Quote of the Day: Inside the Head of a Performer

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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 4

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 4
The FINAL Preparations

Anyway, the entire week leading up to the show, I spent every moment in my car working on my routine. This is the only benefit in not having a functional car stereo that I've found. At least an hour and a half a day can be dedicated to practicing routines, writing new material or figuring out how many bottles of beer need to be taken down and passed around to get home.

I finally looked at video of the last real feature spot I had, which was at Taglines in Eldersburg. There was some good stuff, but no surprises. I looked at the notes I made for Vijai's birthday show last year, because that was 10 minutes of funny dick jokes. Again, no real surprises. So I asked around, specifically to my fiancée (at the time), Jenn. I was a little surprised at her answer. I basically asked her to rank 3 of my 2-minute bits in order of how she liked them. 1) Volleyball, 2) Day Camp and 3) Cornhole.

I had also added an introduction which had a joke about the Orioles and the Wire, because local jokes endear the performer to the crowd and current jokes give the illusion that you're just funny and not doing memorized shtick on stage (note the word "illusion"). I also wanted to squeeze in a 3-minute bit about homophobia for MY fans. Some people would be there to see me and I wanted to make sure to include some intellectual social commentary to stay true to my mission statement as an artist. Believe it or not, I'm not just up there trying to make people laugh for 15 minutes. At least not anymore. That's become too boring.

I timed all my bits to make the decision more mathematically sound. And I made my final set list. It read:

1. Intro

2. Dating

3. Douchebag

4. Volleyball

5. Day Camp

6. Homophobia

Altogether, this would last 20 minutes. Truth be told, I figured on taking a little more than my 15 minutes, but I had planned on cutting the 2:30 day camp bit. I just left it on my post-it note as a precaution, in case Aries pulled a mini-Dave Chappelle on me. A very mini one.

And so, still mentally unable to really dedicate any concentrated time on preparing, I started practicing in my car bit by bit. Literally. I would take one entire 45-minute drive and make sure I had my 4-minute dating bit ready. It wasn't hard to get it all memorized since I had already done it all before, but there were a few subtle changes I needed to make. For example, everywhere I used to say "girlfriend," I needed to say fiancée. Also, I wanted to make the order flow and make sense. A lot of comics will just jump from bit to bit. Some even acknowledge that they are up there telling jokes "Man, that shit is funny. You guys suck" or "Whoops, messed up that line" or planned stuff like "I wrote that joke in a Jeepers Creepers bathroom." You wanna do that, it's cool with me. I have made a conscious decision not to. It creates a different mood and in my experience, it's usually one of unprofessionalism. If a joke doesn't hit the way you wanted to, get over it. Make the next one funnier. Again, I want to maintain that illusion of just being funny, not a guy doing shtick.

By week's end, I was sick of my material, but comfortable with it. I even took a few car rides off thinking about it because it was burning a hole in my brain. I put more effort into the new section on homophobia and the opening with the Orioles and Wire jokes to make me feel more comfortable, but it was pretty well memorized. The trick is to have it so well memorized that I wouldn't need to think about it and instead I could think about the crowd or the next joke. For my head to be in front of my mouth so I could be in the moment. Not sure if I knew it all that well.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 3

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 3
The Preparations

I had added the Douchebag Dance to the set list and really only had about 8 more minutes to fill. But I went to see Dave Chappelle at UMBC about 10 years ago and he was over an hour late. He said he went to the University of Maryland by mistake but we all knew he was high. Both could be true. For an entire hour, the poor Student Events Board president tried to convince the crowd that he was coming, but the crowd was getting unsettled and angry and were likely already drunk or high themselves. Eventually, when the SEB guy walked onto the stage, the crowd would boo him and yell obscenities. Most of the crowd left before Dave got there, including me. I was determined to be prepared with enough material to make sure that wouldn’t happen to me this time. Only I didn’t want to rehearse. Or write stuff. Or think.

I realized weeks before the show how largely unmotivated to put in the effort to prepare that I was. The stress of planning the wedding, writing my final portfolio for my MFA class and this concert was shutting me down. I would get home and turn on a basketball game and feel guilty I wasn’t rehearsing my material, editing the wedding video or a thousand other things. Something about even looking at my notes from past shows was irritating me. I was mailing it in. I already knew that I had about 4 minutes of high-brow dick jokes that have gone over well for years and a few other bits that could certainly eat up the rest of the 4 minutes I’d need. It wouldn’t take long at all to rehearse. And so I didn’t. For weeks.

“So you nervous yet?” I had to field this question about 17 times a day for a month. I had actually reached a point of nerve saturation where I could no longer feel the anxiety I originally did when I got the e-mail. And I think the longer I put off preparations for the show, the longer I put off the anxiety. I’m not proud of that, but I think with everything happening in that month, I had reached stress level shut-down mode and this was my body’s defense mechanism. Somehow if I didn’t prepare for the show, I wouldn’t be nervous about it. This was, however, at odds with my need to be prepared. The anxiety over not being prepared was beginning to mount a counter-offensive against my anxiety over thinking about the show. It was a storm cloud brewing and only a matter of time before these two fronts collided. And lightning struck about a week before the show when I heard this.

