Israfel

Todd Ristau, on Israfel and the first Best of No Shame:

This is the one that he broke the piano on. The applause was fantastic, and in the black out he went to push his normal piano stool back to stand and take a bow, I think, but he'd forgotten he wasn't on a wheeled stool, he was in a folding chair and so the piano fell backwards from his push, since he couldn't move. There was this horrible crash and the audience went silent.

It was this event that sent Cheryl and I to Cosmo, afraid we'd lose No Shame forever. it was Cosmo who suggested the first ever best of No Shame, for which we'd charge to get in, in order to make back the money to pay for the piano. The first one was so successful we made $300 above the cost of repairing the and again we were afraid because we had this money and no idea what to do with it. It was Cosmo who suggested we establish a No Shame fund for student off campus productions, since there was interest in that, but no departmental money.

To open a bank account, we needed a corporate structure, and that's where that organizational work began, drawing up a constitution, getting a bank account, etc.

Cosmo was the best friend No Shame ever had, including pretending to be against no shame from time to time to keep its revolutionary spirit aflame. He knew it would suffer if in its early days it seemed to be sanctioned by the department.

This attitude, I must stress was in start contrast to the faculty members who really were against no shame, and were afraid that what they called substandard writing would be confused for the superior writing of the Workshop members....But a lot of good came from Cosmo's support, there were a lot of off campus productions of things that wouldn't have been done otherwise, and No Shame was even able to give grants and scholarships.

Thanks, Cos!

And just to set the record straight, I didn't do it on purpose. You remember the kinetic solo at the end of that song? Well, there were a lot of performers that evening and they were making a big deal about getting off stage as quickly as possible to make sure we didn't run until 2 am. So I was all wound up from the solo and felt I had to push the piano off quickly. Unfortunately, I pushed broad-ways instead of on-end, and the lights were completely off after the fade, so I couldn't see what I was doing. The lights came up just as the piano hit the floor, making that incredible noise. I was completely flabbergasted, and could only think to take a bow. Which turned out to be a mistake, since most people assumed I had planned to trash the piano. I remember Scott Smith storming into the green room yelling, "Who the fuck does he think he is? The WHO?!"

Jon Price's Israfel was performed sometime during the 1988-89 school year. Probably during the spring semester. Most likely during one of the February shows, since I myself was not in attendance the night the piano fell. (March 10th is also a slight possibility, but Carolyn remembers that as a particularly short night, and according to Jon the piano night was particularly long.) (Also Carolyn notes a question about whether the money has been raised for the piano on February 24th)

"Israfel" was performed sometime in 1988-1989, by Jon Price.

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