No Shame Theatre Archives (2010)

KEY:
Author or (No Shamer) - Title (Performers, if known)

$5
Every Friday at midnight.
NO SHAME THEATRE: "Dare to be brilliant, dare to fail"
Audience, arm yourself. A performance evening unlike any open mic in New York, No Shame grants performers five minutes to blast beyond the normal duties of pleasing, amusing, and entertaining - in fact, performers are encouraged to risk their audience's displeasure, alienation, boredom, confusion, and rage. You, No Shame participant, are invited to read somber fiction onstage, to take a nap, to take off your clothes, to make a sandwich, to describe graphic sexual acts. You can do Q&A, play a game with the audience, stage a fight so realistic that it leaves everyone horrified (real No Shame occurrence). You can even claim five minutes to force us to watch an empty stage. No Shame both includes and reaches beyond the meat and potatoes of sketch and standup to re-electrify audience attention, create a night that is rude, weird, surreal, and transcendent, and bring back the urgency of wondering "what happens next?" We welcome comedy and laffs, but are in especial need of performers willing to take emotional risks onstage and help our audience experience the fullest range of emotions. We'd like to them to nod, sigh, tremble, clutch each other in fear, point and laugh, remember past traumas, lose control of their bowels, and (on a very good night) be inspired to riot.
There are only three rules:
1) Pieces must be no longer than 5 minutes. At the end of your five minutes, you will be blacked out.
2) Pieces must be original. We are open to disputing the definition of "original."
3) You cannot break anything - the audience, the theater, the law. The only things you are allowed to break are hearts and spirits.
There are only three requests:
1) Sign up at 11:30PM. 15 spots are available. Performers get in free.
2) Bring as many scripts as you have performers, plus one for the light booth.
3) Bring your friends. No Shame NY is still a zygote.

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No Shame Theatre was created in 1986 by Todd Ristau, Jeff Goode, and Stan Ruth, who held the first performance in the back of a truck at the University of Iowa. It is now a fixture in several communities around the United States and has served as a starting point for performers at UCBLA, UCBNY, and elsewhere.