“You should put that in your act.” This is another statement I hear about 17 times a day when people find out I do stand-up comedy. Some people think it must be so easy to be a stand-up comedian. At least in terms of finding material. People will say this to me whenever ANYTHING happens. And in some cases, when nothing happens. True story: I was eating something and dropped it on the floor. “You should put that in your act.”

How – in the hell – could I put that in my act?! Sure, people laughed when it happened and I may have even said something contextually funny at the moment. But this is not a stand-up routine. And the person who said that to me was dead serious and an alleged fan of stand-up comedy. How should I put this in my routine? Should I tell people I dropped my food on the floor? Or should I actually come out with a piece of pizza and throw it on the floor? The second one would probably shock a lot of people, but I don’t think the bit as a stand-alone piece is ready for the stage just yet. At least this incident gave me the jolt I needed to start turning the flywheel.

to be continued...

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 2
The Strategy

If you haven't read IHOP Part 1 yet, I recommend it. Of course I also once recommended that we lean a bottle rocket up against the rear view mirror and shoot it from the driver's side of a moving vehicle. You've been warned.

OK, I’ve been in the business long enough to know a couple things. Don’t try to do something that isn’t you – AND – play to the audience. These two things unfortunately contradict each other at times like this one. But I had a plan to compromise. First of all, idiots who don’t know anything about anything and get all their life information from romanticized broadcasts of people who get paid to sell the American Dream will automatically tell you to just be yourself. Funny is funny. Granted I’m not going to try impressions of DMX or Chamillionaire and I’m certainly not going to even wade in the race pool, but I’d be a fool not to think to try to play to his crowd somehow. Potentially 1,500 people are coming to see Aries, not necessarily me – though I’m sure to have a small following too. But I doubted my name made it to the 98 Rock spots. So I started to try to think of what I had in my arsenal that would go over well in front of his fans. I wasn’t about to sacrifice my integrity and resort to low-brow dick jokes. But I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with some high-brow dick jokes. And yes, there is such a thing.

But mostly, I wanted to do something physical. I don’t do impressions, but doing some sort of physical comedy would likely appeal to the same crowd. Unfortunately, I haven’t really tried anything physical in my act since my first few months. At least not in my stand-up act. My storytelling arsenal has quite a decent artifact of physical comedy in it. The climax of humor in the Logic, Luck and Love show is a segment I call “The Douchebag Dance.” It hits every time in front of a crowd predisposed to storytelling. But that doesn’t always translate to stand-up crowds, which are much less patient and forgiving. Thankfully, Vijai and Brad gave me two venues to practice it in the weeks prior to the big show. It went over well enough and I had gotten a decent idea of what I needed to change. And that bit would take 7 minutes, almost half the time I needed to fill. Plus, it was already written and as memorized as any bit I’ve ever done. Check.

I had a good feeling based on the sheer number of people that would be in the crowd that every joke would garner at least a little laughter. One great thing about big crowds is that laughter begets more laughter. Also, people as a general rule, do not want to look stupid. And the easiest way to do that is to not get the joke. So people will tend to laugh if other people are laughing. One way to bring that to a screeching halt is to offend people in the crowd. Some people choose that as their style, such as Andrew Dice Clay and Bobby Slayton, but I don’t have the personality or the testicles to go that route. So as long as everything was serviceably funny and I didn’t offend anyone, there was no way in my mind that I could bomb. Unless I got too drunk.

So my strategy was set. The Douchebag Dance was added to my repertoire and I wouldn’t offend anyone, at least not until I got them on my side. And even then, it would just be a quick jab, then a smile of retraction, more self-defamation and on to the next bit. Oh, and the more dick jokes the better. I knew this would be in front of a lot of UB higher ups, but I also knew Aries would be right after me and nobody would remember any of my crassness by comparison. I don’t have the time to speak in detail of the not-so-subtle difference between TV and live comedy, but it is night and day in terms of raunchiness. Those same people who don’t know anything about anything are probably tilting their head and thinking “wellllll, I’ve heard Chris Rock tell some pretty dirty –“ no you haven’t. It’s not the same, not even close. Sorry, but you don’t understand. Laughter begets more laughter and raunchy dick jokes are more likely to result in belly laughter than the “Ha. That’s an interesting point” intellectual jokes that will translate better on TV. But as I began, that’s a story for a different day. Just make fun of myself and I’m sure I’ll be fine.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show - Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer VI: The Big Show – Part 1
The E-mail

I proposed to Jenn back in September of 2010. Once we decided to plan the wedding ourselves to (unsuccessfully) save a little money, I decided to go on a performance hiatus. Because of how much anxiety I get and mental energy I give to write and rehearse each performance, I figured it would be best to concentrate all my mental energy and anxiety on the BIG performance, scheduled for May 28^th, 2011.

