55 MINUTES OF SEX, DRUGS AND AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: HOWARD LIEBERMAN
[email protected]
612-382-5200

Smoke ‘em! Drink ‘em! Shoot ‘em up! You choose one of the 20 “naughty bits” and nervous making topics and we tell fast, funny, emotionally honest stories of the pleasures of forbidden love, reckless living and making a good confession. We’ve got strippers, junkies, priests and politico’s — getting oral, getting physical, getting it over with! Oh, and for the brave and foolish, you will be part of the story

Thursday, June 17, 9:00 pm
Friday, June 18, 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 19, 11:00 pm
Thursday, June 24, 7:00 pm
Friday, June 25, 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 26, 11:00 pm

From Indy Fringe reviews:

“This is a jaw dropping, hilarious, open minded and darkly improvised show…” – Katelyn Coyne

“Loren Niemi and Howard Lieberman’s storytelling show for adults is completely different each time, although I imagine that it always has a certain literary feel to it as well as an element of creative daring and eroticism.

I heard it was pretty rowdy the first night. When I went to the Phoenix, on Saturday, this show was sold out, and people were ready to be rowdy but the stories, by the luck of the fishbowl draw, took us to intense places instead.” - Hope Baugh, Indy Theater Habit“

“I strongly recommend this to anyone not offended by graphic descriptions, profanity, or “verbal” full-frontal nudity.” – PK Koduri

HOWARD LIEBERMAN grew up on the North Side of Chicago with a professional tap dancer for a father and a math teacher for a mother, which may explain his wild mood swings. After leaving the wholesome Midwest to find fame and fortune as a corporate attorney in New York City, 20 years and one child later, Howard moved to Stillwater, MN with a New York accent and a jaded sense of humor.

Although he makes his living as a headhunter for attorneys, his unique blend of performance art and storytelling has made him a fixture in the Twin Cities performance world. His MN Fringe work includes Welcome to My Bomb Shelter, (2002) When Worlds Collide, (2004) Dancing Dirty with Lee and Mr Bo (2005) His frolic with a masturbatory rat in Tom Cassidy’s 2006 MN Fringe show, Shut Up Louder, was a comedic tour de force. He was at it again in 2007 co-starring with Loren Niemi and Felix Hampton Brown in the critically acclaimed 1967, one of the MUST SEE shows by the Pioneer Press.

In 2007, Howard and Loren teamed up to present Alone & Testifying at both the Minnesota and Indianapolis Fringe festivals. The experience was joyful enough to have them come back with “55 Minutes of Sex, Drugs and Audience Participation.”

His 2008 MN Fringe show, DEATH CAMP DIARIES, was one of the most talked about shows in the MN Fringe earning rave reviews from both on-line reviewers and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which said the show “…has an unprocessed rawness that makes a strong impact…The effect is chilling…”

LOREN NIEMI has spent thirty years as a professional storyteller, creating, collecting, performing and teaching stories to audiences of all ages. From performing on the Great Wall of China to collecting stories on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota to engaging artists and social workers in telling stories of “the Troubles” in Belfast, Northern Ireland Loren lives the storied life he tells.

His work has been called “postmodern,” “on the cutting edge of storytelling,” “with the dark beauty of language that is not ashamed of poetry.” It is, as storyteller, Kate Lutz said, “a sensibility that owes more to the New Yorker than to the Old
Farmer’s Almanac.”

He has preformed ten times in the Minnesota Fringe Festival with a range of solo, duo and ensemble work including:
- Moby Dick Tonight! (2009)
- Alone & Testifying (with Howard Lieberman) (2008)
- 1967 (with Felix Brown & Howard Lieberman) (2007)
- But Who Am I to Say? (with Diane Wyzga) (2005)
- Alone and Testifying (2004)
- Beauty/Beast (with Megan Wells) (2003)
- Aberrations of Coitus Exoticus, (with Elysabeth Ashe) (2002)
- Words Spoken (2001)
- The Sh**ty Things We’ve Done (with Colleen Kruse) (1997)
- Maiden Voyage (with the Cheap Theatre ensemble) (1996)

He is the author of The Book of Plots, published by Llumina Press, on the uses of narrative in shaping stories and the co-author, with Elizabeth Ellis, of Inviting the Wolf In: Thinking About Difficult Stories, from August House Publishers, the critically acclaimed text on the value and necessity of telling the stories that are hard to speak and uncomfortable to hear.

Loren is the producer of Two Chairs Telling, the 2010 City Pages “Best Storytelling Event” series that pairs storytellers/hip-hop/narrative and spoken word artists across age, sex, genre and style for 90 minutes of unpredictable performance. He was one of the founders of the Northlands Storytelling Network, a five-state (Midwestern) storytelling organization and also served six years on the National Storytelling Network’s Board of Directors, including four as the Chair of the 2000 plus member organization that is the advocate and promoter of America’s storytelling revival.