Mortification is a fact of life, especially when you’re a teenager. Adam Ruben is the co-producer of the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., chapters of “Mortified: Share the Shame,” a storytelling project that Newsweek calls “a cultural phenomenon.” When not producing “Mortified” or working at his day job helping to develop a vaccine for malaria (really), Ruben, who has a doctorate in biology from Johns Hopkins University, writes books and hosts the Science Channel show “Outrageous Acts of Science.” A Wilmington, Del., native who lives in D.C., Ruben, 38, will bring “Mortified” to Baltimore’s Creative Alliance on April 21.
1. Your favorite mortifying teenage memory?
One of them is building a Rube Goldberg machine for my final project in ninth-grade introductory physical science. My nerd friends and I worked on this massive machine for weeks, putting in far more time than was necessary, simply because it was fun. When we finally debuted the machine in our classroom, it caught fire!
2. What’s “Mortified” all about?
Adults share the embarrassing things they created as kids in front of an audience of strangers. People read from their diaries, re-enact plays they wrote as kids, show videos, perform poems and share drawings. There’s something cathartic about reading aloud what were originally intended to be private thoughts and there’s a shared sense of, “We’re all adults, and we’re all looking back at this awkward time together.” “Mortified” has chapters in about 20 different cities in the U.S. and Europe.
3. How did you get involved?
In 2009, I heard a “Mortified” performance on [the public radio program] “This American Life.” It inspired me to dig up some of my childhood writing and videos, and I submitted all of my material to the “Mortified” producers. Kudos to my parents for not throwing anything away! Since then, I’ve developed 12 pieces for “Mortified,” and I’m working on more. Sometime around 2012 or 2013, I became a producer and started helping other people trim and frame their diaries for performance.
4. What makes “Mortified” stand out from other storytelling programs?
“Mortified” is about 10 percent explanation and framing and 90 percent original source material. This means the audience experiences a story that’s been structured by an adult, but conveyed by a child. You can be the most talented storyteller in the world, but if you burned all of your childhood diaries, we can’t put you in our show.
5. What can people expect at the show?
We’re thrilled for our first show at Creative Alliance. There will be six readers, each presenting their own horrifying adolescent material. We can guarantee it’ll be a fun show filled with nostalgia, humor and catharsis.
Creative Alliance is located at 3134 Eastern Ave. For information, visit creativealliance.org.
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