Many of my male friends would joke that I was taking it too seriously and that all I really needed to worry about was showing up, and my fiancée would probably put somebody in charge of that too. I wanted to punch these people in the face. These are good friends of mine. And I really wanted to punch them in the face. If I heard one more of my married guy friends tell me that “Lauren’s had this wedding planned since she was six” or “Kelly’s mom basically did everything,” I was literally going to make a ball out of my fingers and throw it in the direction of their face. And then when I would have to turn down an offer from the unmarried majority of my friends by saying something like “I can’t do car bombs at Tommy Fatso’s roof party tonight, I have [insert wedding bullshit] to do. And it’s Tuesday. And I’m an adult,” the unmarried majority started barking the same hilarious generalities they’ve heard from hack stand-up comics and formulaic romantic comedies. That time I actually did punch somebody in the face. With my mind.

The point is that I was taking a scheduled break from performance. I made an exception for the Logic, Luck and Love Valentine’s Day performance at Atlas because when a con man offers you magic beans, you buy them. And though I was tempted by several Dustin-friendly themes at the Speakeasy and concerned about a nearly year-long on-stage storytelling absence for my casual fans, I stayed the course. I certainly didn’t need to worry about doing another 5 minutes at a stand-up open mic night any time before the wedding. And I was right.

On Wednesday, April 13^th at 3:33pm, I got an e-mail from Brittany Trombly of SEB, who I could pick out of a lineup, but would probably never have to. The e-mail basically offered me more money than I’ve ever gotten to do a longer set than I’ve ever done in front of more people than I’ve ever performed in front of. I hadn’t even finished reading it before I had already given myself an ulcer on the inside of my mouth and shit not one, but an entire litter of kittens. I named them all Brittany.

Once again, another man with more magic beans. I had to buy them. Unfortunately, the event was May 13^th, 15 days before the wedding and the day of the UB golf tournament. Fortunately, it wasn’t on my actual wedding day. Or worse, the day before. Because that would have started a huge fight I’m happy to have avoided. Also fortunately, the e-mail said “upon approval from the Artist’s management,” which gave my brain an out that would keep my ulcer from developing into a Stage 4. The Artist (capitalized like that in the actual e-mail) was Aries Spears. Because when you think of low-brow racial humor and impressions of rap artists, you think Dustin Fisher. I was positive Aries’ management wouldn’t want some “Have you thought about this social construct this way” white comic warming up his crowd. And I was wrong. They couldn’t have been more indifferent.

And so it was written. I now had about 4 weeks to develop a strategy, sort through all my material, create a set list, rehearse and rewrite. It was starting to get tough figuring out what was wedding-related or Lyric-related stress. Oh yeah, the event was taking place at the Lyric. Yeah. The 2,500 seat Opera House. But they only expected about 1,500. Whew!

...to be continued...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 2
Fan-Freakin-Tastic

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1

I was up last in the line-up. The four people who went before intermission got a rousing round of applause. Then all four of them left and took their friends. And the girl who went first out of the intermission flatlined the crowd like Kevin Bacon and Keifer Sutherland would have. The next two performers tried to drag them back, but it was an uphill climb. And this is what I walked (or stumbled) into.

Vijai introduced me and I jumped onto the stage and probably didn’t almost fall, but it wasn’t graceful. This was approximately when I thought “Oh shit, I shouldn’t have had that fourth beer.” Throughout the set, I could feel myself slur some words more than I likely otherwise would have, but even then I knew it wasn’t too bad. Anyway…

I opened with a line about Vijai selling sex without actually having it and asked to applaud her marketing department. “And by marketing department… I mean tits.” I didn’t feel comfortable saying “tits” and I wish I’d have said breasts. But the show must go on. I was given ten minutes of stage time and I would likely go over by a minute or two, but I knew it wasn’t a problem since I was last and we still had some time. I opened with a few one liners to try to predispose the crowd to a stand-up type of atmosphere to get a more honest reaction out of my story, which I knew was not going to be a real litmus test. But it’s the best I could do on this night to try to get the most relevant reaction I could.

See, I am trying a storytelling-proven bit in front of Aries Spears next Friday and wanted as honest a reaction as possible about whether this would convert to stand-up or not. But the truth is that I was giving a crowd predisposed to storytelling what they like. Oh well.
After opening with the Vijai stuff, I went into my Jared joke. The joke is that I wanted to get engaged, so I went to Jared. Then he sold me a Subway gift card. The premise is the bait and switch from the jewelry store to the guy from Subway. But as soon as I told everyone that I got engaged “so I did what they told me to on TV… I went to Jared,” the crowd laughed so hard at the reference that they didn’t even bother to get the punchline. That was disappointing, but a good indication that it may not be the time to try this joke in front of 1,500 people, despite the fact that I was actually engaged and it would be the best time to try it.

