Performers 'Mortified' By Sharing

To be a teenager is to be “out there” exploring, struggling and stumbling. To look back on being a teenager can be, well, mortifying.

A storytelling project called "Mortified" pulls up those ridiculous moments from our past and memories perhaps we might rather forget, by dusting off those diaries from our tortured teenage years.

WBUR’s On Point made its way to the Oberon Club in Cambridge on Friday to catch a local showing of "Mortified" and to meet some of the brave souls who shared their stories on stage.

In an interview with On Point's Tom Ashbrook, the project's founder said that audience members see themselves as the performers.

"They're laughing at the past, but they're also rooting for that kid who's being chronicled in the pages of those diaries," David Nadelberg said. "I think we like to have that distance as adults, from the awkward idiot that we once were, but we're also comforted by knowing that, you know, we're still that person."

The performers treated the audience to stories on topics as diverse as Renaissance fairs, prom letdowns, coming of age in the AOL-era and the worst 14-year-old poetry ever written. Some of them left us their stories.

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Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin and Pien Huang for WBUR