And The Day After

My first thought about last night's maiden voyage on the U.S.S. Comedy - it went about as well as I could have hoped.

I definitely didn't kill - let's not get ahead of ourselves - but at the same time, I didn't bomb either, which, if I'm honest with myself, is really the main thing I wanted to accomplish*. Overall I got enough laughs to make me feel like with a little effort and repetition I might not embarrass myself, totally.

*What does it say about my expectations of myself that I wanted to run outside after my set was over and shout to the world, "I didn't totally suck!"

There were about 14 performers on hand for the open mic, and in a random order I ended up going 2nd. I didn't know this beforehand. The emcee chose a random person to start, then asked each comic after their turn to pick a number, and whichever number that corresponded to would be the next comic.

Batting 2nd was about as perfect a scenario as I could have imagined going in - I wasn't first, which would have sucked, and I wasn't near the end either, which would have made my anxiety build exponentially over the course of the night.

The guy who went first tanked, and while I felt bad for him, selfishly it was comforting. "I may not do well," I thought to myself, "but I can definitely follow that."

And so I approached the mic for my first time on stage. It was weird. I was less nervous than I thought I'd be, and yet the second I got to the microphone it was like my throat went dry. I stammered a little bit out of the gate, but I hit my first joke, people laughed...and in that moment I felt a huge wave of relief splash over me. It's not like that was the end of it, but that first reaction somehow made it all seem ok.

After that it was kind of a blur. I felt like I concentrated so hard on delivering my material the way I'd practiced it, it was hard to really take in what was happening.

Going into the evening, I would say I was most concerned about two things: getting laughs (duh), and not going over the prescribed time limit. Everything I read about performing at open mic nights said the same thing - don't screw over your fellow comedians by going over your time limit, it's an easy way to make enemies and piss off the house.

I was told by the woman booking the show to be ready for 5-7 minutes, and to definitely have a solid 7 if it were necessary. After writing out my first draft of my set, I timed it out at around 8:35. I dropped one bit, edited a few jokes out of the others, and by the day of the show was hitting at right around 7:00 even. But what if I didn't get the full 7? I had only practiced my routine in full, I didn't really have any outs for if I needed to finish early.

As it happened, I had just started on the third part of my act when I saw the "wrap-it-up" signal. Shit! I got a couple jokes out, then cut straight to my close and prayed I'd done it in a sufficient amount of time.

After the show, I asked the emcee about it, and he said that the signal usually meant finish up in the next minute or so, which means I suppose I could have finished all my material, but in this case better safe than sorry.

Looking back over the tape of it all today, the thing that surprised me the most was my posture - I may not have sounded nervous, per se, but I definitely looked it. Yeah there were some jokes that need tweaking, some punchlines that need to breathe a little more, but in my mind the biggest thing I need to work on going forward is my stage presence.

And then there is that - a next time. I felt good enough about how it went that I went ahead and signed up for another crack at it in 2 weeks. I may even let Hilary or my sister come this time, we'll see. In some ways I feel more relaxed about the whole thing now that at least 25 people or so don't think I'm a complete buffoon, but at the same time if I try out all new material (I'm leaning in that direction), I'll basically be facing the same proposition as I did last night.

All in all, I can't ask for much more than I got out of breaking my stand-up comedy cherry. As I expected, it was never as bad as I'd built it up to be in my mind, and yeah, I do feel kinda stupid for taking this long to finally do it. But better late than never I suppose, and hopefully the confidence I gained from last night will convince me to put some effort into this going forward.