No Shame Theater, at least the Iowa City version, will leave you feeling like you either got a great
deal of entertainment for $2 or it will leave you feeling like you wasted $2 and two hours of your life that you will never get
back. On any give
Friday there is no way to know how things are going to
shape up until it’s too
late.
Shows start at
11 p.m., usually in
Theater B in the
Theater Building on the University of Iowa campus.
At the end of each semester, there is a “Best of No Shame” . Instead of new skits, the
board members select the best skits from that semester’s shows to
showcase. This is almost guaranteed to be a
great show.
Although
NatchLucid points out that they limit the number of acts, a straight 14 or 15 each show is
rarely the case. Instead, they will start throwing in
half numbers, which makes the show run
ridiculously long. If it’s a bad night, this can be
torture.
Most of the people who perform at No Shame perform
every week and often in several different skits. It tends to be a
male dominated show, with most
women acting only as
stage dressing. Of course there are a few regular female contributors who attempt to
bunk the trend.
Over the course of my four years at the
UI, I saw some
interesting things take place in Theater B. On the same night I got to hear a friend’s monologue on how he loved
Pokemon in ways Pokemon shouldn’t be
loved,
AND I got to see an old acquaintance from high school
strip down to nothing to perform his piece. Unfortunately, I missed the night he stuck a
feather duster up his bum.