Getting Mortified with David Nadelberg
By Marissa Kristal
New York Editor

New York -- Let's face it, the teenage years are tough. And as David Nadelberg illustrates through Mortified, his increasingly successful spoken-word show starring everyday-adults reading their most embarrassing teenage poems, letters, diary entries, locker notes and lyrics in front of a room full of strangers, no matter how cool we claim to have been in high school, we've undoubtedly all suffered from the pangs of adolescent humiliation.

Nadelberg's sympathy and understanding of this comes from his own experience. "The idea for the show came to me when I found an unsent letter I wrote to a girl I was stalking in 10th grade," he explains.

"I figured I couldn't be the only one still holding onto incriminating documents from younger years, and thought, ‘What better way to confront our mortifying moments than read them aloud to a room full of strangers?'"

"It began as a one-night experiment four years ago and people loved it! They kept asking when the next show was going to be. That first show actually took me 9 months to put together because it was a totally different beast than anything I'd ever done," says the L.A.-based writer. "I wanted Mortified to succeed beyond just being ‘cute'. I wanted it to make an impression…to mean something."

As stated on the Mortified website, the idea is personal redemption through public humiliation. "It's a show for the people in the visitor's section of the homecoming game," says Nadelberg, "and in a way, that's all of us. Mortified appeals to a diverse audience because a very universal voice is strung throughout the pieces – really, we were all that dorky kid in high school."

But beyond just the entertaining nature of listening to real people relay tales from their tortuous teenage years, Nadelberg says many of his readers find sharing their crushing moments with a live audience cathartic.

"Recently this girl came in to read for us and brought with her a bunch of old letters she'd written to her high school crushes. As she started reading, we noticed they were all addressed to older men. It hit us that maybe this girl had some father-issues, so we asked her about it and little by little it came out that she did."

It's not out of the ordinary for Nadelberg to want to discuss the background behind the writing. "When it comes to themes within people's pieces – whether they're letters, lyrics, diary entries, schoolwork, etc. -- we're pretty blunt about asking our readers about them because it helps them learn something about themselves in the process. We call it the ‘Epiphany Moment' – when readers begin to understand themselves in ways they never did before," Nadelberg explains. "Even if someone's not interested in participating in Mortified, I suggest they find something they wrote in their past and share it with someone. As I've witnessed with the show, there's really a psychological benefit involved in that."

As Nadelberg attests, the great thing about Mortified is that there is no standard participant; submissions come from a wide range of people. In fact, his favorite performers are those he considers "off the norm." One such reader is an architect from Puerto Rico, who, before getting involved in Mortified, had absolutely no connection to the world of performing arts. "As soon as he hits the stage he becomes a total rockstar," says Nadelberg.

And like the Puerto Rican architect, even though many of his performers aren't entertainers by trade, they don't seem to get all that nervous before taking the stage. "Actually it's the audience who seems the most nervous," Nadelberg says. "They always have that ‘oh you poor thing' look going on."

Nadelberg's main concern is helping his subjects find truthful stories, and he does so by unearthing the most poignant components of their pieces and bringing them to the forefront. "Sometimes we'll use just one sentence or a paragraph, and other times we'll use the whole piece," he says, "But we only ever do things the author is comfortable with."

The audition process for Mortified begins with people electronically sending their pieces to Nadelberg and his staff. "Our version of the headshot and audition-- since we don't care at all what you look like. Send us a summary of what you have, and if we like it, we'll bring you in and see if it fits our purpose," says Nadelberg. "But we never completely reject anyone unless they're total jerks. If you don't have something that matches what the show does, we'll say no and explain why what you have doesn't currently work for us. But we have an open-door policy, meaning, just because the piece itself doesn't work, maybe we'll like the theme and ask you to go home and find more stuff based on that particular topic. It's not appropriate to dismiss people's pieces because they're so personal. It's really great they share this stuff with us in the first place – and the open-door policy works just as well for us as it does for them in that we're always looking for new material."

Nadelberg wants people to understand that Mortified is not an open-mic show; performers can't just take the stage and read from their diaries or sing the lyrics to a song they wrote when they were a kid. "We work a lot in terms of crafting and molding words and presentation – we don't want any of the pieces to seem like actor's work," Nadelberg explains. "My one editing rule is that we cannot add any words or reinvent the writer's language, but we can edit for clarity and help bring out themes."

Likewise, Nadelberg does not accept memoir pieces or anything recent. "We're not interested in your diary entry from last year or the poem you wrote yesterday," he explains. And the pieces don't have to be funny. In fact, Nadelberg says some are actually quite emotional. His only stipulation is that they must be vintage.

And now, the grassroots stage show that began as a one-night experiment has blossomed beyond Nadelberg's wildest dreams. For starters, since its inception four years ago, the L.A.-born Mortified has expanded into New York City, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. And come November 2006, readers all over can share in the anguish and agony through Nadelberg's book, aptly named, Mortified (Simon Spotlight Entertainment).

"The book is an anthology of people's retched stories," explains Nadelberg. "My hope is that people don't latch on for purely the comedic reasons, but for the emotional reasons as well."

Despite the rave success, it is only recently that everything's started happening for him. "It's taken over my life, but I love it," Nadelberg says. "I've worked so hard and really want to make Mortified land. So many people have devoted time, energy and spirit to this show and my goal is to make Mortified a legitimate business – I want it to be a brand that embodies all things angst."

Interested in showcasing your repressed teen memories? Dig through old piles of school work, notes to friends, lyrics, poems, diary entries and all of your other too-embarrassing-to-show-anyone-else stuff, and when you find something Mortified-worthy, fill out the online audition form at: www.getmortified.com.

And if publicly shaming yourself isn't really your thing, why not join the masses and see for yourself what the Mortified phenomenon is all about? The next New York show is at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, July 26 at The Tank (279 Church Street between Franklin and White).

For further information, visit them online at: www.getmortified.com.