Los Angeles Times review of "Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift"

Theater review: 'Kidnapped by Craigslist' at the Elephant

November 18, 2010 | 8:00 pm:

Those who are easily shocked or have weak stomachs should give “Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift” a wide berth. However, those who like their humor deliciously low may find this production very much to their bad taste.

It’s appropriate that this show has been mounted in the Elephant’s Asylum space. Based on actual Craigslist postings, it ranges from the naughty to the downright lunatic.

That makes for a playfully scary evening, as reflected in Lori Evans Taylor’s staging, a combination of carnival sideshow and B horror movie. Actors in the alternating cast enter Adam Haas Hunter’s cobweb-strewn set through an upright coffin, as a white-faced barker (exotic John Charles Meyer) sets the stage for the various monologues.

This production by TheSpyAnts is a sequel to “Kidnapped by Craigslist,” which played locally in late 2007 to considerable acclaim. Written by Katie Goan and co-created by Goan and Nitra Gutierrez, this is one high concept with staying power. Considering the endless spew of source material from the fabled list, one can imagine a series of future productions, further permutations on the same twisted themes.

From a sociological standpoint, “Kidnapped” is fascinating, a series of snapshots showing the fetishes and peccadilloes of a society in which the notions of shame and restraint have been tossed to the swirling winds. Although we suspect some offerings were penned by hoaxers who are just punking us, it's also hilariously funny, with an able cast that merrily escorts us to the dark side. Be warned, however: After seeing this show, your face may be forever frozen between a guffaw –- and a pained wince.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Kidnapped by Craigslist: The Graveyard Shift,” the Asylum Lab at the Elephant Complex, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Dark Nov. 26 and 27. Ends Dec. 18. $20. (323) 860-8786. www.TheSpyAnts.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Photo: Eric Bunton. Credit: Baron Norris

“bobrauschenbergamerica”: Now-Feb. 28 @ [Inside] the Ford

By Cesar Cruz

bobrauschenbergamerica is incredibly entertaining. Directed by Bart DeLorenzo, written by Charles L. Mee and choreographed by Ken Roht, the play brims with colorful characters, 43 different scenes (a range of musical numbers) and is backed by explosive energy.

It’s a tribute to the late artist Bob Rauschenberg and his work; actually, it’s not about Rauschenberg but about what he saw. Rauschenberg’s work is a reflection of America, which consequently involves love stories, picnics, business schemes, shootings and, of course, a person in a chicken costume strolling across center stage. Through collages, Rauschenberg realized a technique that came to be known as “Combines,” which are collages created from nontraditional materials (e.g. pictures, familiar prints, sculptures, tennis balls, stuffed goats) that attempt to blur the line between art and life.

Reviewing bobrauchenbergamerica is like describing another description. The collage of scenes that makes the play, as well as the themes and characters, work more or less as a mirror than a story. There’s nothing logical about the production, yet it makes sense; like 10 people giving their interpretation of one piece of art – at the same time! Each scene takes you hostage and relentlessly impresses sheer exhilaration for living in a country where people make up their lives as they go.

The play works quite well. I barely notice that an hour and 45 minutes, with no intermission, passes. This depiction of America, as seen through Rauschenberg’s eyes and under DeLorenzo’s direction, is fearless and optimistic, but best of all unedited.

If you get tired of a scene, rest assured it will soon end. However, much like life, you don’t always like what you see or what you get. Some scenes may be outlandish, but in a way that forces you to acknowledge the myriad forms reality can take.

bobrauchenbergamerica, while sensitive and philosophical, gives your eyes a workout, then sends you back into the world.

[Inside] the Ford is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood. For more information, visit fordtheaters.org.

