amyRhodesInt

Amy Rhodes is a writer, actress and director who has transplanted herself from New York to Los Angeles with the aim of writing for television. In the meantime, her work in New York has earned her awards and recognition and she continues to create and write in the comedic style that garnered her notices. No doubt LA will welcome her talents and ability; after all it was that great philosopher (old Blue Eyes himself) who said about New York -

"If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere "
Who would want to argue with The Chairman of The Board?

RP - I noticed your website had all kinds of great information about you – Do you consider yourself more an actress - comedienne - a comedy writer?

AR – Yes - I teach improv and perform improv at the “Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre”. I’ve been doing that for a long time. In the last couple of years I’ve started writing a lot more too.

AR – I don’t. I think they complement each other very much. Ian Roberts, one of the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade is a writer and he has always said that he thinks improv is a writer’s sport, so to speak. For me, it helps me to write from an improv standpoint which is kind of not knowing what the next thing is and trusting that I’ll get to it by figuring out where I am and then going to the next thing. I’ll kind of figure it out as I go along, which is something I learned through improv.

AR – I think it actually makes it a lot better. I think the idea behind it as Ian describes it when I’ve spoken to him about it, is that when you do an improv scene you really don’t know the whole scene. – you don’t have it written out – you don’t know what’s going to happen or how your scene partner is going to respond –

AR – So when I sit down to write something like a play or a longer piece, I may know what the first one or two scenes are and I may have a general overview of what’s going to happen, but the specifics sort of fall into place as I’m writing.

RP – I was reading in your website that when you were in high school you were a mime?

AR – Yeah – I was in a mime troupe that was a sketch and comedy group back in high school.

AR – I did always want to perform and do comedy. I definitely started at a young age. I started doing plays and theatre in Junior High and I started writing in Junior High as well.

RP – That’s great. Talk about the awards that you received for your work in New York.

AR – Yeah – for my solo shows. A couple of things got noticed. “I Enjoy Being a Girl” which was my first solo show won an award called “Emerging Comic of New York” for best solo show. And then a show that I co-created with a good friend of mine, Eric Pliner called SPOOKY DOG & THE TEEN-AGE GANG MYSTERIES has won several awards – like the New York Fringe Festival and it won an award Best of Theatre by Backstage Magazine. And just in the last month we found out that the show is being published by Samuel French – which is a pretty good publishing house –

AR – Eric was the writer – director of the show “Spooky Dog – “and I was in the show and co-created with him.

AR – It’s a parody of Scooby Doo and the title came about because the original title was “Jinkies” which is something that one of the Scooby Doo characters says. We got a lot of “cease and desist” letters from Warner Brothers, so we ended having to change it, a la sort of Charles Bush and Psycho Beach Party. The show is a parody and so we wanted to make sure that the title itself also was a parody. So, for example, Velma became Thelma and Fred became Ted and things like that, so Scooby Doo became Spooky Dog.

RP – That’s very clever – but now, tell me about “Three Compañeros”. Was that just a two day run?

AR – No – that show has been extended – in fact, it’s a pretty big deal. Our new dates are April 26, Thursday at 8:00 p.m. – Thursday May 3rd at 8:00 p.m. and Thursday May 17th at 8:00 p.m.

RP – So no more 11 pm shows?

AR – No, all the shows are at 8:00 p.m.

RP - You have the same actors in the show?

AR – The same actors - Drew Droege, Taran Killam, Robert Lambert, Cassie Pappas and Bryan Safi.

RP- This is something that you wrote?

AR – Yes, I wrote and directed it.


Robert Lambert, Taran Killam and Bryan Safi

RP – How in the world do you come up with an idea of putting Lance Armstrong, Jake Gyllenhaal and Matthew MConaughey in the same room? That’s quite a concept.

AR – Well, the three of them were in photos together - Lance Armstrong and Matthew McConaughey are actually good friends and Jake Gyllenhaal started popping up in some of the pictures and I knew I wanted to write something about the three of them. People who are into pop culture – especially females – we were all sort of curious as to why the three of them were hanging out – it does seem like a fairly odd combination. . .

