We’ve all been mortified at some point in our lives.

Especially early in our lives. It seems mortifying, embarrassing things happen in droves during our teen and young adult years.

This, then, is the basis of a growing series of live performances called Mortified. The idea is that in several cities around the country, people get up and “perform” something they’ve written about a real-life experience that left them mortified, involving a diary entry, or an unrequited crush, or an exhibition of unrestrained goofiness after drinking or smoking something.

In various cities there are chapters of Mortified organizers who put on regular events, and sometimes travel. The Boston chapter of Mortified is taking its act on the road this week, putting on a Mortified show at Space Gallery on Congress Street. The organizers are bringing a half-dozen or so folks from Boston who’ve talked about their embarrassing episodes before, but have also lined up a couple of locals to share their mortifying moments as well.

The Mortified events started about 10 years ago in Los Angeles, and now happen regularly in about eight cities across the country. The shows have gotten a wide range of media attention, from public radio’s “This American Life” and NBC’s “The Today Show” on TV.

Pilar Nadal, a printmaker from Portland, has agreed to be part of the show and read from her diary. After she agreed, she looked at her diary, and wondered what she had gotten herself into.

“It’s clear to me now that this is really going to be a mortifying experience,” said Nadal, 36. “I’m sure I’ll throw up before I get on stage.”

Despite her nerves, Nadal likes the idea of Mortified. She thinks it’s probably good for people to revisit their “former self” and see how far they’ve come since then.

Let us hope.

Nadal won’t say exactly what embarrassing experiences she’s going to cull from her diary, but her contribution has to do with a time when she was a housemate of Karen Corday, one of the show’s Boston organizers. Corday and Nadal went to high school together, and when the Portland version of Mortified was being organized, Corday asked Nadal to participate.

Corday said people who participate aren’t just thrown up on a stage, cold. The organizers of Mortified sit down with would-be participants to help them “curate” a performance based on some past experience.

“Basically, somebody gets in touch with us and says they have letters from camp, or a song they wrote, or a diary, and they bring them in and we help them write a little piece about it,” said Corday, who works as a data editor for a pharmaceutical company when she’s not organizing the Boston Mortified events. “It’s a look at what we created as kids.”

Part of the appeal is that the folks on stage are not performers. Some are writers or people who have been involved in the arts, but they are talking about real things that happened to them.

Corday, for example, will be part of the Portland show. She’ll be reading from her diary about her first experience with marijuana, written during her first experience with the drug.

“I wrote this rambling, embarrassing piece in my diary,” said Corday, 37.

Another local performer in Mortified will be Deirdre Fulton, a writer who was recently promoted to managing editor of the Portland Phoenix newspaper. Fulton will be reading from her diary, including an entry written when she was 13 about the “top 10” reasons she was in love with a boy who had dumped her.

“Some were very simple, like ‘He makes me happy,’ but some were outlandish like ‘He didn’t laugh when I tripped in the hall,’ ” said Fulton, 30.

Corday is hoping the show in Portland sparks interest here from people who might want to form a regular edition of Mortified. Nadal thinks Mortified could catch on in Portland, where there always seems to be plenty of people willing to put themselves out there for the sake of art.

And for a laugh.

“I think an event like this has a nice under layer of hilarious antics, and that would certainly help,” said Nadal.

Corday said the Mortified shows started when writer and Mortified founder Dave Nadelberg wrote a piece about a love letter he never sent. It made his friends laugh. And audiences have been laughing at Mortified ever since.

Because we’ve all been there.

And because it’s better to laugh than to remain mortified.

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

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