Backstage review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

bobrauschenbergamerica

TheSpyAnts at [Inside] the Ford

Reviewed by Jeff Favre
FEBRUARY 03, 2010

"Art was not a part of lives," says the character known as Bob's Mom in Charles L. Mee's 2001 one-act, nonlinear homage to the late American artist Bob Rauschenberg. And regardless of whether the character truly is based on Rauschenberg's real-life mother, Dora (the play's last line reportedly was spoken by her), the sentiment is false and telling because her stories show that art is all around for those who search for it—as Rauschenberg did by using found objects to create the iconic combines and collages for which he is best known. Few playwrights could be better suited than Mee to attempt to translate Rauschenberg's style for theater, because Mee shows more interest in juxtaposition of disparate images and emotions than in telling a coherent story. But those willing to mentally traverse this living museum for 90 minutes—led by a deft curatorial staff (aka TheSpyAnts' 10-person cast and director Bart DeLorenzo)—will discover a wealth of intriguing, visually captivating and funny vignettes among the more than 40 presented.

There are named characters, though it hardly matters, including Bob's Mom (Mari Marks), Phil the Trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes), Phil's Girl (Maria Tomas), and the nonspeaking Roller Girl (Breeze Braunschweig). There's also an entire barbershop chorus that delivers a mini concert. Mee's script delves into the building blocks of art and love, while the visuals involve a rolling bathtub, a man in a chicken suit, and a martini Slip 'n Slide.

DeLorenzo, who has directed a few Mee plays, successfully evokes whimsy when needed, as well as understated sadness, all while keeping a pace that's brisk enough to keep the less compelling moments from dragging down the performance. The cast works in harmony, flitting in and out of scenes as if each actor is part of a single entity. Ken Roht's choreography injects energy and humor to a couple of dance numbers. And Marina Mouhibian's set resembles a collection of Rauschenberg combines, which creates an ideal atmosphere. Not every scene of "bobrauschenbergamerica" is a winner, but as a whole it's entertaining and memorable.

Presented by TheSpyAnts at [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. Jan. 23–Feb. 28. Thu.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 and 7 p.m. (323) 461-3673. www.fordtheatres.org.

OUTSIDE THE BOX: BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA AT [INSIDE] THE FORD (EyespyLA.com review)

OUTSIDE THE BOX: BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA AT [INSIDE] THE FORD
By M.R. Hunter

What does a man in a chicken suit, a giant bowling pin, a rooster and a kitchen whisk all have in common? Everything and nothing in the LA premiere of Charles Mee’s zany collage-montage tribute to the late modern artist, Robert Rauschenberg at [Inside] the Ford.

One of the most forward-thinking artists of his time, Rauschenberg’s work combined ordinary materials and objects with spectacular splashes of color and familiar images to create pieces that were not entirely art and not entirely sculpture, but something in the space between. Predating the Pop Art movement, Rauschenberg’s “outside-the-box” method inspired the likes of Pollock, Joseph Cornell, and Oldenburg with his break from the traditional, fixed space of the canvas. Art then, literally became for Rauschenberg something outside of itself, a thing discoverable in the everyday and a hodgepodge of the seemingly contradictory connected in tandem and unity.

Inspired by Rauschenberg, Mee conceives a play not bound by conventional Aristotelian unities, but channels the absurdist and radical approach of the artist’s innovative spirit. Like a gallery of Rauschenberg collages brought to life, the action is both startling and disjointed, it confronts and challenges the very idea of art and performance itself, yet is cohesive enough to be visually entertaining. Bart DeLorenzo polishes what might otherwise comes across as amateur and raw into a provocative performance that if nothing else is definitely unlike anything else.


The only discernable thread keeping the wildly assorted vignettes from spinning completely out of control are the recollections of Rauschenberg’s early childhood, as told by his Mom (Mari Marks). Projected on a backdrop behind her are black and white photos of what is otherwise an ordinary, almost painfully average little boy whose humble beginnings hardly indicated the great influence in art he would one day become. As if these family photos were not convincing enough, Bob’s Mom ends each shared memory with the repeated refrain, “Art was not a part of our lives.” Whatever it was that taught Rauschenberg to see the world through his distorted kaleidoscope lenses is a wonder and will remain a mystery much like his vividly odd collages.

All the rest is simply off-the-wall non-sequiturs featuring some amusing anecdotes on relationships, acceptance, and love—if one is intent on ferreting out a theme here. It is better not to try to interpret or judge the merits of each scene, but rather to sit back and let the scenes roll on by like a passenger on a journey through a strange landscape or lucid dream. Eventually, nonsense becomes perfect sense in this wonderland filled with delightful, whimsical characters.

