Opening Night Pornstravaganza

It all started with his first visit to a prostitute. It was 2009 and writer-comedian Kevin Allison was looking for a new artistic avenue. At the urging of his friend, actor Michael Ian Black, Allison begrudgingly took to a New York City stage and related a deeply personal experience about paying for sex to a crowd of strangers. There he found a platform for the humor and naked catharsis that transformed into RISK!, a traveling live event-cum-podcast that began in 2014 as one of the country’s top-10 most downloaded audio series. “Unlike those shows that have to be palatable for NPR—those shows have to be OK for a mother driving her kids to soccer practice ... I wanted to create a safe space where you could say anything, almost like you were talking to your closest friend or a therapist,” Allison says. RISK! comes to Albuquerque as part of this year’s Pornotopia festivities, with a 7pm Thursday, Nov. 13, performance at the Guild Cinema ($15, 3405 Central NE). Through his podcast, Allison has tapped four Burque-area storytellers to riff on the night’s theme: “When life was like porn.” He’ll also tell a sultry tale of his own, and reign as emcee over the 80-minute show. (Sam Adams)