Next, I told a joke about being engaged and lasting through one entire football season and how “if you have a boyfriend who doesn’t like football, then he’s obviously gay and isn’t this a shitty way to fine out.” This got more groans than I had planned for, but I’m keeping it in there, though I’m a little nervous about having it so near the top of my set. See, I want to make sure just not to offend people with my set this Friday. My jokes are funny enough not to get heckled for lack of humor, but if I cross the line into offensive, I stand the risk of losing them, or at least one of them who wants to publicly display his or her displeasure.

Then I tried a bit about needing to end things with Logic because I got engaged. I knew this wasn’t going to work and I was right. This was an easy chop.

Then into the story I went. I’ve told it tons of times before and the modifications were so minor that I was able to pretty much coast through the rest of the show. I got the reaction I would hope to get from the Aries Spears crowd. There were some small parts I realized I should condense, but I felt comfortable with the bit for the most part by the end of the show. I’ll have to see how it goes over next Sunday at Hightopps to really get a gauge of whether or not it’s suitable material for that crowd.

After that bit, I ended with a bit that I really want to do on Friday despite the fact that I’ve never tried it on stage before. It’s about homophobia and I want it to be my piece that people leave the Opera House thinking “why didn’t I think of that before?” I admittedly rushed it, but it still went over very well. It was condensed to about 2 minutes and I think I’m going to keep it that way. It got two big laughs exactly where I thought it would. I don’t know if it’s the piece I want to end with, but if it gets a big enough laugh and I’m hovering around 12-13 minutes, I may just cut my set short to go out with a bang.

All in all, this was a decent experiment if I wanted to get some self-esteem going into the Aries Spears show. But what I really wanted to know is whether or not I can make this bit work in front of a stand-up crowd. On one hand, I don’t know that I really got that feedback. On the other hand, I’m now big time enough that Fan-Freakin-Tastic, the show that used to be my biggest show of the year – was now a practice show that I barely got nervous for. This is a little scary. It’s almost like I’m getting to be a professional.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1
Fan-Freakin-Tastic

Due to an overestimation of either how easy it is to do stand-up comedy or how funny I am, I landed a gig opening for Aries Spears at the Lyric in front of potentially 1,500 people. Because when you think of who should set up the crowd for some physical low-brow African-American humor, I am the obvious choice.

Anyway, the University’s Student Events Board asked me to open for Aries Spears on May 13th. They asked me to do “10 to 20 minutes,” probably not realizing the vast canyon separating those two units of measurement when it comes to stand-up comedy. We’ve since settled on 15 minutes, but unaffected by the time I will be on stage is the crowd I will be performing in front of. How the hell am I going to appeal to a bunch of his fans? My typical “Hey, have you thought about this?” and “How about this play on words?” is dangerous for that amount of time when the crowd expects to see a dumbed down Shaq impression.

Thankfully, when I told Vijai about the show, she jumped on the chance to help me out and found me a spot in her monthly comedy show, Fan-Freakin-Tastic. I really wanted to practice the only real physical bit that I feel comfortable with, which is the Douchebag Dance. It’s a story that is about 5-8 minutes long that I use in Logic, Luck and Love, but I’ve never tried in front of a stand-up crowd. Unfortunately for me, this crowd is already predisposed to a storytelling style of comedy, which makes them a much more forgiving and patient audience. This is normally a great thing, but not if you want some very specific and honest feedback. Oh well. You gotta play the hand that’s dealt.

First of all, I haven’t performed anywhere since our Valentine’s Day remount of Logic, Luck and Love. And that night was kind of a coming out party for me as a professional. As nervous a wreck as I ever was, about 5 minutes before showtime, a peaceful serenity came over me and I just felt like “I got this.” I never had a confidence like that on stage and I had never had a bigger show. It was almost like I was a professional.

So this night at Chief Ike’s was very similar. I felt a little nervous twice: after my first practice run-through, which I didn’t do until an hour before I was going to leave to get to the show when I realized I didn’t have this stuff memorized like I thought I did yet, and again just as I was getting up onto the stage in fear that I may have accidentally gotten myself too drunk. I stuck to the three beer rule, but it had been a while since implementation so I may have lost some of my tolerance. Plus, I drank four beers.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer IV: The Remount - Part 2

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Inside the Head of a Performer IV: The Remount - Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer IV: The Remount – Part 1
Logic, Luck and Love

I’ve apparently written over 7,000 words on the first five-day run of Logic, Luck and Love last summer. Don’t worry. I no longer have that kind of time on my hands.

Sold out show. Atlas Theater. 250+ people in the stands at $22 each. I’d seen this large a crowd before at the Funny Bone in Cincinnati. But those people were there to see Adam Ferrara or Steve Trevino. I just had to tell five minutes of dick jokes and hand off the microphone to the people that the crowd really came to see. This time, I was Adam Ferrara. Or at least one of four Adam Ferraras.

