No Shame Theatre Archives (1990-91)

Webmaster's note: This information is pieced together from various private collections. If you have information that will fill in the gaps, PLEASE let us know.

KEY:
Author(s) - Title (Performers, if known)

  1. Numbered entries indicate the piece's position in the order.

1990/91 No Shame Staff Membership Breakdown

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Oliver Oertel
GENERAL MANAGER: Doug Dawson
STAGE MANAGER: Mark D. Johnson
TREASURER: David Guerdette
Production Asst.: Jill Nacke
Production Asst.: Ashley Runnels
Grad Writer Rep.: Laura Quinn
Undergrad Writer Rep.: Brett Neveu
Grad Actor Rep.: Stanton Dossett
Undergrad Actor Rep.: Stuart Hoyle
Faculty Advisor: Todd Ristau

From Shannon McCormick's My History at No Shame:

"I started attending in the fall of 1990 and thought that all of these people were gods. I had never experienced theater as outright cool as what was going on at No Shame. Here's the people who made a big impression on me that first year (1990-1991), although there were more than I'll be able to remember. Todd Ristau, Brett Neveu, Adam Whisner, John Smick, Oliver Oertel, Laura Quinn, T-Bone (now Jackson Galaxy?), Cheryl Graeff did a piece that blew me away with T-Bone I think that blew me away, Ashley Sovern (different last name back then?), Mark Johnson, Carolyn Space Jacobsen, Mike Geither, Marc Slayton, J.C. Luxton (then calling himself John C.) and his buddy Dan Cahoy, Dan Layne, etc. And oh yeah, this was the year that Rebecca Gilman was doing the Mrs. Sock Monkey Doll pieces. Doug Dawson was the host of every show, but I'm not sure who else was on the board. A lot of these people left after my first year-Oliver, Cheryl, JC, etc."

FIFTH SEASON - FALL SEMESTER '90
[Carolyn's notes: Early on I used a calendar to list all possible dates (Fridays during the school year). All dates are in brackets until I have at least one piece I really think took place on that date. I had started including archive numbers when I ran across them, but this is a very incomplete job. (GA# 314, for instance, means "Gogerty Archives, number 314).

Paper archives--there was a big box I got from Gogerty, all of which I numbered and listed by hand (i.e. not in a computer file). I have the original list I created, and there is a copy in the archives. I also copied a lot of things that John Smick had pulled together (as in every script he ever wrote or was asked to read at NS), and also copied things that I had. Copies of all of these things are kept by the current board.

Much of the info from the archives is incomplete. Pieces didn't always have titles, for instance, so I've sometimes used the first line/first sentence. If so, it's in brackets, and in quotes. Often only a last name is listed.

The information below is somewhat haphazard, but is stuff I feel pretty confident about. (I note whenever I'm less confident.) Some of this info comes from dates written on pieces in the archives. A lot of it comes from my own notes about shows, or from captured ISCA conversations.]

photos DI article Friday, August 31, 1990 - [Theatre B]
[This piece was part of this show:]
2) John Smick - Small Talk

[These pieces were also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
Friday, September 7, 1990 - [patio]
[This piece was part of this show:]
Friday, September 14, 1990 - [Theatre B]
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
7) Dajam GA# 714
10) Elliot - Reincarnation
13) John Wolfe - Occasional Verses on the Return of Stacy's Bike (I'm less sure of this date. Pull together and check to see if numbers are in the same hand) GA#567
Last) Mark Johnson and Brett Neveu - The Crazy Trunk'ed Man

[This piece was also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
Friday, September 21, 1990 - [Theatre B]
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
1) Public Service Announcement
7) Todd Ristau - Lou (aka Ex-Prize Fighter)
11) Locke Barrows - The Return of Doom
15) Mark Johnson and Brett Neveu - The Big Old Lump

Friday, September 28, 1990
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
3) Elliot - Judicial Roulette
4) Dossett - ["The last two nights running I've had these dreams . . ."]
9) Smith - Zen Housekeeping

