Michael Todd
Assistant Spectrum Editor
This past Friday night marked the return of the student variety show where performance and audience members alike can “let their freak flags fly” with no limitations on self-expression: Friday Night Live.
Established in 2007 by VCU Theatre graduate alum Dan Dennis, Friday Night Live was originally called the No Shame Variety Show, and was inspired by the national organization sharing the same name.
True No Shame variety shows feature exclusively original acts of no more than five minutes. VCU’s version allows students, in sets of ten minutes or less, the opportunity to perform original content or an already-written song, monologue or poem.
At the end of last semester, due to the legality surrounding these alterations, the variety show had to be renamed. Students submitted their suggestions, voted together as audience and the event was renamed Friday Night Live.
At the end of each year, the current host, typically a senior theatre performance major, selects an underclassman to take his or her place. Already wellestablished in the FNL community for their performances in Foreign Exchange, an improv comedy group, and the musical duet “Manly Man,” this year’s hosts Erin Adelman and Caitlin Carbone are breaking that mold as the first co-hosts in FNL history.
The pair had never considered that they might even be candidates for the position. Despite their excitement, the pair admitted earlier Friday that they were both nervous for their first night.
“We’ve been scared out of our butts for weeks now,” Carbone said. “Usually when we perform, we have kind of a script or a character. Now, we’re not even “Manly Man,” we’re Erin and Caitlin, and that was scary to us. It’s just us up there, just our personalities.”
The pair plan on boosting and maintaining the spirit of the event by decorating for holidays with themed acts and costumes as well as by holding a variety of fundraisers and contests to keep audiences entertained throughout the duration of the night, including between acts. Some proceeds from such fundraisers will go towards paying back Shafer Street Playhouse for use of the venue, with others going towards the senior trip performance majors take each spring semester.
While the pair will continue performing with Foreign Exchange, they do not intend to bring “Manly Man” back to the FNL stage during their hosting careers.
The pair declared their personal slogan for the event to be, “Let your freak flags fly.” “We want it to be like Lady Gaga with her monsters,” Adelman said, in reference to audience members. “(They’re) our freaks!”
“That’s kind of what we think about FNL,” Carbone said. “It’s just a place to be freaky and goofy. It’s such a community of open-minded people. You could do anything on that stage and people will cheer.”
Performance and audience members unanimously agreed that the sense of community and acceptance is a corner stone of FNL’s success. Though the name has changed, the idea behind the original “No Shame” remains, inviting students to bring anything from traditional to outrageous and experimental material to the stage with the assurance of total support.
It was that sense of community and energy Friday night that literally shook the stage as audience members filed into the theater clapping, stomping, danc ing and chanting, “Shots, shots, shots!”with the music broadcast overhead. Due to the popularity of the event, students were lined up nearly an hour before doors opened at 11 p.m., a half hour earlier than normal, with a line that stretched across Shafer Street.
Adelman and Carbone opened the night by introducing the new official FNL song, with musical accompaniment from various audience members as Carbone displayed large sheets of paper with lyrics alluding to everything from poetry to cross-dressing.
The show, true to the spirit of “variety,” saw the entire spectrum of performances: a poem saturated with mythological references adapted into pick-up lines, by Kimberly Sheridan, “The Song That Goes Like This,” a never-ending love song parody from “Spamalot,” by The Lady of the Lake, alter ego of Maggie Horan, and Sir Gallahan, by Brent Gallahan, and a magic act by the infamous Zachary Gartrell, just to name a few.
Along with these various performances, regulars revisited the FNL stage.
“Armada Chef,” a seemingly interminable epic saga, was narrated by sophomore performance major Dixon Cashwell in the guise of an agitated old man. The first of two installments of the night found the protagonists in an impossible battle with a group of hipsters Cashwell referred to as “gentle things” due to his inability to qualify them as regular humans. Ending with the heroes blinded by thrift store chic scarves, Cashwell instructed the audience to “tune in, in twenty to thirty minutes, depending on how drunk everyone is,” for the second installment.
Additional familiar features included The Roast, in which performance majors do parodies of shows as they conclude.
This past Friday’s roast centered on an exaggerated version of Student Voices, the skit shown during freshman orientation meant to prepare students for submersion into university life, and included everything from eating disorders to the infamous flaming bowel movements of Shafer Dining Hall. The Roasters made several borderline distasteful jokes that left the audience in fits of laughter.
Friday also saw the introduction of the first ever FNL cabana boy Shane Moran, who, in a uniform of cut off booty shorts and tied Hawaiian print t-shirt, will hopefully be a regular addition to the stage.
Freshman performance major Tricia Wiles, one of five freshmen participating in The Commonwealth Times’ series “Yearlong Audition,” was one of only two freshmen to perform at the first FNL of the year. After hearing about it during orientation, Wiles decided that the variety show was something she couldn’t pass up.
Wiles and her friend Riley Maclsaac, who she met in 2011 at the Governor’s School for Visual and Performing Arts and Humanities summer session, sang “River Deep Mountain High” as a duet.
“I was shaking like crazy,” Wiles said. “I came on stage and my hands were like, vibrating.”
At first wary of their performance choice, Wiles grew more confident as the night progressed and was able to see the diversity of the acts being performed.
Wiles intends on performing with other fellow freshmen during the next upcoming FNL.
Originally intended for theater majors, FNL has become increasingly popular with non-performance based majors as a creative outlet. Theater majors, true to the no shame spirit, completely welcome them.
“When a non-major gets up there, we know how difficult that is,” Carbone said. “And we just think that’s the bravest thing, so we’re totally supportive.”
Others, while still welcoming of outside majors, would still like to see FNL remain true to its roots.
“I… love that (non-majors) have… found a place to perform. This is a great place for them to be able to go do it,” said Jess Rawls, sophomore performance major. “But I do think it would be cool for us to go up and do a monologue that our teachers wouldn’t let us do.”
Friday Night Live takes place every other Friday, unless otherwise disclosed, at Shafter Street Playhouse. The event is free to all students with VCU ID. Doors open at 11 p.m. To perform in FNL, students must fill out and submit a form found on the upper level of the Performance Arts Center.