maenpaa, which features a lot of red velour, a handsomely carved wardrobe, a skewed chandelier hanging at a gravity-defying angle, and the aforementioned trunk. The clever, colorful, and sometimes lavish costumes are supplied by Marina Mouhibian, who also plays several characters, including a cockroach, a birthday cake, a bedpost, and a pirate. Michelle O'Connor provides the original music. (Note: Some roles are double cast.)

Presented by TheSpy Ants at the Elephant Lab Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Nov. 22-Dec. 20. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. (Also Sat., 10:30 p.m. Dec. 6 and 13 and Thu., 8 p.m. Dec. 18.) (323) 860-8786 or www.thespyants.com.

Promo video for "Kidnapped by Craigslist"

StageSceneLA review for "Infinite Black Suitcase"

From StageSceneLA

The Illustrious Spy Ants are presenting the world premiere production of
Infinite Black Suitcase, EM Lewis. Having seen their The Most Fabulous Story
Ever Told, and the recent Rudolph the Red-Hosed Reindeer, I knew them to
be a company of talented comic actors, but I was not prepared for the
depth of emotion they bring to Lewis' seriocomic "one day in the life" story of
a group of rural Oregonians facing death...and life after the death of a
loved one.

Director Danny Parker-Lopes has helmed a fine ensemble of young and not
so young actors, among whom there are a number of standouts. Longtime
Spy Ants Eric Bunton and Jerry Pappas have palpable rapport as a gay
couple, one dying, one facing the burden of his partner's illness and the fear
of life without him. Bunton and Pappas, laugh out loud hilarious in both
"Fabulous" and "Rudolph," prove themselves to be consummate dramatic
actors as well. Bring kleenex.

I also very much liked the intensity and depth of Ryan Churchill's Joe, whose
ex-wife and the mother of his three daughters, is dying (very good work by
Darcy Halsey as the hospitalized ex), the delightful comic relief of Dawn
Merkel's cemetery employee, and Bill J. Stevens warm and witty Father
Sebastian. Tammy Kaitz is reminiscent of a young Karen Black and Linc Hand
shows young leading man potential. Ken Arquelio, Kim Estes, Addi Gaash,
Anita Khanzadian, Marina Mouhibian, Hal Perry, and Rich Williams ably
complete the large and talented cast.

Infinite Black Suitcase may be about pain and sadness death and dying,
but it's also about the joy of living and loving, and is well worth spending a
very fast moving 90 minutes with. I, and at least one other audience
member I overheard, wouldn't have minded spending even more time with
these people.

APRIL 2007, LILIAN THEATRE, HOLLYWOOD.

--Steven Stanley

Backstage review for "The Reunion"

Backstage West - Michael Holder

THE REUNION: Everything Changes. Everything Stays The Same
at the Howard Fine Theater. CRITIC'S PICK

With confessed deference to Tamara, in which the audience followed actors from room to room and hoped to unearth as many story points on their individual journeys as possible, The Spy Ants has brazenly taken the concept and moved it from an Italian villa in the 1920's onto the grounds of the fictional Woodrow Wilson HIgh School circa 1994. The audience once more becomes part of the action, asked to attend the 10th reunion of the Wilson Warriors Class of '84, and spy on the students who had the cajones to once again face their incredibly messed-up classmates, folks with enough residual damage to keep a psychiatrist in teeoff fees for years.

Even the "class clown" who became a shrink (Ryan Churchill) isn't immune to the wreckage; indeed he's creating more. As he confesses his date (Lana Underwood) is also his 19 year old patient, he finds time to surrepitiously distribute a new, unapproved drug guaranteed to make girls get jiggy and spread rumors from an unbalanced classmate (Dawn Merkel) about who was doing what to whom the night of the graduation party while one poor kid turned crispy in a boathouse fire. Director-writers Darcy Halsey and Danny Parker do an impressive job keeping the audience hopping as they tag behind the certifiable students and suitably war faculty members, winding the characters' stories together masterfully and adding a few surprises, such as having Johnny Cochrane (Kim Estes) present as the secret lover of one lusty attendee (Jenny Vilim), the former girlfriend of the football star (Linc Hand,) crippled in another grad night "accident."

The cast is golden, all members brilliant at making their characters real despite the need to keep them talking and moving at once. But like Tamara,the problem with becoming a fly on the wall of this facinatingly dysfunctional gathering is that there's not time to unravel the mysteries in one evening. After the understandable minor clunks of opening night smooth out a bit, this is one production worth a second, third, or even fourth look. And that big red star next to algebra on the back of your program/report card lets you do just that at a discount.