Where else can one find a Roller Girl (Breeze Braunschweig) gliding by on retro-styled skates, while a man dressed in a chicken suit crosses the stage? Then there is the shaken, not stirred body writhing martini bath or the random attack on a metal trashcan with a baseball bat. A pizza delivery boy (John Charles Meyer) recounts his homicidal past with casual indifference while Phil, the Trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes) delivers his own brand of torture with a series of chicken jokes—actually, the one about the egg is pretty funny. While these particular characters and scenes do not directly relate to Rauschenberg himself, they do capture the essence of his work.


Music numbers liven up the uneasy transitions with line dances and hoe downs choreographed by Ken Roht. Marina Mouhibian’s set design utilizes the open wings on of the proscenium, filling it with splattered canvases and bric-a-brac in keeping with Rauschenberg’s technique. A bicycle and a High Flyer cart hang from the catwalks and the otherwise minimalist space finds room for a ten-foot high stack of cardboard boxes.

Bob Rauschenberg would probably reject the idea of anyone trying to review this play. His vision defies interpretation, went against the grain of it, and like him this production by TheSpyAnts Theatre Company shouldn’t be read by proxy, but seen without any expectations. In the nonsensical yet cogent world of Rauschenberg, the best review for this show would be to tell a chicken joke and end with that.

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide.
Fin

bobrauschenbergamerica
Runs through Feb 28
Thurs, Fri, Sat at 8pm
Sundays at 3pm & 7pm
[Inside] the Ford
2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East
Hollywood, CA 90068
PH: 323-461-3673
www.FordTheatres.org

A Curtain Up review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
bobrauschenbergamerica

By Evan Henerson

Look, everything overlaps, doesn't it? Is connected some kind of way. Once you put it all together, it's just obvious. I mean, tie a string to something, and see where it takes you.

When you think about it, this was really a match made in mashed-up paradise. Robert Rauschenberg, the American collageist as seen through the eyes of Charles L. Mee, a playwright who borrows everything from everywhere — mythology, current events, soap opera strands — and tosses it all up on stage in a big crazy quilt that somehow fashions itself into a play.

Director Bart DeLorenzo of the Evidence Room and the members of the SpyAnts Theatre Co. all clearly have the bug, and have brought the L.A. premiere of Mee's bobrauschenbergamerica to the Ford Amphitheatre's inside space. The play is Mee's take on how Rauschenberg, who died in 2008, might have seen the world had he been a playwright instead of a sculptor. The results are delightful if seriously quirky, — a series or largely unrelated musings on love, life, art, existence, the cosmos and cornball chicken jokes, not necessarily in that order of importance.

There is a script (it's up on Mee's (re)making project website, www.charlesmee.com), but DeLorenzo's cast makes you feel like the universe could tilt ever so slightly and some things would end up differently. Indeed, here's betting that the group of elderly barbershop singers who came in for a parade sequence might give way to different roadside entertainment at a subsequent performance.

Our players are a derelict (played by Brett Hren),. . .a stargazer (Eric Bunton) and his dancer lover (Mark Slater) . . . a trucker (Danny Parker-Lopes) and his bathing beauty girlfriend (Maria Tomas) . . . a fickle love-seeking woman dressed up in Jackie O regalia (Jennifer Etienne Eckert) and the man she dumped (Adam Dornbusch). . . a disturbing pizza delivery guy (John Charles Meyer) named Bob and Bob's Mom (Mari Marks). Bob's Mom is either supposed to be Rauschenberg's mother or the pizza delivery boy's. I'm not sure which. I'm not sure Mee intends us to know for certain.

Rasuchenberg is honored in the title, and there are various slideshow musings by Bob's Mom that frequently end with "art was not a part of our life." Otherwise, it's not difficult to see where Rauschenberg ends and Mee begins. Many of the playwright's signature oddities — spontaneous dance numbers, non sequiter emoting, extended musing on love — play giddily across DeLorenzo's staging. That said, the spirit of Rauschenberg is duly honored by DeLorenzo and company.

