Super Spies & Pizza Pies
Things are about to get weird at Picka Packa Pizza. Word is out in the spy community that super-spy Jamie Gold is coming to this hole-in-the-wall pizzeria to pick up top secret documents. The problem is, Gold is a master of disguise and could be anyone, from average customers to the picky eater who can’t decide what to order to the new delivery person who’s got the worst luck in the world. But that won’t stop two teams of rival snoops from trying to make a name for themselves by getting the best of Jamie Gold! Their only clue is that instead of a password, Gold will order the worst pizza anyone’s ever heard of. And if these oddball spies can pull it off, they might even win a Golden Sneaker Award!
Productions
Behind The Scenes
With John Shanahan
What inspired you to write this play?
Honestly, the title. It just came to me one day. After writing “A Friend for Potato” I thought I was “one and done” with writing for young actors. Now and then little ideas would poke into my head, but none of them seemed to stick, to inspire me to explore them. Then this title came along and I thought, “I could do something with that.” All I had at the start was that a James Bond-type character was, for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain even to myself, picking up top-secret plans at a pizza place, and that there would be a case of mistaken identity. From there, it was just me trying to have fun.
What's your favorite part or line in the play? Why?
Wow, that’s tough. For me this play is one great bit after another, rapid fire. I love that ALL of the main players have drop-dead-funny lines. If I had to pick one, maybe it’s the Shih Tzu line...because I am secretly a 12-year-old boy. (And when we did a reading with middle school actors, said line got a big laugh... from the 12-year-old boys!)
Where did the characters come from? Are they based on people you know?
The spies are obviously a play on traditional movie and TV spy tropes, maybe with a little bit of KAOS’ Siegfied from Get Smart thrown in. (Boy, am I old...) Jamie Gray and CJ Lee are there to be the points of normalness in a storm of crazy—that’s always fun to play with. So mostly I’m pulling from standard spy-movie bits.
What did you try to achieve with this play?
To be absolutely crazy, tell a fun story, and to make everybody (including myself) laugh. This is hands-down the silliest thing I’ve ever written, and I just kept trying to top myself. My secondary goal, as I did with “A Friend for Potato,” was to get it done in time to give it to my wife for her theater programs as a Christmas gift. Mission accomplished!
Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Writing this play showed me just how wonderfully chaotic my writing process can be. For the longest time, the characters Jamie Gray and CJ Lee didn’t have names. They were “Main Character” and “Friend.” I wasn’t sure what I was doing with them. There are things in this play—pretty important things—that started their life as one-off jokes or visual gags, and some characters (no spoilers!) did not start out as they ended up. I knew I had really caught fire with this play when I started seeing connections and possibilities growing out of bits and the play started moving in a different direction. I had lots of “Oh, wait, I could do...” moments. It became a much better play for it.
One other odd thing about this play: when I wrote it, I was working weekends as an on-air host at a classical radio station. I’d announce some 25–40-minute symphony, then sit down with my laptop and write more Super Spies. This may be one of the few plays in history largely written in a radio booth.