''Don't Tell My Mother!'' is a monthly live-storytelling event where writers and performers from film and television share true stories they'd never want their mothers to know. The show was co-created by the show's host, Nikki Levy, and
executive producer
Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...
Lizzie Czerner. The show is performed in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, but has also been staged in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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. The first show was in Los Angeles in October 2011. Past performers include
Traci Lords
Traci Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968) is an American actress and singer. She entered the adult film industry using a fake birth certificate to conceal that she was two years under the legal age of eighteen. Lords starred in adult fi ...
,
Laraine Newman
Laraine Newman (born March 2, 1952) is an American actress, writer and comedian. She was part of the original cast of NBC's ''Saturday Night Live''. She took an interest at improv in high school. After graduating, she studied mime with Marcel M ...
,
Justin Halpern
Justin Samuel Halpern (born September 3, 1980) is the American author of the Twitter feed "Shit My Dad Says" and the best-selling book ''Sh*t My Dad Says''. He was also the co-writer and co-executive producer of a CBS $♯*! My Dad Says, televis ...
, and
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Mary Lynn Rajskub (; born June 22, 1971) is an American actress and comedian who is best known for portraying Chloe O'Brian in the action thriller series '' 24'', and the character Gail the Snail in ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia''. Rajskub ...
.
About the show
''Don't Tell My Mother!'' was created in 2011 by
film producer
A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...
Nikki Levy and Lizzie Czerner, the
artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...
of the Bang Comedy Theatre. In October 2011, they launched the first show in the lobby of the Bang Comedy Theatre, with a cast of unknown performers. The show gained in popularity, and in 2012 it was covered by ''
The Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'' and the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''.
Levy works with comics, actors and award-winning screenwriters to share honest, funny, and poignant true stories that they wouldn't want their own mothers to know. This process allows each performer to craft their story into a 10-12 minute piece to be read on stage. Levy's mother, Judi Levy, makes frequent appearance in person or via Skype.
''Don't Tell My Mother!'' has a
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
featuring past performers; the podcast is produced by Joe Slepski.
References
External links
* {{Official website, http://www.donttellmymother.com/
Theatre in Los Angeles