Props and set pieces, curios of all sorts dot Marina Mouhibian's set. The trucker's girl plays checkers from a rusty bathtub bearing a "No Parking" sign. A door frame, with a stuffed heron perched atop, evokes an empty and decidedly surreal landscape. Plaudits to prop master Hal Perry for finding a 12 foot bowling pin that never even gets used.

Mee's plays are not for the shy, and the cast members attack their roles with gleeful abandon. Particularly fetching is Eckert's Susan, defending her romantic choices while devouring the contents of a cake pan, and Tomas pouring out the ingredients for a martini on a plastic floor canvas and then proceeding to slosh through it. Parker-Lopes, sporting a trucker's beard, smoothly handles an assortment of wince-inducing chicken jokes, and everyone moves gracefully or with appropriate abandon to Ken Roht's choreography.

Praise also is due Breeze Braunschweig as the always skating, never speaking Roller Girl, a vision in 70s era beach shorts and tube socks who proves that you don't need lines to have an impact. What Braunschweig's Roller Girl is doing sitting at the same picnic table as Becker, Carl, Susan and the rest is anybody's guess. In the landscape of Mee's Rauschenberg, everything kind of melds even as it clashes. That's kind of the point.

BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA: A ROMP TheSpyAnts Ensemble at The Ford

BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA: A ROMP
TheSpyAnts Ensemble at The Ford

Clare Elfman
Literary Editor

Los Angeles, California – My bad. I did not do my research. So please, before you see this interesting kaleidoscope of a performance, do yours. I come from old school. A play speaks for itself. Linear. The last act leaves you with something concrete: a message, an emotion, a something. Charles Mee, with this — I guess you’d call this his homage to Rauschenberg — is non-linear, and if you are a careless reviewer who never has studied or appreciated the style of Rauschenberg nor read the text of the inserts in the black folder given at the box office, you will spend the first 30 minutes of this almost two-hour, no-intermission piece rather perplexed, asking what the merde is happening onstage?

I sat for that long in confusion, watching what, to me, looked like a mish-mash of unconnected bits and pieces of action, until finally one character did a monologue that moved me. I recognized that I was not giving the piece its due. I had not done my work as well as the company onstage was madly and non-linearly cavorting to present theirs.

If I had become more familiar with Rauschenberg’s collages, his combination of bits and pieces, thises and thats, unrelated stuff that, once assembled, create a whole, I would simply have known to sit back and let the action sweep over me.  This concept of unrelated bits of action Mee has created to mirror the artist’s style of collage,  so that, as the “play” progressed, a man professes love for a woman, she offers love to an unlikely character, a girl roller-skates by, a guy pushes a bathtub onstage…do I remember a goat? A guy in a chicken suit walks by, a mother shows old snaps (projections) of her artist son but the commentary does not match the pics… And what else? Suddenly the cast breaks into a Broadway chorus or they start to folk dance, or there is a murder, and I’m hanging there thinking, “What the f…” until a pizza guy enters and delivers an entrancing monologue of the three people he killed and another guy does a remarkable Walt Whitman piece, and it becomes quite something else.

So the piece is a non-linear version of Rauschenberg’s style, and to enjoy it, you simply have to let go and stop looking for logic. If I walk through a gallery, my own tastes have been so long developing that, unlike you and you and you and you, I love Matisse colors and Kirschner’s angular faces and Freud’s explicit nakedness and Bacon’s anguished etcetera etcetera, and you like something different. I love Theater of the Absurd because, when you finish with the absurdity, you have a message as clear as if you’d just picked yourself up from your stone bench in an ancient Greek theater. Once I saw a Kelly exhibit — a dirty old rug with an old teddy bear under it — and I asked, “What? What?” Okay, that’s me. Someone else saw it and was moved to tears. In a San Francisco museum, I saw a yellow canvas. Just yellow. What?? And the lecturer explained that it was the “yellowness” that made it so great.

Art is in the eye of the beholder, and if you (I) just let go of traditional notions and sit back and simply experience this one and then come out and hash over what you just saw…you’ve had a great evening of …an homage to Rauschenberg and a bit of a romp.

