Shitty Awful Everything

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THE PHANTOM’S IDENTITY HAS FINALLY BEEN REVEALED!

After the Phantom’s capture a few days ago, I was stonewalled by the cast from learning his identity. Or….. hers??? Yesterday I tried to find a weak link in the rest of the cast, the ones who hadn’t split off for a detour into Hanna Barbaraland; someone who could give me the deep dish on the Phantom, but to no avail. They’re solid as a rock. A tight-knit unit, and they all refused to rat out. This perplexed me, but I respected their solidarity. Wouldn’t they want the Phantom to be put away? Publicly shamed for ruining their show?

Last night I received a phone call, and suddenly it all clicked into place. The caginess of the cast, the refusal for comments, the sharp elbows they kept beating me away with. The Phantom called me and revealed his true identity. It was the playwright what done it! Kevin Swanstrom! I asked him how could he possibly do that to his own work; to his friends who were in the show?

BREAKING NEWS! THIS JUST IN!! EXTREY EXTREY, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

The Complex Phantom (aka the Fringe Phantom) has been caught! Despite all odds, a rag-tag gang of underachieving, mystery-lovin’ actors from “Shitty Awful Everything” has caught the culprit!

“After, like, getting trapped behind this secret passageway,” said cast member and part-time Petco anarchist, Sam Weiner, "Robby Doo and I found this hallway full of doors, where we, like, bumped into Katie, and she was all blind because she lost her glasses for, like, the third time this week, and we also, like, bumped into Chris and Juliet who were buttering a sock for some, like, reason, when the Phantom came up on us all spookity and oogity and so we all, like, ran through the various doors, coming out of random other doors without rhyme or reason, usually in different pairs than the ones we went into the original doors with. Like, sometimes the Phantom would be chasing us, and other times we’d be chasing the Phantom, and o

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In case you’ve fallen behind on the hard times that have befallen the “Shitty Awful Everything” cast, here’s a brief overview: A masked phantom has disrupted the lives of the cast and performances of the show, cast member Schmaul Leschmofs has gone missing for the second time in as many weeks, this time possibly kidnapped by the Phantom himself and replaced by Hayden Christensen, (known to many as the actor who ruined Darth Vader, as well as for being able to do the world’s best wooden block impersonation), director Kyle Cooper has holed himself up in his apartment, binge watching Twin Peaks and binge smoking Turkish cigarettes, denying any contact with the outside world, except through tapping out his food orders in Morse code to his roommate through his bedroom door, and assistant director Cade Peterson has received lawsuits from Eric Roberts for not letting him be a part of the show, lawsuits from Crispin Glover for insulting whatever the hell Crispin Glove

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You’d think after all the tough luck the “Shitty Awful Everything” gang have encountered, things would start to be looking up for them now. Well, then, you wouldn’t be thinking at all, would you? Because that’s not how these promo things go. The play is called “Shitty Awful Everything,” not “Fantastic Great Good Times.” These people are CURSED. These are very, very real, not at all satirical things happening to people that are definitely, in no way caricatures of their actual selves. So now that we’ve got that out of the way…

The Phantom still looms large over the Complex, striking fear into the hearts of man, woman, and child actor alike!

Further acts of the Phantom’s terror have been reported by The Complex Theatre’s owner, George Lou-Case. "He vandalized the lobby chalkboard, erasing all the clever sayings we had on it for really trite, expositional writing— like beginning screenwriter level bad. He’s taken many of the cast’s cars out for street

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It appears that The Complex Phantom has struck again! This time not only haunting the cast of “Shitty Awful Everything,” but disrupting their audience as well. During last Friday’s performance of the show, the stage lights turned blood red mid-scene, the actors froze, visibly confused, and the tall shadow of a caped man was cast over everyone, speaking ominous words. Reportedly the audience was too spooked to laugh for the last half of the show because of it. Many members of the crowd have gone on record stating they heard the shadow say, “Boo! Boooooo!” While others speculate the shadow said “Boo-sey! Booooo-sey!” furthering the claim that Jake or Gary Busey could be the phantom’s true identity.