So yeah, I was nervous. I was fine – actually feeling good – until the day before when I got a text message from Jenn (performer) saying she was just starting to get nervous. That text was a virtual computer virus because I caught her nerves just from opening the message. But it didn't really hit me until the day of.

Half an hour to show time. That’s really when it hit me. Kevin was trying on shirts and talking to Molly about something unrelated to the sheer terror of performance storytelling. I couldn't listen anymore. I went to the other section of the green room to reinforce my rib cage so my heart would be less likely to burst completely out and onto the ground. Unfortunately the three beer rule doesn't apply to theater. Not when I have other people counting on me. I don’t know why not, really. Seems sort of idealistic for no fucking reason now.

It was time. Ten minutes to curtain (a business term I've since picked up). Time to go upstairs and pace around backstage and try not to piss or shit myself. I can’t specifically say that I’ve never been this nervous, considering this is an immeasurable variable and knowing the fallibility of human memory, but I had started chewing Kevin’s fingernails.

I peeked out from behind the curtain at the growing crowd. There are several parts of my opening monologue where I need to call out people in the audience and connect with them through eye contact so I could project my desires onto them. They don’t need to be too specific, but I need one to not be obese (“no fatties”) and another to be female (“the willingness to perform certain… sexual… acts”) – preferably hot – and I’d like to know before I walk out there where I can look to find these people. After the rehearsal, I wasn’t sure how far I’d be able to see into the crowd. It got pretty dark out there and since I was first up, my eyes would have no time to adjust.

ANYWAY, I peeked from behind the curtain, something Kevin does often, but the two ladies see as unprofessional. And then I saw the middle section third row. From right to left (how I saw them) was Ashley (my cousin’s girlfriend), Johnnie (cousin), Uncle John, Aunt Joyce, Jenn (fiancée), Meatwad, and his date (or so I assumed and was wrong). I owned that middle section third row. And something honestly unprecedented happened.

I had a sense of calm. I got this. This show is going to be awesome. And easy. I had been walloping my lines into my gray matter all week long and I felt a confidence I hadn't ever felt before. In anything. I probably never had any material that I had rehearsed even a tenth as much as this stuff. And as opposed to last summer, I wasn't just done writing it the week before. I stopped the constant rehearsing of the opening act I’d been doing in my head for the last 25 minutes. I knew I’d be fine out there. Not only that, but I knew I’d be able to be in the moment out there, talking to the crowd. Not thinking about the next line as I’m saying this one. Thus making it more real. I felt a cocky. Which happened to be good for my character. This was better than OK.

Amy came up, said some stuff, introduced us, and I was ready to go. The music started. Quietly. Too quietly. Something was wrong. We were on opposite ends of the stage. Both sides missed the cue but thankfully we came out at the same time. And when we walked on stage, there was a wave of applause. That had never happened before. This was going to be easy.

(to be continued tomorrow (hopefully))

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 8

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 8
Logic, Luck and Love

This was my toughest transition. Even harder than Jenn’s Back Porch finish. The end of the show was also the end of everyone’s individual character arcs. The end was bookended by my Mad About You piece. After I started the end, Jenn and Molly had their endings. One hopeful and one successful. Then it was Kevin’s turn. His ending was excellently crafted, as was his entire arc. He spent most of the evening making the audience laugh and really, REALLY knocked them on their ass with his ending. It was very moving and dark and honest. After spending his entire arc saying “What’s wrong with these people,” he concludes with an introspective “What’s wrong with me?” It’s touching and honest and a show-stopper. And I have to follow it.

My part is short. And uplifting. And will hopefully leave the audience hopeful with romance rather than solemn with despair. But I had to tiptoe into the darkness as to not overwhelm the audience with a change in tone. I also had created some extra work for myself on Opening Night by skipping a really important part during the first part of Mad About You. After figuring it out and stewing in my seat about it during the 10 minutes when the other three were delivering their end pieces, I had realized it was a pretty easy fix. This last tiny piece was basically two ideas. “It still takes work after finding someone” and “I don’t believe in most things, but I believe I will try to be the best person for her sake.” I had to fit in “I could pretend fate brought us together post facto if I wanted. Maybe it would help strengthen the bond we have. But it would also devalue all the work we have to do every day to make things work,” which I had forgotten from an earlier part of my piece. As mentioned, this was basically my conclusion, not just a throwaway line.

It thankfully fit very seamlessly into the end of the “It still takes work after finding someone” section. Looking back, it may actually belong there. But I wasn’t about to mess with the show in the middle of this week. So night after night, I got up and tried to let Kevin’s last words linger long enough for the audience to absorb them but not long enough so that they thought the show was over. And as moving as Kevin’s piece is, I don’t think it should be the end. It would certainly take our piece out of the “comedy” section just for the way we left the audience feeling. So I got up and brought the audience around to like this previously arrogant, cold and calculated character. Well, that was the plan. And I think I executed it well each night. As mentioned before, it’s pretty easy for me to get emotional. Honestly, I usually have to stop myself from getting emotional if I don’t want to during parts like this. So I let a little quiver come over my lips and a little glaze over my eyes.