TheSpyAnts ensemble who performed this interesting piece are: Rollergirl, Breeze Braunschweig, Eric Bunton, Adam Dornbusch, Jennifer Etienne Eckert, Brett Hren, Mari Marks, John Charles Meyer who does a wonderful pizza boy, Danny Parker-Lopes, Mark Slater, Maria Tomas — a great bunch doing their wild thing.

So come prepared, just let go, and afterward decide if this left you with the same “feeling” as does a collage by Rauschenberg.
Interesting and challenging evening.

Ford (inside) until February 28th.

LA Weekly review of "bobrauschenbergamerica" - GO!

Photo by Debi Landrie

Review by LA Weekly:

When Bob Rauschenberg's mother (Mari Marks) delivers her tender slide-show about the rural Texas childhood of her artist son, and none of the slides matches the descriptions she's offered, you have to know something's up, conceptually. Whether or not you're familiar with the '50s-'60s collagist painter-sculptor, Charles L. Mee's 2001 extrapolation of what Rauschenberg might have written in order to explain how he assembled junk into evocative reflections on our place in the world stands alone. Marina Mouhibian's set decorates the stage and the proscenium walls with vintage kitsch as the 10-member ensemble plays out a series of somewhat interconnecting sketches about romances gone awry, violence, politics and metaphysics - though there are digressions for a series of chicken jokes. Bart DeLorenzo's staging preserves the tone, inherent the text, that's both wry and frivolous, abstract and pop, with one breakout poetical excursion into Walt Whitmanesque grandeur, delivered by a hobo (Brett Hren) and accompanied by Dvorak's Symphony from The New World. [Inside] the Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., L.A.; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 & 7 p.m.; thru Feb. 28. (323) 461-3673. SpyAnts Theatre Company. (Steven Leigh Morris) See Theater Feature.

Stagehappenings review of "bobrauschenbergamerica"

From Stagehappenings.com.

by Robert Machray

Robert Rauschenberg lived in the artistic period between abstract expressionism and pop art. His painting and sculptures display his belief that there is no difference between art objects and ordinary objects. He believed that an object became art when he said it was.

How would his art reflect itself as a live performance? Well, one answer is being presented by the talented and edgy SpyAnts Company, which, with the help of the ubiquitous Bart DeLorenzo, has put on bobrauschenbergamerica by the controversial playwright Charles Mee as part of the shared season at inside the Ford Theatre.

Playwright Mee is no stranger to experimentation. Here he has written a play intended to represent Rauschenberg’s view of America, presented as a play but also reflecting his paintings. Mee has stated, “In the mid 1980s, the whole world was Rauschenberg. We have lots of stories, and we are trying to figure out how to get along in a world where there are a thousand points of view.” So Mee conceived of a series of loosely connected stories (though they all involve love) and more or less threw them together to see how they would make a connection. For Rauschenberg there is always a connection and it's always alive and vital.

II must admit I was totally puzzled about what the hell was going on in this show. I was not alone. But as the piece unfolded I found my mind, as well as the characters, making connections, and the message was one of hope and love. In the rehearsal process Mr. DeLorenzo let the cast more or less improvise how they wanted to present the individual stories. When he liked what he saw it stayed in. The result is a piece that seems almost improvised, but with a structure that emerges as the play develops. The cast, Mee, and DeLorenzo are to be congratulated for this daring and provocative experience in the theatre.

bobrauchenbergamerica plays at Inside The Ford until Feb. 28th.

=====

ROBERT MACHRAY has appeared in over 150 plays and has worked at 14 Tony Award-winning theatres. He has been nominated for and won numerous awards. Robert has a B.A. from Yale and an M.F.A. from USC. He has taught at USC, UCLA, UCSB, and Pasadena City College.

LA Times review of "Terminus Americana"

Theater Review: 'Terminus Americana' at Elephant Theater

The title of "Terminus Americana" refers to the tome of conspiracy theorem that drives Matt Pelfrey's coruscating satire. That volume is something of a Macguffin. The core focus of "Terminus" is the twilight of American empire, as refracted through a violence-infatuated media, which the jaggedly effective production by TheSpyAnts caustically embraces.

