from The Roanoke Times - October 17, 2003

By KEVIN KITTREDGE
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   Leave the shame at the door.

    There's no room for inhibitions here at No Shame Theatre, Roanoke's newest, and certainly weirdest, theatrical venture, which debuts at 11 p.m. Friday on Mill Mountain Theatre's Waldron Stage.

    Yes, 11 p.m. As in, after your parents go to bed.

    Directed (more or less) by Todd Ristau, who founded it with his buddies at the University of Iowa, No Shame Theatre wants you. Come and perform.

    "Perform what?" you ask.

    Silly goose. Anything at all. There is no shame. Just keep it under five minutes, and please keep it legal. (Profanity allowed.)

    "We'll see how it goes. It's a grand experiment," explained Ristau, who has seen No Shame spread to many cities, including New York and Charlottesville. The original No Shame Theatre in Iowa City, Iowa, is still going strong, 17 years after Ristau and his buddies conceived it while drinking Jack Daniels whiskey .

    "I've never made a dime off it," Ristau said (actually, Mill Mountain Theatre is paying him $25 a week). "It's not about the profit. It's about providing an opportunity to people to explore their own voice, without having to be beholden to anybody but their own muse."

    MMT director Jere Hodgin said No Shame is part of an effort to shake things up in the playhouse's 40th season, and hopefully appeal to a younger audience - one that gets going a little bit later at night than the main stage musical crowd.

    "Not to imply that we're having a midlife crisis, but we're certainly going to stay up later," said Hodgin of a new MMT venture called "Underground Roanoke," of which No Shame Theatre is only a part. Hodgin hopes "Underground" will eventually expand to three nights a week and include poetry slams, alternative comedy, performance art and even weirder stuff.

    The potential, he believes, is there, bored and waiting. "Anybody who's been in downtown Roanoke on Friday and Saturday nights knows there's a lot of people out. And there's not a lot that they can do."

    He hopes the young people who congregate nightly around Mill Mountain Coffee on Campbell Avenue in particular will take notice, though people of all ages are welcome.

    "We want it to be new, raw," Hodgin said. "Break the mold. People who have ideas should bring them to u s. Because we've got the space."

    No Shame Theatre certainly broke the mold back in Iowa City on October 3, 1986, when its first performance was held in the back of Ristau's pickup truck.

    Things have gotten a little more upscale since then, though not much. Performances still range from the truly good to the truly awful. "We think it's important that there be a percentage of dreadful stuff," Ristau said.

    Ristau, who once had a play about Jerry Lee Lewis staged in London's famous West End theater district, moved to Roanoke in June. He teaches at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton; his wife, Joan Ruelle, is the Hollins University librarian.

    Ristau plans to write a weekly No Shame piece himself. For tonight's performance, he will perform "Chicken Sunday," a monologue he first did back in Iowa City.

    Performances should be original and no more than five minutes in length. Scripts are welcome (bring enough copies for the actors). So are fiction writers, directors, actors, dancers, poets, singers, musicians, comedians and other performers of every stripe, and of course anyone who cares to watch. Alcohol will be served to those of age. Everybody pays $5, performer and audience alike.

    Interested? Visit the No Shame Web site at www.noshame.org, pick up a No Shame Theatre information packet from the Mill Mountain Theatre administrative offices on the second floor of Center in the Square, or call Stephanie Ingraham at 224-1255.

    Or just show up. No Shame Theatre will take place at 11 p.m. Fridays until further notice on Mill Mountain Theater's Waldron Stage at Center on Church Avenue (next to Beamer's restaurant).