Around this time last year, a friend of mine told me his new years resolution was to do at least one project or activity out of left field every year as a way of challenging himself and stepping out of the proverbial comfort zone. I thought about adopting this strategy for myself, and a thought crossed my mind that had been floating around for years: I was going to do stand up comedy.
Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash
I honestly felt a tinge of regret. I was convinced that I could be the greatest comedian ever, if only I had the balls to get on stage. It turns out that I was only half right in my assessment: I have no balls.
The year before that I had turned 30. In an attempt to take control of my life, I kicked a 16-year smoking habit. I can honestly say that overcoming such a long standing addiction had given me some of the confidence I needed to finally pursue stand up.
Here is the clip of my first time performing:
A sympathetic audience was the best thing I could have asked for that night. I’ve done stand up a couple of times since. The times were you are met with blank stares from the audience are brutal, but I always refer to my memory of the first time I did it to lift my spirits.
For those interested, I'll summarise the events preceding this clip:
When I decided I wanted to do it, I ended up going to the local comedy nights around town as an audience member about twice a week. While I enjoyed watching other comics do their thing, I was mostly going to motivate myself to do it.
I signed up for an open mic about a month after I had been frequenting the scene. I signed up about two weeks before the event and as the day approached, had been given no indication that I was chosen for the open mic portion of the night. The line-up was posted the night before the event in question (which I later learned is a common practice), and my name was on it.
I had 24 hours to come up with some material.
The morning of the show, I wrote down two or three stories that I would often tell amongst a group friends, but I soon realised while rehearsing that those stories suck without context. I then begun adding lots of detail, setting up stories and characters, explaining their backgrounds, but it turned into a boring mess of endless talking with too much exposition and scene setting. With only 5 minutes, I couldn't afford to take 2 minutes to set up a single joke.
I tried my best to condense everything into a simple formula: a set up, and a punchline. At the end I had roughly 3.5 minutes of material. Even though my spot was meant to be 5 minutes long, with only hours left I knew I didn’t have much choice. Luckily the 3,5 minutes of material ended up being a solid 4 minutes when interspersed with the few moments of laughter I got between the jokes.
As I mentioned before, the audience was on my side. The host that night set the stage when he told them I was a first timer. Even though I was freaked out in the hours leading up to me getting on stage, the minute I got my first joke out and heard (from my perspective) roars of laughter, I immediately relaxed and was able to (halfway decently) get through the rest of the set.
Once I got off the stage I felt a rush of emotions to a degree I have not often felt. I may have even shed a tear or two, but that may be due to the onions that were being chopped in the vicinity (as I like to tell myself).
Since then I’ve stuck to many of the same jokes, and a story or two on top of this set for a (whopping) 6 minutes. The biggest challenge I’m facing is an unwillingness to stray from jokes that usually work (there have been times when the audience has reacted as they would when watching paint dry), and challenge myself to try new material. I almost feel the same fear of trying new material as I did on this night.
I remember reading an interview with Dave Chappelle and he mentioned he feels a sense of panic before going on stage: “will they like me?”, “what if they don’t laugh?!”. To think that someone who is at the pinnacle of the comedy industry has the same doubts that we all do is strangely motivating.
I hope you enjoyed this retelling of my first stand up gig. As for my big project for this year: to be determined :)
