Kristina Robbins

Face by the Door, Kristina Robbins' one-woman satire of the weird culture of Mary Kay cosmetics, was spun from her potboiling stint as a "business researcher," investigating multilevel marketing companies like Amway and Mary Kay. It was not only the first script she'd written, "it was the first anything I'd written," she says.

After an extended run at the Marsh last year, Robbins moved to Los Angeles, where she's currently mounting a new version of the show called Natalie Gets Made. She still does free-lance research now and then for money, and claims that the work is healthy as far as it keeps her in touch with ordinary people. "It keeps me from demonizing the mainstream," she says. One of the strengths of her show is that the satire is so subtle: She's too careful a mimic to disrespect her characters. Robbins came to acting through improv -- via the Scratch Theater troupe -- and before leaving San Francisco played a small role in Dream With the Fishes, the movie with David Arquette.

-- Michael Scoot Moore