Staff and Volunteers
If you’re passionate about building positive spaces for comedy community, stay tuned! We’ll keep this space updated with opportunities to work with us, start new projects, and help run our events as they arise.
If you want to volunteer to help us out at future events, visit the Get Involved page.
For general questions, comments, or just saying hi, please email hello@bandittheater.org.
Our admin team is also joined by our amazing teachers, directors, and board!
Admin Team
Annie Barry
Founder & Artistic Director
(She/Her) Annie Barry is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of Bandit Theater. She began her improv training at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City in 2009, studying with renowned teachers and performers including Will Hines, Brandon Gardner, Gavin Speiller, Erik Tanouye, Chelsea Clarke, and Jordan Klepper.
Annie was later cast on Graceland, one of UCB’s first Lloyd Teams. In 2012, Graceland became the first Lloyd Team to be promoted to Harold Night together as a complete ensemble.
After leaving New York, Annie continued her training and artistic development in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., where she explored relationship-driven improvisation and learned to blend emotionally grounded scene work with game-based long-form comedy.
In 2018, Annie founded Bandit Theater with the goal of cultivating community, fostering creativity, and inspiring personal growth through the art of comedy. She helped develop Bandit’s improv curriculum, teaches improv, and leads the theater’s sketch comedy classes. At Bandit, she has performed in and directed productions including The Reader, Swipe Right, Inkprov Tacoma, and Regency. Her work emphasizes playful collaboration, strong ensemble relationships, memorable characters, and comedy grounded in genuine human connection.
Mary Stratton
Visual Brand Manager
(She/Her) Mary loves surprising and truthful reactions in improv. Though she is a fan of cleverness and details, she thinks the highest compliment you can give with laugh is “stupid”. Mary is part of the first graduating class of Bandit Theater’s core training program, and she now performs in Bandit’s tarot-based improv show, The Reader. She’s also a graphic designer and Bandit staff member. As Visual Brand Manager, Mary designs and determines what the brand looks like. She might be making that up as she goes along too —but the best performers AND brands are both strong and adaptable, right?).
Mary C. Parker
Education Lead
(She/Her) Mary believes we can all benefit from adding a little humor to our lives. She took her first improv class 10 years ago while seeking stress relief from work. Mary has performed with teams in Portland, OR, London, UK, Pittsburgh, PA, and now in Seattle on The Harld Next Door at Bandit. She has appeared at comedy festivals in Richmond, VA, Edinburgh, UK, and Pittsburgh, PA. Mary has taught improv at Kickstand Comedy, and she has been on the Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and Point Park University Conservatory of Performing Arts. Mary looks forward to teaching at Bandit and having you in her class!
Chris Zimmerman
Website/Blog/Marketing
(He/Him) Chris is an improviser, self-proclaimed DJ and backyard bar owner from Seattle. Starting in 2020, Chris has taken classes at Jet City and has now taken an unsolicited blood oath to all things Bandit Theater. You can find him behind a computer as the editor of the Bandit Bulletin, performing in The Reader or vigorously taking notes as the assistant director of Swipe Right. He's 5'9".