Time: 0:17 am Tuesday February 2, 1999 

Hellooooo, Charleston  web master  8:04 am Tuesday February 2, 1999 Hello, and welcome to
the internet "board room" for No Shame in Charleston.  Feel free to post your comments, discuss
No Shame, or make suggestions for this web page.

If you have any questions about No Shame or the no shame web site, you can email me at
NoShTh@aol.com

...Jeff
no shame webmaster

Time: Sat, 20-Feb-1999 00:08:08 GMT     IP: 129.255.24.221

Hi.  My name is Steve Rosse, and I'm writing an article on No 
Shame Theatre for Spectator, a publication of the University of 
Iowa Office of University Relations.
Would anybody care to be quoted on the subject?  I'm interested 
to know what the performer gets from such a venue, and what the 
audience gets, as opposed to a larger, more formal presentation.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Steve Rosse
steve-rosse@uiowa.edu

Time: Mon, 22-Feb-1999 19:11:08 GMT     IP: 153.9.23.69

:Hello Steve,
:Hello steve and Jeff
I apologize for that The message accidentally got sent before i 
wrote anything.  I just thought I would give you a little insight 
into what we do and why.  Here in Charleston we do it a little 
differently than is done in Iowa City.  We are still getting 
organized and finding the best way for us to do it.  We only get 2 
or 3 pieces every week.  The benefits of "making" theater happen 
on a whim, is that you get to see the plays and monologues that 
will likely not ever be seen if not for this forum.  The 
playwrights get to see what they have done and edit the piece or 
trash it.  It helps both the audience(they use this as an exercise 
for their cold reading technique) and it helps the playwrights(it 
gives them a chance to hear what they have written and know they 
won't be torn apart by harsh critics).  We meet outside because 
now it is the only place that will take us.  The school locks up 
all of the buildings early so we do it where and when we can.  
Since we started we have been using a little courtyard outside of 
the Arts building.  It is a great place for us to meet.  We aren't 
big enough to need that much space and it puts us in the publics 
eye.  People walking by will stop and see what we are about.  
Right now we have a faithful following that is there every week 
and brings new pieces.  We even have our first piece that comes in 
scenes.  Every week one of the professors here at College of 
Charleston will bring a new instalment of his play "Orgy of the 
Disco Dead", it is a spoof on bad "B" movies.  Outside has it's 
drawbacks, too.  We are dependent on dry weather, although we have 
never been rained out since we started last year.  We meet if it 
is 15 degrees or 75 degrees.  Well i have to be off but i hope 
this helps a little.

Time: Sat, 27-Mar-1999 13:46:36 GMT     IP: 153.9.71.54

I'd like to add a few thoughts to Matt's message of last month...
The environment where Charleston No Shame takes place is both 
formal and informal- it is semi-enclosed between wings of the Fine 
Arts building, so it is recognizably a place where artists of all 
disciplines congregate. It is also open to the street, which means 
that at 11pm on a Friday in the middle of a downtown campus there 
are passing "spectators", who will watch for a few seconds, stay 
for awhile, or simply offer inebriated editorial advice. Mobile 
groundlings. People attend because they've heard about it or seen 
it in passing. Attendance fluctuates wildly: I've been there on 
nights with as few as 6 or 7 persons or upwards of 50. That's a 
lot of people to be pulled away from their partying. 

In fact, No Shame here has a unique function for those of us who 
attend regularly: first, it is an important artistic outlet, 
allowing unheard playwrights (and actors) a voice- also 
playwrights who are working on stuff which is either very strange 
or in a very nascent stage of its development; second, it IS a 
social event of sorts- I have made it an integral part of my 
Friday evenings, and generally go out with some of the folks 
afterward. 

One other influence of the environment on the event- I think 
people can respond to the works they hear (or read) in a less 
formalized manner than in a more traditional theatre space. What 
this means is that although there is no cruel critical response, 
there is a great deal of pretty good-natured trash talking and on-
the-spot response when works are read, especially my own "Orgy of 
the Disco Dead", a play inspired by Rudy Ray Moore, Tennessee 
Williams, Inoshiro Honda, William Shakespeare, John Agar, Elia 
Kazan, Steve Reeves, Bert I. Gordon and half a million others. 
Where else could I have a B-movie play see the light of day? Um, 
that is...night.