"Kidnapped by Craigslist" is extending once again until February 7th!

We are proud to announce that Kidnapped by Craigslist is EXTENDING once again!

Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm
until February 7th

***SPECIAL OFFER***

Print out your favorite Craigslist posting for $5 off
EVERY THURSDAY

***********************************************************************************
Only three weekends left!:

Thursday, January 22nd at 8pm
Friday, January 23rd at 8pm
Saturday, January 24th at 8pm
Thursday, January 29th at 8pm
Friday, January 30th at 8pm
Saturday, January 31st at 8pm
Thursday, February 5th at 8pm
Friday, February 6th at 8pm
Saturday, February 7th at 8pm

Reservations (323.860.8786) and online tickets purchases strongly encouraged

Thanks so much for your support!

New member auditions will be January 31st

We have updated information for our new member auditions and it is as follows:

TheSpyAnts Theatre Company is looking for Actor's to add to it's merry cast of character's. You will also have opportunities to produce, write and direct.

When: January 31st from 11am to 5pm.

Where: TBD

What You Need To Prepare: A two person scene under 5 minutes OR two monologues that you feel show you off best.

How Do I Get An Audition Time: Please call Lori Evans Taylor at 310-569-6456.

Thanks!

Ryan Churchill's Demo Reel

Ryan Churchill (Infinite Black Suitcase, The Reunion) has been a member of TheSpyAnts since 2006, and this is his demo reel:



Link

Ryan also produced a short film called Choke.Kick.Girl which featured many of our company members.

The Tolucan Times weighs in on "Kidnapped by Craigslist"

Kidnapped by Craigslist

By M. Jarrett Christensen on December 17,2008

The phenomenon that is Craigslist has permeated every avenue of our society. It is imbued into our consciousness, as it is a projection of our hopes and fears, wants and desires. It has become the quintessential forum for all things, be it a sale of furniture to an instantaneous date, or even a political soapbox. Katie Goan & Nitra Gutierrez has captured all the fascinating elements in this amusing and handsome production.

The show is a compilation of actual postings from Craigslist, as it is a series of vignettes that make up the act. The staging is simple but spectacular, as it embodies that of a big top circus with all its comedy and drama, and yes, even the freak show. We are introduced into the cyber world by the confessions, wants and announcements. The actors portray the voices of the ads with the same honesty and seriousness that the actual ad had intended. What prevails is a delightful comedy that allows for belly laughs and at the same time, sympathy and pathos for the real persons who submitted their words online.

All the performers were outstanding. Some of the standouts include Addi Gaash, Amy Motta and Danny Lopes. Matt Maenpaa (set design) and Lori Evans Taylor (sound design) prove how ingenuity and resourcefulness gives the audience a glamorous stage. It is said that comedy is an ironic reversal of tragedy. If it were not for all the laughter involved, one could sense the pity in these ads that continually crowd cyberspace. Highly recommended.

The Elephant Lab Theatre is located at 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038. For tickets, call (323) 860-8786 or visit www.TheSpyAnts.com. “Kidnapped by Craigslist” is playing through December 20 with extended dates January 2–24 2009.

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"

Playwright Katie Goan discusses her play in an interview

Katie Goan, one of the co-writers of Kidnapped by Craigslist did an interview with JesterJournal.com last year where she discussed her play.

Here is part one:

In August, the comedic play “Kidnapped by Craigslist” ran at the People’s Improv Theater (see 8/18/07 review), and its co-creator, Katie Goan, has plans underway for productions of the show in other cities, including Austin, Texas, where she went to college. “Craigslist” is culled from and inspired by ads in the popular website that serves as an online version of classified ads. While Goan performed in the New York productions, she prefers writing and directing, and plans to cast the touring version of the show with local actors in each city, as well as revising the show in each city to draw from Craigslist ads from the site’s pages for that city. Jester spoke with Goan about the evolution of “Craigslist.”

