Hello, guys and gals. Whoa, is that right?! My last post was in October? Jeez, I've been slackin'. Hopefully this will make up for it, but I doubt it will.
So, I did it. I hit a milestone. I have been doing stand up for a year. Wow. Has it been a year already? My first stab at stand up was February 2011, which I believe I blogged about, and my latest show was last Tuesday at The House of Comedy. During that year, I have performed a total of 11 or 12 times. 3 shows at Acme, 6 or 7 at HoC, 1 at Comedy Corner Underground, and 1 at Duhb Linn's in Duluth. Since that first performance, I've learned some things.
1. Getting Stage Time is Hard.
After my first killer set at Acme, I posted on Facebook and Twitter "Tonight was amazing! Give me 6 months and I'll be a local celebrity." Boy, was I wrong! Professional comics have gone on record saying the hardest thing about starting out is just getting stage time. Part of this is due to the fact that clubs tend to fill their set lists with people who have NEVER performed before and with the local big dogs who consistently kill it every week. This leaves little room for comics like myself. Another reason why getting stage time is so hard is #2.
2. There Are More Funny People Out There Than You Realize.
In a small town, there are probably a handful of truly funny people. This is NOT true in a bigger city. It seems like everyone and their brothers want to be comedians. Especially during contests. They come out of the freakin' woodwork during contest season. And a thing to remember, everyone wants to make it as a comic just as much as you do, maybe even more. The ages of comedians vary as well. There are those as young as 18 and some as old as 50 or 60. Seriously. I've seen them. And I'm not just talking about comedians who do this professionally. I mean Open Mic-ers. 50 year olds trying it for the first time. It's crazy.
3. Everybody Bombs at Some Point. EVERYBODY.
If you can get over this fact, then you'll be fine. Bombing (telling jokes that get little or no laughs) is a comic's worst nightmare. Actually, mine is bombing and then getting stabbed as I walk off stage. It's a horrible feeling. Bombing, not the stabbing, although I'm sure that's pretty bad too. You just want to curl up in a ball and die in a dark corner afterwards. But even the best comics bomb. It makes you want to do better for next time.
4. Comedians Often Retell Jokes.
This is something I didn't understand at first. I had gone to a show one week, just as an audience member, then went back the following week and heard most of the same material from the previous week. I thought "They're telling the same jokes! Don't they write new stuff?" Coming up with new material is hard. Coming up with new material that is funny is even harder. Key elements for a comedian: start the show strong and end the show strong. You can only really do this with material that you know will work. And a joke is never really finished anyway. Each time you tell it, you polish it up a bit. Making it better.
5. Every Audience is Different.
A joke that works with one audience may fall flat with another. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen. It has happened to the best of them as well as myself. And also, if you lose an audience, it's really hard to get them back, especially in the 3 to 7 minute window Open Mic comics get. For the most part, audiences react pretty strongly to dick jokes, sex jokes, and gay jokes. But try to avoid sizing the audience up. There is no telling what an audience will like. It's mainly about how you feel that night and which jokes YOU want to tell.
So, there you have it. 5 things I've learned. Now, there are more things that I've learned, but these are the 5 I wanted to commit to blog. I may share the rest of my findings at a later date. Maybe. I think I'll leave you with something a fellow comic told me at one of my first shows. "Welcome to the world of stand up. It's a wonderful string of disappointments."
Sunday, May 6, 2012
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