[Friday, October 5, 1990] - [Theatre B]
[This piece was part of this show:]
Friday, October 12, 1990 - [???]
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
3) Debbie Blake with Falak Logda - Celebration
11) Brett Neveu - Swimming in the Lake

[These pieces were also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
Friday, October 19, 1990
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
5) Brett Neveu - Trees Moss
7) [Christopher Eric Ines Raga] - Fox Head
12) John Smick - Vicious Cycle
13) Laura Quinn - [from her play about Margaret Mitchell, Home to Tara]

Friday, October 26, 1990
[The following pieces were part of this show:]
12) JC Luxton - Haiku (his first piece) Exploding Penguins

[November 2, 1990]
Friday, November 9, 1990
T-shirt and Ticket raffle. ["I'm suspecting that we did a raffle for the t-shirt that night so that we could advertise the sale of them which might have begun that night."--Ristau]

[The following pieces were part of this show:]

  • Ashley's Piece
    [This is from a note in Ristau's datebook: "I never wrote one for ashley, but is it possible that she did her nude piece that night? It's something I'd have made a note about."]
    • Friday, November 16, 1990
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    5) Mark D. Johnson - [Man walking straight line]
    13) Joshua Lewis - Poodles with Mohawks

  • Todd Ristau - Subway

    • photos Beast of No Shame
    Friday, November 30, 1990     - [Mabie Theater]
    1. Stacie Vens - Pagliai's Pizza
    2. John Smick - Small Talk
    3. Seán Judge - Quickie Poem
    4. Brett Neveu - Something Touched My Arm
    5. Hallen/Donald - Where Have Those Days Gone
    6. B. O. Ltd. - Yuck
    7. Todd Ristau - Monologue - [This was probably the green man]
    8. Not On Drugs, Really (JC Luxton and Dan Cahoy) - He's So Tall
    9. Johnson - Grandpa
    10. Marc Slayton - Dance
    11. Shepard/Dubé - The Vase
    12. Oliver Oertel/Todd Stashwick - The Smooch
    13. Mike Geither - Hey, This Actually Happened
    14. Brett Neveu - I Like Wispy Clouds
    15. Todd Ristau - I Was There
    16. Laura Quinn - Aug 8, 1969
    17. Guthrie - Stan Contemplates What It Takes To Be Successful
    18. Fred Norberg - The Gift
    19. No Shame Cathedral Players (Brett Neveu and Mark Johnson) - The Boggy Bog
    Oliver Oertel on "Beast of No Shame":

    "Always happy to answer a trivia question. The year I was Art. Dir. we were planning our "Best of.. show and in a meeting of the No Shame Board, John Smick proposed that this year we call it "The Beast of No Shame." All the ads had a picture of the monkey with the crown on his ass and the word "Best" was sloppily crossed out (by me) and the word "Beast" was sloppily scrawled in (also by me). Later on we all thought it was cool that we called it "The Beast of..." because we sold out the 500 seat Mabie Theatre, making the show a real beast, indeed."

    MISCELLANEOUS PIECES - [Fall 1990]:
    [There are two pieces in the archives dated during this semester, which means they might have been performed on the following Friday, or on the nearest Friday, if, say, Smick misdated his:]

    October 20, 1990
    12) John Smick - Vicious Cycle

    December 10 (or 7?), 1990--
    Michelle Brundige - Dear Santa. ASK ADAM TO CHECK DATE

    FIFTH SEASON - SPRING SEMESTER '91
    [Carolyn's notes: This is when I started performing and also when I found ISCA, so there are some descriptions of pieces without titles or authors, that are basically quoted from ISCA notes. This gets very confusing, since the piece referred to as, say, "Tim's piece" by one isca user, may also be the piece about the "father and daughter" as referred to by another isca user. And several of the ISCA folks were killer quoters, so they'll just post 6 different quotes from the night. I have no idea whether they're from the same piece, different pieces, etc. But I've included as many pieces as possible, hoping that some other people's memories may be jogged by what they read.]

