Kevin Thornton walked into the dark theater studio, grabbed a guitar and sang in front of his audience before starting a monologue of his life.
Friday and Saturday nights Thornton performed "Sex, Dreams and Self Control!" a show written and acted entirely by him, at the Muncie Civic Theatre.
Thornton said in a way, he wrote the show by accident.
"I was in the mood of writing something that was outside of my realm," he said. "So the very first thing that I wrote, a funny story, I memorized it and went to a stand-up comedy open mic and tried it out. It wasn't so long; it was like three minutes long. But the audience just blew out, they just loved it, and there was such a positive reinforcement that I thought I needed to do this some more. So I got back the next week with a another three minute section and had the same result, and I kept doing that over and over again, and over the course of three months I had like an hour of material."
Barry McMullen, who was part of the audience Friday night, said he was glad to have attended the show because it made him feel better.
"When you're feeling crappy about life," he said, "it's always good to have someone talk in a positive way."
Thornton's show, a combination between a comedy stand-up act, music and acting was inspired by part of his life. Thornton said the show deals with a controversial subject matter: associating sex and religion.
Sophomore social work major Reve Brown said she believed Thornton was bold to have written a show that resembled parts of his personal history.
"I think it was really brave that he talked about things people usually don't talk about," she said.
Thornton said he began running his show in Nashville, Tenn., for two months. Muncie is only the second out-of-town stop, he said.
"We wanted to do a couple of smaller cities," he said. "Because next week I'll be in Milwaukee and then I'll be in Los Angeles for a solid month and in Chicago for [another] month."
Thornton said his goal once he reaches the bigger cities is to advertise himself more.
"I hope lots of people come," he said. "The happiest thing for me would be if I ran into some big city press quotes, because that would give a lot of clout to the show."
Although Thornton graduated with a degree in theater performance, he did not start acting right away. Instead, he moved to Nashville, formed the band Waves on Waves and recorded the album "Had a Sword."
After the album won the best experimental music category in the Nashville Scene awards, Thornton worked for six months on a luxury cruise in South America, acting with a comedy sketch group.
Thornton said his experiences have helped him practice several skills that led to the production of his show.
"Over the years everything I did and this show has come together," he said. "Acting, singing and songwriting - and so, as I'm 'growing into a man' everything that I've worked on, my life is coming out on thisshow."
Thornton said his plans for now are to continue with his tour and see what results from his shows.
"I want this show to be bigger," he said. "I would love to run this show on Broadway for a long time and eventually do my Ph.D."
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