Katie Goan: In touring of ‘Kidnapped by Craigslist,’ the first stop will be Austin, Texas, because I know a lot of people there and all my friends are there producing and directing theater. So two of my friends from Austin came to see the show and are very excited about producing it. That will probably be the first leg of its future in development, substituting in Austin postings from Craigslist and do a show there. We’re thinking of a late night show in a cabaret space or something like that. Eventually we want to do Seattle, San Francisco and all the places where Craigslist originated.

Jester: Do the postings say the same or have they changed throughout the runs of the show?
KG: So far it’s been the same because we’ve only done New York. All the postings are from the New York site. The postings are from over the past two years. We started doing the show about two and a half years ago, and some of the postings are as recent as three months ago.

J: Are you adding postings to the show?
KG: We stopped doing that because we needed to solidify that particular show. But we’re always looking for new postings from new cities, because we always want to make the show about where we’re going to perform. Hopefully, you get a very New York feel from this show. In Austin, we’ll put in more rockabilly type music, with a country and western twang kind of sound; obviously we’ll have no subway-related postings.

The whole carnival aspect of the show -- the carnival barker’s speeches and introductions to carnival-type attractions, will all stay the same. All we have to do is look for postings from Austin about love and sex and put that into the Tunnel of Love section, and postings that are rants and raves to put in the dunking booth section. Much of it will stay the same but the postings will change.

J: Are you and the cast that recently did it going to be in other performances?
KG: I’m not sure. In Austin, it will be an Austin cast. In a perfect world, once we get a substantial amount of money, I would love to have one company that goes all over to do it. The show is always changing and evolving though, so it will be interesting to see what other people do with it.

J: It’s been running for two and a half years. How has it evolved?
KG: We did a workshop at the PIT one year ago, last June. We flew in a director from L.S.U. It was just a cast of three people -- Nitra, the co-writer, myself and a friend of ours. For about a month … the postings started off with a large stack and boiled it down to the 20 or 30 that are in the show. It’s a matter of finding out what fits together the best and how you can represent Craigslist the best way.

J: How does a particular posting inspire you to write it into the show?
KG: We thought the carnival theme made it into a show. At first we were just pulling postings that we thought were interesting, funny or sad, or just were different types of people -- something that had a definite angle to it. Then, from going through a large stack, you think these people are freaks, but they’re not. They’re actually you and me -- this person could be a librarian who is the most introverted person you ever met, yet she’s complaining about her boss and cussing him out and talking about how she wants to seduce him. So then we start seeing the difference between who people are in real life and how they portray themselves. That’s when we realized it was a carnival theme, with the “Rants & Raves” section being the dunking booth and the “Missed Connections” being the Tunnel of Love. That’s how we were inspired to put it into the show.

Then we added the music, which we thought would be exciting and cool. A lot of what is on the stage (in the recent version of the show) in the fluidity is from Kimmy (Gatewood). She’s the most unbelievable director I’ve ever worked with; she’s fantastic. She really tied it all together, made it flow and made it the piece that it is.

J: I think of direction as visual as in film, but in this world it often involves tightening up the writing and the organization of what’s presented. What are the differences?
KG: For anything about the writing, Kimmy comes to me. Because we went from a 90-minute show to a 56-minute show, and now I can’t even imagine it that long because now it’s under an hour.

So a lot of the characterizations are Kimmy’s ideas because your first instinct when doing something like this is to push it and be angry. You want to be the angriest person you can think of and conjure up. She said, ‘No, why don’t you play against the anger and make it humorous or touching or charming.’ She helped us to play against the character to actually make these people believable.

J: So it is some directing of the acting?
KG: Yes, a lot of acting and a lot of staging. The stage pictures themselves were all Kimmy and a lot of the music too.

Part Two:

J: Where did everyone from the cast now come from?
KG: Michelle O’Connor, who played the barker, is Kimmy’s good friend from college. They’ve been collaborating on theater projects together for many years, and they write a lot of music together. Jacob Brown is in my improv class, and is on the Sid Viscous improv team at The PIT. Him and I became close through our improv classes at The PIT. Jared is a good friend of Nitra, the co-writer, and they do improv together for at-risk teens, about bullying and drugs and things like that.