“I just want to know where the phantom was standing,” said lightboard operator Eric LastNameWithheld, "From a technical standpoint, I mean. He covered the whole crowd and most of the stage, like he was in the rafters. Only thing is, this is only a fifty seat theat

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Some spooooky things have been going down at The Complex Theater on Santa Monica Blvd., and I do mean spooooky with capital “O’s.” It appears the fates are not done yet with the cast and crew of “Shitty Awful Everything,” and stranger times seem to have fallen on the lot. Reports of major props going missing, sound levels being messed up and turned to excruciating decibels, and a dark spectre lurking in the wings during performances have all been cited. “Looks here like we got ourselves a phantom in our midsts,” said cast mate and amateur ghost hunter Kimmy Maxine Shields, before spitting a mouthful of chew into a nearby spitoon. “Some say this phantom is just some deranged person lookin’ to git our panties spooked into a collective bunch, but I believe the source to be of a more… supernatural variety.”

Shields continued, after turning off all the lights in the room and dramatically clicking on a flashlight to shine under her face. "So far nothin’ leads m

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Audiences were shocked last Friday night when actor Paul LeSchofs made his triumphant return to the stage after swearing off the theater forever. While forever turns out to have been closer to four days, the audience, and certainly the cast, were glad to see him back.

Cast member and former tinker, tailor, soldier, spy Michael Sasso said, “Since Paul plays about six characters and is such a major part of the show, we can’t not say his lines, so we were just planning taking turns yelling them from offstage. It’s a very European technique I learned at the-a-ter school; it has Germanic roots. They call it Der Aktor Missenin So Yellenspiel Mann’s Lineswurst frum Offstagen. Needless to say, having Paul back is a gigantic relief.”

Director Kyle Cooper, while pleased to have a full house Friday night, undoubtedly from the publicity of the dispute, as well as the morbid curiosity of the masses ready to see how badly the wheels from the Shitty Awful train got de

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Early buzz following SHITTY AWFUL EVERYTHING’s June 3 preview performance is staggeringly positive! Check out our awesome reviews that needed neither bribes nor threats!

“The action was fast, the actors were absolutely brilliant – beyond brilliant in fact. This is a tough show to pull off, it’s crazy and wild but it’s also authentic and a little bit touching in an ‘out there’ kind of way. And it’s funny, very, very funny, as well as shocking, bawdy and brave. I honestly still can’t stop thinking about this show…it’s that brilliant…genius in fact. You have to see this show!!!” – Samantha Simmonds-Ronceros, NoHoArtsDistrict.com

“Shitty Awful Everything is a totally trippy play that embraces meta conventions, intertexuality and postmodern absurdism.” – Benjamin Schwartz, Gia on the Move

“Fast-paced physical commedia farce. Really well done! Imaginative, zippy, irreverent, heady fun! I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys well-staged, well-written, well-ac

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Finally, some good news to report today from the “SAE” camp! It appears that two of the actors who walked from the project earlier this week have returned, so I can finally legally give out their names. Chris Voss and Kimmy Maxine Shields both returned today, citing, “creative similarities,” and “reconcilable differences.” I had the chance to catch up with both of them to learn more about their return.

Actor and former “America’s Got Americans” contestant Kimmy Maxine Shields had this to say, "Every person has a rebellious time in their lives, a time when they must reject those who try to tell them what to do— their parents, their teachers, a director— and that person must abandon all the rules, all their preconceived notions of what is ‘right,’ and what is ‘normal,’ and what is ‘legal,’ in an effort to find their own truth. To make mistakes! To learn! To discover who they are as a person! And that is what I felt I had to do, and that is why I did what I d

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After losing three of their cast members earlier in the week over creative differences, (read: they got greedy and wanted more money), and then quickly cycling through a replacement in the mad circus clown formerly known as Gary Busey, it appears that the Hollywood Fringe Festival production"Shitty Awful Everything" is in dire straits.

But all hope is not yet lost, for “the show must go on” mentality has taken over the remaining cast members, who have banded together in an effort to coax back Schmaul, Schmis, and Schmimmy, the three cast members who left.

“We going all out— a full-blown, attack-from-all-sides approach to get our fallen comrades back, comrade,” said former Russian KGB agent turned off-off-off-Broadway actress, Juliet Nicole. “Robert is sending muffins baskets to them, only it is more than just muffins baskets, if you catch my meaning,” she said with a wink, and then pantomimed doing a line of cocaine. "This is Hollywood, da? No one does

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Mere days before the premiere of SHITTY AWFUL EVERYTHING, actor extraordinaire and enfant terrible Jake Busey has been booted from the show! Busey had been tapped to replace three actors who had walked from the project earlier this week, but after certain things had come to light, Busey was also asked to leave the show.

