THE BEST OF CRAIGSLIST

The Best of Craigslist: Live!

The Best of Craigslist, a live performance of our virtual community messaging board, will perform May 23rd through June 28th at the Hudson Backstage Theater (6539 Santa Monica Blvd.), home of the Comedy Central Stage. Each performance will feature a live band, and our last six shows will be part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Tickets are $15.

Inspired by John Pick’s Funny or Die series The Best of Craigslist (nominated for an LA Weekly award) the live show began last year with a late night performance at South Coast Repertory, followed by packed monthly shows at the MiMoDa Studio. It has since run to enthusiastic audiences and great reviews, and has recently traveled to New York (Joe’s Pub) and Chicago (the Royal George Theater).

Directed and produced by John Pick, The Best of Craigslist: Live features a rotating ensemble of actors who mine Craigslist posts for story and character, performing the posts verbatim (or close to, with edits). By doing so, we aspire to examine a true, accententic fabric of America through performance.

Another element of our show is Meet the Real Posters. We will be performing posts from the LA area and inviting the authors to our show. After performing their posts (or making videos of them), we will attempt to put musicians wanted together in a band; as well as send two posters on a date. It’s the intersection of performance and reality…set against a theatrical backdrop.

SHOW SCHEDULE with BANDS

FRI 5/23 8 p.m Doran Danoff
SUN 5/25 8 p.m. Doran Danoff
FRI 5/30 8 p.m The Dustbowl Revival
SUN 6/1 8 p.m. The Dustbowl Revival
FRI 6/6 8 p.m. TBA
SUN 6/8 8 p.m TBA
FRI 6/13 9:45pm TBA
SAT 6/14 8 p.m Levi Petree
SUN 6/15 8pm TBA
SAT 6/21 5:30pm TBA
SUN 6/22 3pm Kate Brown
SAT 6/28 9:45pm
PRAISE FOR THE BEST OF CRAIGSLIST

“Hilarious and simple.”
-Timeout LA (Critics Choice)
Timeout Chicago (Critics Choice)

“So genius….what acting is all about.”
-Southern California Public Radio

“Expertly edited…absurdly hilarious”
-LA Weekly

“One of L.A. best under-the-radar evening activities…leaving the audience with little room to breathe between deep belly laughter”
-LA I’m Yours

BIOS

John Pick is a Los Angeles based actor, writer and teacher. Most recently he performed and produced TAPE: a play in a hotel room, which was Critic’s Choice by the LA Times and received a GO from the LA Weekly. He has been seen on Conan (TBS) and was a writer for the CBS Diversity Showcase. His videos have been featured on Funny or Die, and he is the Grand Prize Winner of the David Mamet Video Contest. John has performed at the South Coast Repertory; the Pacific Symphony; Tim Robbins’ The Actor’s Gang; and the Ojai Playwrights Conference, where he is also the Director of Intern Programming. He trained with the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. He is also the editor of the People are the News: Chicago Stories by Grant Pick, published by the Northwestern University Press.