by William McEvoy

Todd Stashwick walks into Spago, slowly removing his sunglasses, stopping at a couple of tables to greet acquaintances and have a word with a former co-star. He sits, and without looking at the menu he orders a wild mushroom strudel with goat cheese and Madeira sauce as an appetizer --

No, not really. We conducted this interview over the Internet, via e-mail, while sitting in our underwear at our respective computers. (Okay, I was in my underwear, I can't speak for him.) I just wanted to give this article the Hollywood treatment, as it were. But while he is now based in Los Angeles, Mr. Stashwick is not yet at that point in his career where he's a regular guest of Wolfgang Puck. He's just a working actor getting commercials and guest spots on sitcoms. He says he has some irons in the fire, but it's a matter of time before we see his large presence (he is a big man) on either the small or the silver screen. At the same time, he's been working in the theater, creating new, innovative and often surreal improvisational theater.

Mobile is one way to describe his career. He has lived and worked in all three major centers of improv in the United States. "I was born in Chicago, went to school there, Second City was there, lots of underground theater," he says. "Chicago is a great petri dish for young actors. Second City led to a failed bid for Saturday Night Live in 1996. While I was in New York for the audition I met with agents and decided it was time to leave Chicago. New York City allowed me to explore improv in ways that Chicago did not. I also got to dip into TV and film; I was fortunate to get to do Conan (Late Night with Conan O'Brien) quite a bit. LA was just the next logical step."

He explored improv in New York with the group he co-founded, Burn Manhattan. Using a technique called "organic" improv, a physically based style, it was a distillation of all that each of the members learned from a variety of teachers. It was born out of frustration with the state of the art. "In the mid 90's I had become disenchanted with the state of the improv community. It was all competition. Find the game! Enter with an idea! Find the who-what-where in the first 3 lines of dialogue! All of this served to disconnect me from my partners and forced me to be clever. Cleverness kills the work. I felt that television, particularly the influence of sketch comedy, had been diluting the stage work. Most of the improv I saw was trying to emulate sketch comedy, there was a lack of theatricality and originality. It all looked the same. Things were gimmicky at best." There was some hope, though. "What I had been taught by Marty (De Maat), Del (Close) and Mick (Napier) was not being practiced or encouraged on the majority of stages. Talking head improv. No connection to the physical. I had been to Scotland the summer before I moved to NYC and saw a troupe called Rejects Revenge; they are a highly physical performing company out of Liverpool. They created environments and special effects using only their bodies, genius, hilarious. I saw them and thought, "Why is physical work in improv restricted to how well you mime a cabinet door or a glass of water? Rejects, with just some chairs and lights, took you on this insane journey. Truly inspiring."

"With all that in my head I moved to NY and co-founded Burn Manhattan with Shira Piven as our director. My work took a different direction. The work became founded in physicality, observation, transformation and theatricality. We were fortunate that when we hit NYC long-form was just being introduced there, Burn and Upright Citizen's Brigade hit a virgin canvas with what we were doing. I discovered stuff about the work no one was talking about or teaching. I don't know if it was new. It was just new to me."

Burn Manhattan created a tremendous stir in the New York improv community. Working from physical actions inspired by music played at the top of the show, they would weave a series of short plays, often surreal, always theatrical, and very physical. I would sit in awe of the creativity generated in every show, and the trust the players had in each other as they climbed all over their set and each other. Their influence continues today in New York, as members of the troupe have directed or coached a number of exciting troupes in the city, including the Hester Prynnz, Kuru, and goga. The members who remained in New York also created the critically-acclaimed Centralia.

When Stashwick left New York in 2000, his need to create was not dulled by the slower West Coast pace or Southern California weather, where he founded the gothic/Victorian Doubtful Guests "Doubtful Guests was a response to Burn Manhattan. When I left NYC and moved to LA I knew I had to play but I knew I didn't want to, nor could I, recreate what I had for 4 years. I wanted something else. Burn grew out of a NY vibe, underground, techno. Guests I wanted to go low tech, highly theatrical. I'm fascinated by turn of the century London, Dickens, Jack the Ripper. I was reading Edward Gorey; I had seen an amazing show called Shockheaded Peter. It's these horrific German children's stories, for example a story the crazy tailor who would cut off the thumbs of the children who suck them, all set to the music of the Tiger Lilies. They had puppets, garish make up. They called it a Junk opera.) And I've always been a fan of Tim Burton. I had never seen an improvised show with those influences. You aspire to do the kind of work that you would want to see." The Guests will be doing a run in March as a run-up to an appearance at the Chicago Improv Festival.

CIF will also feature a reunion of some of the members of Burn Manhattan. Matt Higgins, Jay Rhoderick and Kevin Scott will join Stashwick as a CIF Fringe stage show, and he's looking forward to the reunion with lots of nostalgia. "They are family. Jay, Kevin and Matt are the best. It's nothing but joy performing with them. Last summer I was given the pleasure of performing with Centralia at the Westbeth. I was home. It was a standing room only crowd. People were seated in the light booth. Very moving to see how many people wanted to see us play together, I was very surprised and touched." Expect a similar turnout at the Chicago Festival.

And when he returns to LA, he's getting to work on his new project, Minty. "Minty is so far in it's infancy that there is very little to say about it. Often I get inspired by music. With Burn it was Soul Coughing and Chemical Brothers. Guests it was The Tiger Lilies and Tin Pan Alley. I was driving with my wife (Charity; the couple has a four-year-old son, Oscar.) talking about the next possible project. Ideally a two-person thing with fellow Guest Ezra Weisz. We were listening to The Housemartins, ridiculously happy '80s Brit pop, the antithesis of The Smiths. Very minty, direct contrast to the darkness of The Doubtful Guests. I don't know where it will go but it has created an itch." Look for Minty to hit an LA stage in May.

As this interview was concluding, word came of the passing of one of Mr. Stashwick's earliest and most enduring influences, Byrne Piven. Although he never studied directly under Mr. Piven, he was very affected. "What is rarely mentioned about Byrne Piven is that he was a champion of improv in it's purest form, stripped free of gimmicks and competition. My work has been more influenced by what I learned from Shira Piven and the teachings of Byrne and Joyce (Piven, Byrne's wife) than anyone else. Within the last five years alone the groups Burn Manhattan, The Doubtful Guests, Centralia, goga, oona, Kuru, Shramker, The Hester Prynzz, The Chainsaw Boys, Stencil, Gotham Beyond, Gotham Pod, Orphans and I'm sure many I others I cannot call to mind, can trace their origins back to Shira and the work of Byrne and the Piven Theatre Workshop. The Doubtful Guests are dedicating our March run at Bang and their performances at the CIF to Byrne Piven."

Todd Stashwick seems well on his way to influencing new generations of improvisors. A more fitting tribute to Mr. Piven cannot be imagined.