J: Most of the characters go from start to finish and you see them all at once, although Jared does a character that reappears at points. Why do you go back to just that one character or why don’t you follow the others through more?
KG: Just to get as much diversity as possible. Jared did make a specific choice -- it’s one character that you see different aspects of. That is the pot-head lady guy [insert explanation] and the subway guy from the beginning. He chose to tie those two people together, where you see the guy frustrated on the subway and then smoking a joint at home on his patio. That was an experiment. But mostly we wanted to do the complete opposite … different characters to show diversity of who uses Craigslist, what are the reasons, are they escaping something from their lives, are they looking for attention? Why are they going on Craigslist?

J: I wondered when reviewing the show whether, in how Michelle hosted the show, whether you were thinking about ‘The Twilight Zone’?
KG: The creepiness of it, yes. We wanted an eerie, creepy feel to the barker, which is interesting from her because she’s a pretty woman. To see her be a sexy seductress but also kind of a hard ass, and also the taskmaster of Craigslist, and everyone’s her minions to do what she says. So in that aspect, yes, the stream of consciousness of the piece is very much like The Twilight Zone, and the creepiness and eeriness of it. You want the audience to question what they’re seeing. That’s the ‘Twilight Zone’ aspect of it too -- ‘Did they just … oh they did!’

J: What’s your a criteria for what you’re putting into scenes or what you find funny?
KG: When we look at them now, we’re just looking for diverse stories from individuals. At this point, the show is love and sex heavy. That’s a major change I want to make for the future of the show. Especially for New York, I need more apartment posting stories, or finding roommates. We touch on it in the show but we don’t dive in as much as we should, especially for New York. They don’t use Craigslist as much for that in Austin. … Now when I talk to people in New York, the most interest is in “Missed Connections” or one-night hookups -- ‘come over to my house right now,’ much more so than apartments or roommates.

I guess for criteria, we’re looking for people who have a point of view and just a crazy, kooky wackiness that’s out there. You get everything from those looking to sell their Beatles collection to ‘I cheated on my wife, what should I do?’ So diversity, and people who have a story to tell.

J: Are there other shows that you’ve written or are thinking about doing?
KG: I’ve written others and produced others. They’re usually always comedy. The dramas I’ve written aren’t very good. I’m into short comedic plays, or more vignettes than actual plays, but also not quite sketch either. I like it to have a theme or through line so it’s not just random sketches. The next show I’m working on is a one-woman show. I’m writing it thinking of myself but I probably wouldn’t perform it in the long run. It has different wacky characters. It’s about a Texas girl who’s transplanted into Yankee land.

J: Most performers who write a one-person character showcase show do it for themselves. Why are you thinking about transferring it to someone else?
KG: I would probably direct that show. I would want to find someone who could have the diversity of different characters. … That was my big problem with acting. It was always your director telling you what to do. You can explore things as an actor and try different things but at the end of the day, your director decides. I want to be the one who actually creates it and puts it out there for people.

J: Most performers find comedy more difficult to do than drama, but you find drama more difficult.
KG: It’s more difficult for me to write. I’m not sure how to even explain that. I find that comedic dialogue is easier for me to write than dramatic dialogue. In dramas, the climax has to be so solid, and all the elements of the story, like your introduction, rising action, climax and falling action all have to be so clear and set for it to be effective. In comedy, anything goes. That’s the difference to me. That’s why it makes it easier. You can put something down on paper as comedy, and if it stinks, throw it away, or it can be the most brilliant piece of comedy you’ve ever seen in your life. Drama doesn’t work that way. It either works or it doesn’t. In comedy, you can find something that works about it, or change it.

J: What comedic performers, movies or TV influenced you?
KG: Growing up it was always Gilda Radner. Everyone says that, but watching old Saturday Night Lives, the Gilda Radner sketches were definitely what I wanted to do. She did physical comedy which was unusual for women back then. As to films, “Clue” is one of my favorite movies of all time. I like the different characters and different types of people all coming together for a murder mystery, or the dinner party, or whatever the case may be.

