Film Noir is a cinematic style that was popular in the 1940s and 50s. Inspired by German Expressionism, the genre generally featured crime dramas presented in a melodramatic style with a heavy use of shadow and silhouettes to create provoking and suspenseful images. In developing a short one-man show for my acting capstone, I used Film Noir as a starting point to comment on the culture of my hometown: Portland, Oregon. I sought to create a parody that commented on the ridiculousness of both the noir genre and Portland culture while performing the piece myself, using all the theatrical skills and techniques I had developed over my four years of training.