And I delivered what I thought my most moving part was. “I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in Meg Ryan. But I do believe that there is somebody out there who I care about very deeply. And as long as I’m around and able, I’m going to try to be the best person I can be for her sake. Because she deserves it. I may not believe in a lot. But I believe that.”

And I backed away slowly to the rise of “Somebody to Love” and the audience lights coming up, along with the rest of the cast. An obvious indication that it was the end of the show. We got a standing ovation on Opening Night (and partial standing ovations in other performances). It was the greatest feeling of accomplishment and justification for all our efforts that we could have asked for. Until the review came out the following day. All the slaving we did over rewrites and the direction we got and the order we put it in – it all worked. Perfectly. No stand-up act I ever did had done what this did. Thank you so much to my great friends and fellow cast members for inviting me into this production. I only hope as we expand and remount the show that you consider me for the role of Dustin. Until next time…

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 7

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 7
Logic, Luck and Love

Joe told me that the first piece was the most important part of the show for me to get perfect because it was the show’s thesis. I don’t disagree by any means. But this last section I was about to embark on was the most important for me emotionally. I was chosen to end the show because my character arc was the most dramatic. I really wanted the crowd to feel my emotions. Truthfully, in the moments just before I was to go onstage again, I would think of Jenn (my girlfriend) and my piece ahead of time. I would look around the crowd to see Molly’s parents starting to tear up. I would picture my dad watching from the back of the room and how proud he’d be. Maybe it’s cheating. Or maybe it’s just acting.

OK. I worked my way up to be emotional. I don’t even really remember who was up right before me now but there was a music cue. Thankfully. Because following something as moving as “So I said goodbye… to my vision of the back porch” or as shocking as “Pussy is finger-licking good. Call me.” was wearing on me. Rihanna’s Umbrella. A favorite of mine since the Taubl Family did it on America’s Got Talent a couple years ago. I don’t know how the audience felt at the time, but the show was winding down and I just got that feeling. I opened with “I didn’t come here tonight to shit all over your beliefs… but, well here we go.” And that was the last real joke.

The rest of the piece was emotional with an analytic approach. And that’s exactly how I wanted to present it. So I stood in one place for the longest piece I had in this show and presented it matter-of-factly with emotion. It was an interesting dynamic. I got choked up at the part when I start to talk about Jenn (the girlfriend) and just let it come. I could have shut it out, but I wanted to show emotion. I even started to cry at one show. But it’s what I wanted to do to identify with the crowd.

The main point I wanted to get across is that I have run the numbers, they’re correct, and I was able to use them to figure out how to be happy. This was our story of origin. I talk about how we met because I decided I needed to move to “find a new them.” I go on to say that “I could pretend fate brought us together post facto if I wanted. Maybe it would help strengthen the bond we have. But it would also devalue all the work we have to do every day to make things work.” This was my closing argument statement. And I fucking forgot it on my opening night.

I sat down after being on stage for about 5-7 minutes convinced I had forgotten something. Meg Ryan? No. Compatibility points? No. Holy shit! I forgot the whole closing argument statement. I was thankfully still due to get up one more time after the other three had their closing pieces. I could skip it and go on or try to force it in somehow. Damnit. I needed to get it in. It would have been easier to forget it, but this was too important. So now I had a job. How was I going to find a way to get this part in?

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 6

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 6
Logic, Luck and Love

We’re deep into what a good friend would consider the “middle half” of the show. A lot of us are going through the arching part of our character arc. I just did my “I Hate Brick Street” piece and I’m about to get up to do my “Confused Narcissist” part, together which, I referred to as “The Reason” when writing, as to give myself some focus. My ultimate character arc isn’t necessarily one of chronology like Molly’s is. It’s more in the reveal of how I came to believe what I believe and showing that love and logic can coexist. But this next part is my turn. I talked of my logical approach to love and followed that with a flashback to getting my heart (and brain) crushed out in Ohio not from a particular lover, but from the lack of any at all. And so here comes the self-introspection I went through to get to where I am with the Statistical Probability Model.

But I had a problem. This piece, though introspective and a big turning point for my character, played itself out in a humorous way. But Jenn leaves the stage after her Back Porch story, which mirrors the depressing parts of Eat, Pray, Love (or so I’m guessing, as I don’t know because I’m a real man). She leaves the stage with “So I said goodbye… To him… to the roses… and to my vision… of the back porch,” which in this case represented her chance at long-term happiness. I don’t exactly want to come in with guns blazing and my piece isn’t as high energy as the last one, but I never felt comfortable with my entrance. This was complimented by Jenn actually asking me after our 4^th performance to try to delay my entrance a bit. So she noticed it also. I don’t want to step on the feelings she’s creating either, but once again, the only real training I have as far as the audience is concerned, is knowing how to let them laugh. The depression they were supposed to be feeling was much harder to gauge. So I came in softer and/or later each time. To a completely silent and solemn audience. OK. Time to laugh again, people. Please.