When asked to comment on those certain things, director Kyle Cooper had this to say, “Chiefly we learned that Jake Busey wasn’t who he said he was. Turns out it actually was Gary Busey doing an impression of his son, and nobody noticed.”

When asked how Busey got away with the deception for a few days, playwright Kevin Swanstrom said. “It was uncanny. Like father, like son, I guess. You really can’t tell them a part. I’ve tried— I looked at side by side pictures of them and I still can’t do it.”

“I just feel so deceived,” Cooper commented, “Truly, I’m heartbroken.” Beyond this deception however, some of Busey’s rehearsal antics have c

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Not 24 hours after actor Schmaul Leschmofs walked from the production citing, “no comment,” and his immediate replacement by 80s icon, Gary Busey’s son; late 90s heartthrob Jake Busey, reports show two more actors have dropped from the project.

Although director Kyle Cooper again refuses to name names, he insists that, “Just because Schmimmy Schmaxine Schmields and Schmiss Schmoss left our show does not affect their standings as true originals in the world of theatre and as horrible people.” When asked if he meant to insult those two actors when it sounded like he was going to compliment them, Cooper simply replied, “Aren’t we all?” then adjusted his beret and lit a cigarette.

Rather than casting more replacement actors, Jake Busey will be absorbing the various roles of the two who have walked from the project.

Playwright Kevin Swanstrom commented on the new cast shake up, "I know I speak for everyone when I say we couldn’t be more excited to watch Jak

Things are getting tense for the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival production of “Shitty Awful Everything”. With less than a week before the show’s June 3rd scheduled opening, a cast member has dropped from the show due to “circumstances”.

Director Kyle Cooper had this to say about the shake up, “I’m disheartened that a member of our cast had to go on such terrible terms, but I refuse to slander their good name. Which is why that person shall remain nameless.” Unprompted, he continued, “Okay, I’ll say it’s a male cast member, and his name rhymes with Schmaul Leschmofs, but that’s as far as I’ll go. But I definitely won’t say that Schmaul got too big for his britches after his web series about tacos took off, and I definitely definitely won’t say that Schmaul demanded a gross bump in his pay grade to a number we couldn’t accommodate. Nope, I won’t say those things. Seriously though, f**k you, Paul. I mean… Schmaul.”

Jake Busey, son of actor/crazy m

Thanks to a glitch in the time/space continuum, the creators of “Shitty Awful Everything” – the wildest dark comedy to premiere at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival – have been able to procure some early reviews from the country’s leading theatre critics.

“Shitty Awful Everything” is proving to be a powerful piece of theatre. And divisive amongst critics! Which side will you stand on when you see it?

The Bad:

“This should be used as an example for students of comedy years down the line of how not to write a play.” (The New York Post)

“So inane, so unfathomably stupid, my brain cells are dying just thinking about it. The only good that can come of this play is if it were used as kindling for a flaming hot fire.” (The Guardian U.K.)

“An unqualified piece of comedic excrement. I would rather watch the worst Mike Myers films for the rest of my life, on repeat, until I was driven insane, begging for mercy and death, only for that mercy to be met by being swiftly bludgeone

Debuting as part of the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival, SHITTY AWFUL EVERYTHING is a world premiere dark comedy from the twisted minds of writer Kevin Swanstrom and producer/director Kyle Cooper.

A live-action cartoon, the play features artwork by acclaimed Los Angeles based artist Emma Rose Laughlin and sound design by Paul Michael Cooper. Props by Micah Wilmott.

SHITTY AWFUL EVERYTHING will open Friday, June 3 at 10pm at the OMR Theatre at the Complex, 6468 Santa Monica Blvd.

When everyman sad-sack, Mike, is diagnosed with terminal – and we mean terminal – cancer, his day only goes from bad to worse as he journeys to find life’s silver lining. But with run-ins with his amnesic wife, the mob, some surly intellectuals, a post-apocalyptic biker gang, and a couple of gay porn cowboys, perhaps Mike’s quest will prove too difficult after all. Luckily there are a couple of quarreling, omniscient narrators to help him on his way.

The cast features Juliet Deem, Paul LeSchofs, Micha