J: That’s why you’re doing “Craigslist” -- because you’re inspired by “Clue.”
KG: I guess you could say that. “Clue” is one of my definite favorites. Another favorite is “Waiting For Guffman” -- again, such different types of people thrown together in a situation. That’s comedy gold if you ask me.

Scott Krinsky's demo reel

Scott Krinsky joined TheSpyAnts this year, and this is his demo reel.

StageSceneLA review of "The Reunion"

“Unique” is a word all too frequently bandied about, but in the case of The Reunion: Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same, “unique” is almost an understatement. Writer/directors Darcy Halsey and Danny Parker have
written a 5 1/2 hour play about a 10-year high school reunion which unfolds in just an hour and a half. How, you may ask, do they do that?

By having four scenes unfolding simultaneously in various parts of the Howard Fine Theatre complex. In one room, characters discuss the mysterious death of a popular classmate; in the courtyard, two male classmates, formerly best friends, reunite in a most unexpected way; on the terrace, a glamorous Russian movie star discusses her latest project while elsewhere another
classmate has a nervous breakdown.

Audience members, who are treated to beer/wine/appetizers (included in the $20 admission), must decide which scene to observe and where to go next, making The Reunion a production which can be seen and seen again. (Ticket prices go down $5 each time you come back.) I love TheSpyAnts, and The Reunion gives several dozen of them a chance to show their acting and comedic chops. I dare not begin to name names as there are so many sparkling performances that to attempt to pick out standouts would mean leaving off far too many fine members of the troupe.

This limited return engagement of The Reunion will I hope become an annual event! July 13th - August 4th Fridays & Saturdays 8pm/Sundays 8pm July 22nd & July 29th; The Howard Fine Theatre ,1445 N. Las Palmas Avenue,
Hollywood, CA 90028; Tickets $20 includes beer, wine & hors d'oeuvres; Returning guests receive $5 discount per return; Reservations: 323.860.8786.

--Steven Stanley

Backstage review of "Infinite Black Suitcase"

by Neal Weaver

April 20, 2007

EM Lewis' title may be a whimsical metaphor for death, but it's not as grim as it sounds: Some of her best scenes lean toward comedy. Her play cuts back and forth among three main stories, garnished with peripherally related scenes. In the first story, a wife (Marina Mouhibian) and her two brothers-in-law (Linc Hand and Ken Arquelio) struggle to come to terms with the hideous, and to them inexplicable, suicide of her husband. The second story concerns Dan (Eric Bunton), who is dying of AIDS, and the efforts of his lover, Stephen (Jerry Pappas), to bear up as the end approaches. It's weary Dan who must try to give comfort and reassurance. The third story centers on Katie Barnes (Darcy Halsey), dying of cancer but determined to persuade her current husband, Tony (Kim Estes), who is black, and her ex-husband, Joe (Ryan Churchill), who is the father of her three daughters, to accept joint custody of the three girls, despite sharp animosity between the two men.

In a touchingly funny scene, bereaved Joe and recent widow Mary (Tammy Kaitz) strive to make a connection despite grief and differing expectations. A confrontation in the confessional between a wry, canny Catholic priest (Bill J. Stevens) and an inebriated non-Catholic (Hal Perry) also provides rich dramatic fodder. In an unrelated scene, Jake (Rich Williams) must decide whether he wants to be interred next to his deceased first wife or with his current spouse, Anne (Anita Khanzadian).

All the scenes are interesting and ably written, but constant crosscutting among competing plot lines tends to dissipate them and prevents their being fully explored or focused. Danny Parker-Lopes directs with a sure hand, and the large cast (including Addi Gaash and Dawn Merkel) does fine work, with special praise for Stevens, Churchill, Perry, Bunton, and Kaitz. David Fofi provides the excellent production design.

Presented by the SpyAnts Theatre Company at the Lillian Theatre, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Apr. 6-May 6. (323) 860-8786. www.thespyants.com.