from roanoke.com - October 20, 2004

Lots of new faces in the audience last week, including one from North Carolina!  Seems No Shame is on the "must see" list for out of town guests.  After the show, she asked how to start a No Shame in her neck of the woods!  Here's what she saw and you missed if you weren't there too:

Halloween was already in the air with the first piece, an eerie examination of recycling with dump denizens marching on the audience armed with weaponized junk.

No Shame Theatre: 11 p.m. Fridays on MMT's Waldron Stage, #20 Church Avenue. Admission: $5. Pieces are accepted at 10:00. Fair warning: Some adult themes and language. NO nudity. Web site.

Mike Allen offered up two spooky pieces.  First he portrayed Mrs. Rigsby-a fortune teller complete with skull paperweight and glowing crystal ball-hilariously sending out "fatecasts" in the style of your local weatherman.  The  second, a poem recently published in Dreams and Nightmares, swapped giggles for chills.

Recovering ably from his shaky stand-up routine of the previous week, Simon Adkins had a very funny scene dealing with genetics, shamanism, and a fictional psychoactive  medication called "Epiphanol." 

Another fixture of the Roanoke Slam Poetry scene a few years back, Robb Rouse, went berserk while filling out a job application and delivered one of the funniest rants I've seen at No Shame in a long time.

Connie Sellers also had two pieces.  First he charmed us with a comic song about a pumpkin seller preparing for Halloween, and then he moved us with a poem about the value of freedom seen from the perspective of an Iraqi child.

Other local musicians also took the stage.  John Bryant played guitar and sang about escaping the trials of domesticity.  Sam Fochtman sang soft, sweet, and slow.  Ben Baldwin closed the show with his own brand of instrumental magic on amplified guitar with effects.

Todd Ristau is an actor, director, West End playwright and inventor of No Shame.  He teaches theatre at Mary Baldwin College and organizes No Shame each week for Mill Mountain Theatre.