It begins benignly enough, as Mac Winchell (the excellent Brett Hren) takes a chirpy phone call from wife Brenda (CB Spencer). His confidential exchange with fellow employee Felix (Hal Perry) suggests the kind of corporate evisceration that Billy Wilder patented.

Then Felix goes on a shooting rampage, whispers a tacit message to Mac before killing himself, and "Terminus" barrels into pitch-black absurdist territory.

Pelfrey ("An Impending Rupture of the Belly") possesses an unflinchingly original voice. If the polemic can be overt, that seems the point, with the accuracy of Pelfrey's broadsides both hilarious and disturbing.

Barring some halting transitions, director Danny Parker-Lopes keeps the tone grimly akimbo. The designs are sparely resourceful, and the cast (with alternates) is adept, impressively centered by Hren's antihero. At the reviewed performance, John Charles Meyer's outré executive, Maria Tomas' secret-society emissary, and Justin Dabuet and Adam Dornbusch as hacking Marlboro Men stood out amid an accomplished pack.

Written well before Sept. 11, 2001, the play premiered at Lodestone Theatre Ensemble shortly afterward. Its relevance has only deepened in the wake of subsequent gun-related national tragedies. "Terminus Americana" won't be for everyone -- but perhaps it should be.

--David C. Nichols

"Terminus Americana," Elephant Theatre, 6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 15. $20. (323) 860-8786. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

Photo: Hal Perry and Brett Hren in "Terminus Americana." Credit: TheSpyAnts

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.

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 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.

Tolucan Times review for "The Reunion"

Tolucan Times - Pat Taylor

The Reunion: Everything Changes. Everyone Stays the Same

HOLLYWOOD - If you're ready for a wildly different theatrical hoot, this is the one for you! Performed and penned in the style of Tamara, which ran in Hollywood for 10 years, it is an entertaining, involving journey that really tweaks your mind. Cleverly written and directed with great imagination, by Darcy Halsey and Danny Parker, with plenty of juicy input from their troupe (the SpyAnts) this talented cast of 20 actors is all terrific! In this inventive audience interactive piece, we are guests at a volatile and revealing 10-year class reunion party in 1994. We voyeuristically peer in on these characters' dirty little secrets, passions and progress (both past and present) in individual group scenes, following them through the school and quad, on foot. Like the proverbial fly on the wall, we quietly study a multitude of in your face, explosive and emotional skeletons, as old classmates bare their souls. We drink wine and enjoy munchies from the party table all evening, and the intimate stories we are privy to depend on which characters we chose to follow. Sounds a bit confusing, I know, but it soon all falls into place.

At intermission, openly chat with other audience members or separate from your own friends during the play and compare notes later to catch up on the scenes you missed. It is a brain teasing blast! Too many complex scenes to describe them, and besides, that would spoil your fun! The ticket price (including food and libation) is $20 the first time, $10 the second return, and $5 thereafter, as long as you bring a full paying, unsuspecting newcomer. Many come back again to follow different ones.

Kudos to the entire cast: They are Eric Bunton, Ryan Churchill, Natalie Compagno, Kim Estes, Addi Gaash, Gretchen Gaboury, Darcy Halsey, Linc Hand, Brett Hren, Tammy Kaitz, Shelby Kyle, Melissa Lee, Danny Parker, Dawn Merkel, Marina Mouhibian, Jerry Pappas, Stasia Patwell, Hal Perry, Lana Underwood, and Jenny Vilim This is a naughty, bawdy, fun filled, unique and worthy production! Turn up in the outdoor quad 7:30ish for a drink, a snack, and a chance to read over the program and "class rules." It really helps in your overall experience!

Running through Aug. 5 (possibly longer) at the Howard Fine Theatre, 1445 N. Las Palmas in Hollywood. Call (323) 860-8786.

