Mission / History

Mission
Gnap! Theater Projects presents and produces theatrical events that are both deliberately experimental and unashamedly populist, often utilizing modes of theater making that are artistically unfashionable and obsolete, including improvisation, short sketches, site specific performance art, and historical re-envisioning. Gnap! Theater Projects is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of ways of making narrative function in a theatrical setting. Gnap! Theater Projects work is intended for experienced theater audiences and theater-going novices alike.

History
We have been producing events since 2001. We started with No Shame Theatre, which ran at the Hideout from April 2001 through October 2005. We have produced plays (The Eight, The Family), improv festivals (Out of Bounds, 2005-2008), endurance events (Snakes on Day, 2006; All Known Metal Bands 2009), and have produced shows by improv groups (Get Up, 2005-Present; Saturday Night Special, 2008-Present).

Some answers to questions you might have

Q. How do you pronounce Gnap!?
A. You pronounce the G–Guh-nap

Q. Guh-nap? What does that mean?
A. It’s a phrase from an old episode of the Smurfs, and before that the comic book Les Schtroumpfs Noir (The Black Smurfs) by Peyo.

Q. Uh, ok. Why the hell would you name a theater company that?
A. It’s a long, silly inside joke of a story, but bascially Artistic Director Shannon McCormick is a little obsessed with this episode of the Smurfs–it’s kind of kinky in a completely naive way, violent, aggressive, with a touch of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and an unintetional commentary on the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. That such a cracked piece of pop culture was smuggled into living rooms all across America never ceases to amaze. We aspire to do work as sweetly subversive and innocently weird.