Craig Ricci Shaynak, sometimes credited as Craig Shaynak, is a character actor based in Los Angeles, CA. He has been active in Chicago and Los Angeles theatre and more recently, national television and film. Shaynak was born in Northport, New York. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in Medieval Drama in 1991 and is one of a few American students of Medieval Pageant Plays. Under the tutelage of David Bevington, renowned Shakespeare scholar, he produced Everyman, the 16th-century morality play, as well as The Second Shepherds' Play in the original Middle English. In fact, Mr. Shaynak's first professional theatre production after university was to be the dramaturg for a production of The Mystery Cycle, an American adaptation of a British modernization of the Wakefield Cycle, but instead became his first professional acting experience. The adaptation was done by Nicholas Rudall, at the time, Artistic Director of the Court Theatre, and Bernard Sahlins, one of the founders of The Second City and SCTV. Shaynak also performed in Off-Off Campus started by Bernard Sahlins, Francis X. Kinahan, and Steven R. Schroer of University Theater. 

July 14th, 1969 in Northport, New York (Age 55)