Want to See Your Facebook Updates Performed Live? Tell These People!

Blogologues production teamCourtesy of “Blogologues” The “Blogologues” production team from left to right: Assistant director Meredith Hackman, director Megan Loughran, co-producers Allison Goldberg and Jen Jamula, and stage manager Jim Armstrong

When an online phenomenon escapes the bounds of the digital world and emerges IRL (in real life), bloggers are fond of proclaiming “the intertubes are leaking.” “Blogologues,” an upcoming show at Under St. Marks, will turn the spigot and let Internet culture gush out at full flow.

Each month, “Blogologues” will take real Internet postings on a theme and turn them into a stage show. And get this: The producers are taking suggestions from readers of The Local. Have any recommendable tweets, blog posts, even Craigslist ads? Don’t be shy. Leave them in the comments and they may end up being enacted on stage.

Producers Jen Jamula and Allison Goldberg, founders of Lively Productions, say they had an “a-ha moment” when they realized that blog posts would work in the theater. The pair run their own video blog featuring everyday subway riders. The breakthrough came reading a post somewhere on a small corner of the Web. “I said Jen, wait, this is a monologue,” Ms. Goldberg explains, “and she’s like ‘blogologue!’”

Last night, Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Jamula held auditions for the show with director Megan Loughran and stage manager Jim Armstrong. Even in the bare rehearsal room at Shetler Studios with its harsh lighting and rattling air conditioner, the comic potential of online postings from sites like Damn You Autocorrect was clear. Could bloggers put professional monologue writers out of a job?

A troop of young actors performed blog posts of their own or the producers’ choosing. One post charted the resolve of an unemployed man to stick to a rigorous job-hunting schedule dissolving into late mornings and lethargy-induced panic. A two-sentence Craigslist ad (“I want you to come to my place and clean me up. Details will be provided”) was instantly hilarious.

“Blog posts are so interesting because they’re so immediate,” Ms. Jamula said after the auditions. Book chapters, with their more deliberate writing style, can be harder to work with on stage, she said.

Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Jamula seek permission from all the bloggers whose work they use. They hope to find the genuine emotion in the pieces, rather than poking fun at hyperbolic writing and bad grammar. During a test run in May, all but one of the featured bloggers came to see the show.

While a show about the Internet might have niche appeal, Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Jamula have worked to keep the themes as broad as possible. Upcoming topics are employment (or unemployment), religion, “Go USA,” and self-improvement. (If any of those spark suggestions, do leave them in the comments.)

“Fetishes,” Ms. Goldberg suggested, “might be too specific.”