"Birds" Playwright David Cerda on our show

David Cerda, one of the co-writers of The Birds came in from Chicago to see our show at the McCadden Theater over the weekend, and posted his take on it on his blog, and here's what he had to say:

So you're all dying to know...How was it? Saturday night, Chris myself and the Yourex lot attended 'The Birds- A Tail of Ornithic Proportions' (they chose that subtitle) at the McCadden Place Theater in Hollywood, California, baby. The theater was small, holding about 55, which adds to the claustrophobic effect that suits this play so well.

For those of you out of the loop , or for those who weren't in Chicago during the fall of 2001, I'll fill you in about what 'The Birds' is all about. The Birds is a combination, parody and backstory of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'. But wait, there's more..., It's also a feminist drag deconstruction of the film with 90's pop culture icon Camille Paglia serving as the tour guide to the inner sanctum of Tippi Hedren's journey into the darkness created by the HUGE shadow Alfred Hitchcock cast once he decided Tippi was to be his personal property. Unfortunately for Ms. Hedren, this is all true, and the making of 'The Birds' was quite an experience for her.

The feminist deconstruction part was inspired by many things a, including my own take on the film but the nail that solidified this view was Camille Paglia's brilliant, and compulsively over the top essay on the film for British Films Institute. When Camille, like myself, likes something, she doesn't 'sort of' like it, she embraces it, swallows it whole, much like myself.

Soooo..., this is not an easy show to do. There's the problem of bird attacks.There's the mimicking of the film style of the period, there's the very silly jokes and double takes mixed with the very real and disturbing systematic 'pecking' at Tippi Hedren's psyche, and there's a Camille Paglia interrupting and interacting with the cast. Particularly Tippi and Suzanne Pleshette. I read a review that says 'Alfred Hitchcock asks Camille Paglia to travel back in time to help psychologically dismember Tippi Hedren'. Okay..., The wonderful thing about theater is that I don't have to explainthingslike the fact that Camille Paglia pops up out of nowhere. She's just there. If people want to think she traveled back in time, then I guess that's okay, but for the record, Pauline Pang and I didn't really think that when we wrote it.

Where was I? Oh, yes, how were they? They were wonderful. They made bold choices, they were funny, they were scary, they were committed- they obviously loved the piece, and it shows. Did I like every single thing they did? No. But they made their choices, and director Kelly Ann Ford did some amazing things and staged the show beautifully and smoothly, and that is NOT an easy thing to do with the size of the cast, the scenes and the space. Everybody knows I love my Tracy Repep (Chicago Tippi) , but Lori Evans kicked ass as Tippi/Melanie, and I was so pleased with her performance I was like a smitten little school boy with her after the show. She even held the cotton swab the correct way, and in my world, things like that really matter. LA Suzanne was a feisty, lusty woman with a commanding stage presence, and her powerful take on the role was different then mine, but it worked, and the actress, Maria Tomas plays it it to the hilt. Brett Hren as Mitch is cute as hell, and has this Ewan McGregor thing going on, that literally charms the pants off of you when he smiles; and LYDIA...., Well, that would be the handsome Eric Bunton, who immerses himself in the role and is dressed to the nines and is a little more affectionate with Mitch then the movie or Chicago version. He's hilarious, and he's also the man to go to when you need to learn about any of the cast members. Peggy Robinson took the Natasha Fatale route with the beautifully sadistic Marina Mouhibian and Mrs. Bundy was played by (gasp) a WOMAN, the dead on Randi Pareira. Darcy Halsey was a smart and sexy ass Camille Paglia and gee, I can't mention everybody, but they were wonderful and so nice. Kim Estes was an incredibly scary and sexy Birdman in wings made by Brett Hren! Mrs. MacGruder was played by Patrik Carlok who was in the original cast of HAIR- he was wonderful, and it was such a blast feeling that theatrical connection. Oops, let's not forget the ugliest little girl in Bodega Bay, the darling Hal Perry as Cathy Brenner.

Like I said, it's difficult for me to gauge anything I've written, but Christopher thought the show was great and he's always brutally honest with me, so there. Go see it! The LA Times was there the night I went and if the review comes out it will be Thursday I'm told, so keep your fingers and toes crossed that she 'got' it.