No Shame Theatre March

To put an end to my week of Spring Break, I went to No Shame Theatre. The most interesting pat of last night's No Shame was that there was no one there. I mean, there where some people, enough to have a really good time, but there were definitely less people there than usual.

I had a piece about a local news show reviewing the movie "Watchmen." I won't spoil the joke, I plan to post the link once the show is on Google Video. It was called, "Asheville at the Movies," and my actors did a great job.

This month, I also acted in Casey Morris' piece "Burning Brothers." It was a serious piece, which was an interesting change of pace. It was fun to do, it was nice working with the other actor, Todd. Because it was a serious piece, and because we had to do some cutting to it to make it fit in five minutes, it felt more collaborative then usual, more of a creative effort, which was very nice.

There were some very unconventional pieces last night. One was done by a woman named Claire. She took a few minutes to set the stage, and then proceeded to break all the rules of No Shame Theatre. recited unoriginal work (Little Miss Muffet), broke things (boxes), and refused to leave the stage (Darren eventually carried her off).

Another piece could possibly be best described as "Non-Fiction Theatre." It was called, "Steve Shell's Response to 'Twilight,' the pop culture phenomenon." And Steve basically ranted about "Twilight" for five minutes, and it was very entertaining. I think it was something that Steve signed up to do because they didn't have enough pieces. It was then followed by "Jamie Shell's Response to 'Steve Shell's Response to "Twilight," the pop culture phenominon.'" While brief, it also had bite.

Another unexpected piece was Greg R-Gassler's "Misplaced Vagina Monologue." He was not planning to do it, but was coerced into doing it when he was told there were not enough pieces. It basically functions as a regular Vagina Monologue, except that it is about transsexual in Iran. In Iran, there are no homosexuals, because they are all forced to undergo sex changes. It was a brilliant piece, and it I have never seen the audience at No Shame so entranced by a serious piece.

It was a wonderful No Shame Theatre, despite, perhaps because of, the small crowd. I look forward to next month.

Yours without guilt or shame,
Nathan H. A.