    (Classes start Tue, Jan 15)

    [January 18, 1991]
    Friday, January 25, 1991
    [The following piece was part of this show:]
    Friday, February 1, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    7) Mark Johnson - Urinating at Grandma's
    6) Kate Aspengren - [Gulf War Telethon]

    Friday, February 8, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    2) Jill Nacke & Anne Routhier - Vanna's Dagger
    12) Brett Neveu - Arbyies

    [The following piece was also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
    Friday, February 15, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    1) Ristau - [Selection from Adolf Hitler play] - (performed by Jim Thorn)
    4) Carolyn Space Jacoboson - Meta-NoShame [her first piece ever]

    Friday, February 22, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    3) [Pat?] McCall - ["Saw Alyssa Again Over Break"]

    [The following piece was also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
    Friday, March 1, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    6/8) Mike Geither - Brown Jello
    7/9) Erin Jacobs - Eggy and the Wind (performed by John Smick)

    [The following piece also may have been part of this show, exact order unknown:]
    Friday, March 8, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show, exact order unknown:]

    Friday, March 29, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    Friday, April 5, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    13) John C Luxton and Dan Cahoy - The Electric Jesus Machine and Bart (ASK ADAM ABOUT CONTENT--GA#522)

    [The following pieces were also part of this show, exact order unknown:]
    Friday, April 12, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    Friday, April 19, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    Best of No Shame
    April 26, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
     [The following piece was probably part of this show as well:]
    Friday, May 3, 1991
    [The following pieces were part of this show:]
    *********
    the response to Carolyn Space Jacobson (and what was that guy's name? I remember he was in Solar Elephants and a Duck) heavyset Hawaiian-looking guy--Warren in a dress
    *********
    John Smick - The Wants and Needs of a Backyard Septic Tank (response to Mike Geither's The Wants and Needs of the Iowa River)
    *********
    "And then the Diet Pepsi Man came across a kitten, lying in the street covered with trash. A kitten... an soft furry cuddly bundle of love called No-ball, the castrated kitten..." (sounds like a response to Luxton/Cahoy's Snowball)
    *********
    Nevue's rambling-poetry-in-the-dark with-masks-and-taped-nonsense thing.
    *********
    Scott Smith and one of his few serious pieces
    *********
    Todd Ristau's monologue was great (long)
    *********
    Pat McCall in two pieces (One by King Zombie, "How to torture a Yuppie")
    ********
    Stanton piece "New Mexico piece"
    *********
    Maybe some piece about shooting people doing response pieces (involving Brett maybe)
    ********
    the da-da guerillas piece, though I think it should have been shorter (especially the in-the-dark stuff).
    **********
    the French-film thing
    ********
    Gwen Link's piece (By SMick) (about driving real fast, walking where she's not supposed to go, etc).
    Carolyn Space Jacobson and Laura Quinn - Aggressive Women's Theatre: Episode II: Love, In the Afternoon
    ********

    (In the end of the semester discussion, there were also references made to some pieces that had been performed in the past:

    A piece from a few weeks ago performed by Gwen Link, perhaps written by Smick, about John Lennon

    Reference to pieces by Gwen link from "last year" about pregnancy--esp. one with a girl faking pregnancy with a pillow in order to get attention from her mother.

    Reference to a piece by Smick, performed by Jill Nackie about a country girl going to school

    MISCELLANEOUS PIECES - [1990-91]:

    (Dates unknown:)

    FIFTH SEASON - SUMMER SEMESTER '91
     (The following summer schedule is extrapolated from information in the Daily Iowan article on 6/27/91. The article also implies that most of these performances would have been on the patio. These dates [except June 28th] and location are confirmed by an article in the Theatre Alumni Newsletter from the fall of 1991.)
    Friday, June 28, 1991 - [???]
    Friday, July 5, 1991 - [Outside, I think.]
    [Only 4 pieces. Including:]
    Friday, July 12, 1991 - [???]
    Friday, July 19, 1991 - [Outside]
    [Final NS of the Summer]
    Continue on to Fall 1991