This weekend, monologues that present a wide range of lived experiences, issues and raw emotions will be brought to stage with one promise to their authors: anonymity.
These monologues, written by members of the Notre Dame community, will be performed onstage at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center as part of the student production “Show Some Skin.” According to its website, the show “strives to be a catalyst for the campus community’s discovery and appreciation of Notre Dame’s true diversity.”
“It could be your roommate’s story. It could be the person you sit next to in class,” Natasha Reifenberg, senior and executive producer, said. “The anonymity aspect is what allows for empathy in ways that other avenues don’t because it could be anyone. It could be someone extremely close to you that has never shared this with you.”
This year’s “Show Some Skin” production is called “Try Us,” titled so as to invite writers to “share the parts of themselves that they feared nobody would understand,” according to the event’s Facebook page. Reifenberg said demand has grown exponentially since her freshman year, when there were between 30 and 40 writing submissions. This year, she said, there were 100 submissions and a record number of 75 students who auditioned to perform the monologues on stage. Tickets sold out within hours, and Friday’s performance sold out in 30 minutes.
Originally published by The Observer at ndsmcobserver.com on February 22, 2018.