So the deck is stacked against me. That’s fine. I know at least one line in here that will get laughs regardless of context. I try to ham up my introduction on occasion with a goofy smile followed by a furrowed brow on “…after all, I am the only common link in all my failed relationships.” Mixed results. I still can’t find a pattern with the crowd reactions and that is frustrating. I have a series of 6 questions that I ask and answer myself. There’s an order I try to follow but really as long as I end on #6, I can mix it up. Which I believe I did every single time without intent.

One of these questions is “Am I not funny enough?” I originally answered it with this long sentence about Dane Cook and Bill Cosby, but it didn’t really work in the first two shows and just ruined the flow. So I decided to try something on Wednesday evening. Instead I just looked at the audience and said “Please.” It was a risk, as I’m not sure if the audience really considers me funny. But they like me! They really like me! Success! It stays in the show. Molly even compliments me on it after that Wednesday performance.

There’s another question that I ask which is my only definite laugh line of the piece. “Am I not good-looking enough? Maybe not for some skanks.” And then I pause briefly. The laughs usually don’t come until I start to ask the next question when they realize that was it. No further explanation. Just a casual shot at skanks. The line made Molly and Jenn cringe behind me as I found out later, but oh well. It got me some laughs and I was still in my transition from dick to likable dick. This was normally second in the order, but not always, as I mentioned earlier. But on Closing Night, I couldn’t access it in my brain. I did the first one (too picky?) and forgot it. No problem. I could go on to the next one and while I delivered that line, I was trying desperately to access that part of my brain. This was a first for me. I normally wasn’t prepared enough to think ahead while still talking. Steve Martin mentioned in Born Standing Up that he had done his material so many times that his mouth would be in the present and his mind would be in the future. That was happening to me now! This was damn exciting! Except I was coming to #6 and still hadn’t accessed it. That’s the bad kind of exciting. I had done the two that rhymed (money and funny) and was in the middle of #5 (good in bed). After I was done that one, I paused a little bit longer (only a second or two) assuming I’d remember it. But I couldn’t. Still didn’t until the show was over either and the gang reminded me. Kevin said he thought it was unprofessional to change my story like that. Get it?

The last question provoked the line “I’m a confused narcissist in this town…” The funny part was the explanation of what the term meant, but I occasionally got a laugh with just the term alone, which I need to credit to Dave Walker. In the revision of this piece, I probably cut out over half of what I had originally written with no complaints. The one argument I had was about leaving in the confused narcissist line. It turned out to be the only decision that I made in spite of Joe’s advice that panned out. I believe he still wins that overall battle, but I at least had one in the win column. Thanks, Dave. No dramatic last line, no false exit, just a three-minute journey over the hill of my arc. And back to my seat to mentally prepare for the emotional conclusion. Which I was apt to screw up because of the length. Time to study the notes in my head.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 5

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 5
Logic, Luck and Love

Molly would be doing her thing on stage (and off stage for a bit) and I would still be onstage, but upstage (which I learned means “backwards” among silly theater folk). I stared at that blond chick at least for long enough that I felt everyone was looking at Molly. She was pretty dynamic up there and garnered a lot of laughs, which was great. She also painted herself to be a jerk, but not the way I did because she had previously mentioned how she lost a lot of weight from when she was the “funny fat girl, like Natalie from the Facts of Life.” She went on to say it didn’t get her any dates, “but who did Tootie turn to when she needed a shoulder to cry on?” The mere alliteration alone should have earned her an applause break, but that line never hit like we wanted it to. Anyway, it was time for her to tag me in. And she did it in style. My two previous cues were Jenn’s “You simply must believe” and Kevin’s “What the hell is wrong with them?” This time Molly said “Pussy is finger-licking good. Call me.” It got more gasps than laughs, but they were fun gasps. She smacks herself in the head and fades backward as I stare back at the blond and creep forward.

“Blond – probably bleached – definitely bleached – which reeked of equal parts superficiality and insecurity… My favorite.” As I said this, I walked slowly toward the blond I picked out, always on the right side of the audience (stage right, that is – which is a theater term for “left”). I glance at a person on the left side of the audience for every aside I make, as if he/she was in on the joke. And that works well. I believe it starts to endear me to the crowd in a way. Which is what I need as I’ve just referred to the blond girl as a gazelle separated from the herd (And one performance, I actually referred to her as a “nightingale” by accident. Ha. Oops).

