Mortified

In 2006, when I was the Chicago arts and culture editor for a national newsletter called Flavorpill, a guy named Dave Nadelberg wrote to me. "I produce this live comedy show in LA called Mortified. Real people read their childhood diaries to a live audience. The experience is, well, mortifying — in a good way! I want to bring the show to Chicago. Do you know any local producers?"

"Yes," I replied, "I can do it!" (Side note: I had never produced a live show before.)

Fast forward 12 years, by which time co-producers and I were regularly selling out 500-seat theaters across Chicago. Over those dozen years, I had produced hundreds of cringe-worthy stories, turning average people into heroes of the stage for a night.

In addition to the live shows, stories I produced also appear on the Mortified Podcast, in two anthologies (Mortified: Real Words, Real People, Real Pathetic and Mortified: Love is a Battlefield), and in the Mortified Nation documentary (in which I also appear for a hot minute).

The experience taught me all the ins-and-outs of live comedy theatre production: negotiating with venues, coaching storytellers, A/V setup, marketing and ticketing — you name it! By the time I passed the mic to a new team of producers in December 2018, Dave Nadelberg's "grassroots comedy collective" had expanded from one show in LA to nine "chapters" in the US (including Chicago), and eight across the world, including London, Paris, Helsinki, and Amsterdam.

While the show might have been mortifying to watch, my experience producing it was an amazing privilege.