AR – So I kind of took the leap then of the three of them sort of being similar to the three characters on “Three’s Company” and sort of plugging each of them into one of those characters.

RP – And they’re all chasing the same girl –

AR – Yes, in the show they are all after the same girl. The concept of the show is that they are staying in Lance’s summer home and Mr Morris the wacky landlord – is like a Mr. Furley type has a friend’s daughter coming to town, and he asks if one of the guys will take her on a date. But none of them wants to because they don’t know what she looks like. But when she comes in and turns out to be beautiful – then the rest of the show they’re kind of fighting over her.

RP – That sounds very funny.

AR – I hope


Robert Lambert, Cassie Pappas, Drew Droege, Bryan Safi and Taran Killam

RP – You’ve done some TV appearances with Conan O’Brien and Carson Daley – talk a little about those.

AR – I did sketches on Last Call with Carson Daley and Conan O’Brien -little sketches on the shows.

AR – I’m working on several things. A friend of mine and I are writing a book – that’s my friend Bryan Safi. I’m also writing a bunch of five minute episodes of a TV show that we’re going to film and put on line with some of the people in the show. And I’m hoping to write more for television – that’s why I moved out to Los Angeles.

RP – Were you involved in the beginning of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre?

AR – No - the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre was founded in 1997 by Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. They have a theatre in New York and a little over a year ago they opened a theatre in LA. I came in around 2001 in New York, taking classes and performing, and when I moved out here about a year ago I continued to perform and teach. Now I’m a teacher – I took classes and now I teach.

RP – Excellent. That’s quite a name for the company. When I told friends about it they thought it was either a conservative political group or a religious organization.

AR – Oh really? I don’t know quite how they came up with the name, but I know the comedy that comes out of there is more cutting edge and aggressive and alternative. I think the name sort of comes from the idea of guerrilla theatre. It’s not at all religious – definitely. There’s a lot of history that the four the creators have and know about – but the rest of us are allowed to speculate on. It’s definitely been a good home for me and a good place to try things out – a place to learn and meet people and things like that.

RP – As far as your play, how did you come up with the title that’s in Spanish – “Three Compañeros”?

AR – Well – we wanted the title to derive from Three’s Company. I wanted the title to represent that. The Compañeros came from Matthew McConaughey – throughout the show and in interviews, I’ve seen of him sometimes speak a little bit of “spanglish” – where he’ll say things like “mi amigo” or “mi padre”, He’s very odd that way, and I thought that would do a nice job of getting the idea across. In Spanish compañeros means friends, so it’s about the three friends and it’s closely tied together to “Three’s Company”.

RP – You probably know that there was a Disney movie - way, way before your time called “The Three Caballeros”. Have you seen or heard of it?

AR – Yeah – somebody told me that actually. I was at a reading sometime last October or November and someone mentioned that. That was the one with I believe Donald Duck.

RP – Donald Duck was in it and a rooster named Pancho Pistolas – and I can’t remember the other. But your title is equally catchy. I believe it’s will work really well for you.

AR – Thanks. We’ve had four shows so far, and they’ve been selling out and we’re getting a lot of buzz. We’re glad we’re getting a prime time slot now.

RP – I was going to catch one of your shows – but after 11 pm I become a total pumpkin and just fade out.

AR – Yeah – A lot of people are like that, so that’s why we’re happy to be able to move it to 8 pm, and hopefully we’ll keep it a little bit longer.

As we prepared to close the interview Amy reminded us of the dates of the upcoming show and in the spirit of true professionalism asked us not to forget to mention Eric Pliner, co-creator of SPOOKY DOG & THE TEEN-AGE GANG MYSTERIES. Three Compañeros appears to have all the markings of a future hit, and with the talents of Amy Rhodes guiding the production there’s every chance that the performances will sell out as before and bring her one step closer to her goals.

Amy’s show will re-open April 26, 2007 at 8:00 pm at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre at 5919 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood CA. Information and reservations at (323) 908-8702. Website at www.ucbtheatre.com.