And then my mood changes when I have to impersonate a frat guy swooping in to pick up my mark. I try hard to make sure I’m as high energy as possible. I’m doing physical comedy, which I don’t really do much of on stage. I actually think it’s kind of cheap. But it works and I’ll take cheap laughs after spending the first third of my character arc being an analytical, dream-pissing on assface. So I go on to do what I called the “Douchebag Dance” where I grab my foot with one hand and the back of my head with the other and do the actual dance while narrating it with an obvious film of disgust on my voice. I get a decent amount of laughs while doing the actual dance, but my biggest laugh of the evening came every night when I was finished and I angrily yelled “And you know what?! That shit worked!” If this was a stand-up routine and I got a laugh like that, I’d have said “Thank you all! Good night. Drive safely” and walked off the stage. But that would have put the cast in even more of a pickle than Kevin did on Thursday. So I continued.

After the bit, I paused. Silence. Partly for laughter, mostly to change the mood. I put my collar back down, which I had popped talking about the Douchebag Dance. Stephanie (of Speakeasy fame) actually claimed that as a part she loved about the piece after her Opening Night viewing. And it wasn’t like she mentioned 37 things about the show. So I kept it in. And made sure to exaggerate it. But my favorite line (and Amy’s and Joe’s too) was next. After the silence and feeling my loathing for this situation I was in. “It seemed like hours had passed… Probably because – hours had passed.” It may have been my favorite line too. I found the humor was intact as long as I said it calmly the first time and EXACTLY the same the second time. It didn’t get my biggest laugh, but it was certainly passable.

This original piece had about 4 or 5 different places it could end. We (Joe) decided to cut out most of them and stop right after the Wonka World reference. That bit normally goes over pretty well in my stand-up routine but didn’t hit as hard here for whatever reason. I make a reference to having a banana in my hand at the end of that bit as a metaphor for masturbation and that’s how it ends. With my hand grasping an invisible banana/cock. During the last performance, I decided to mimic throwing the banana away as I turned away from the crowd and went back to my seat. I did this mostly because I wasn’t ending as strong as I wanted to and wanted to think of something to fix it. I’m just not used to developing characters and not getting laughs. But it got a little extra laugh anyway. So I was happy. And I was also almost done. So I was happier. After all, the performance is fun. But the applause is better.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 4

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 4
Logic, Luck and Love

My sense of panic on Thursday night when Kevin went rogue and forced us to all follow him down the rabbit hole or get left behind when the bus pulled out of Mixed Metaphorland has been well-documented. For the other four performances, this 15 minutes of non-stage time was a welcome break from the exponential tension that built up from the moment we were herded backstage half an hour ago. I would spend most of these 15 minutes scanning the audience for a victim (hot chick with blond hair, hopefulyl bleached and not very timid-looking) in the first two rows for my Brick Street piece.

I had bit parts in Kevin’s two stories, one where I had to sing, and one where I had to shout two movie lines in sequence with Molly and Jenn. In fact, the line I struggled with the most every night was my movie line. In the middle of a bunch of sappy lines from romantic movies such as “You had me at hello” and “You complete me,” I say “I see dead people.” The crowd always laughed, but I tried it several different ways – sarcastic, serious, lovey, eye-rolling and painful. I still don’t know quite how to say that line. But it gets a laugh just for being written into the show anyway, so I probably shouldn’t worry so damn much.

“What the hell is wrong with them?” This was Kevin’s last line and my cue. It’s fun time. This was the part of my quarter of the show that was put in because it was funny. I had written the first part (which was interesting, but more thought-provoking than laugh-provoking) and the last section (which was more moving than funny) first and then realized that I had relatively little funny in the show. And I was selected by Molly, Jenn and Kevin almost entirely for my reputation as a comedian. What the hell was I doing? So I made sure to throw in some funny. And at about the 20-25 minute mark of the show, it was funny time.

But it didn’t start strong. Not like Kevin’s. When we remount the show (which is apparently a theater term that doesn’t mean what it does in equestrian or porn circles), I may look to come out stronger. But this was my chance to bitch about Miami University and how it fucked up my head, especially with respect to dating expectations. The story was originally titled “The Reason,” as it was written to explain why I was so analytical and bitter. I used Brick Street as my backdrop and talked about a real incident that happened over and over for 3 years until I finally found the right mixture of good sense and discontent to motivate me to move back here.

This Brick Street piece was split into two parts, spliced in with Molly’s bar story of how she would try to pick up hot chicks 10 years her younger and get shot down. They were painfully similar. The first part was an explanation of exactly what goes on at Brick Street. I come out with a couple jokes about my age. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they missed. But one always got a laugh and it was probably the last one I threw in there.

Talking about the culture at Brick Street, I would say that I’d never seen so many shorts with words on the ass. I would bend over and point to my ass, as I had already turned around to talk about tramp stamps anyway. It was kinda cheap for this show, but I needed to interject some physical comedy into my portion of the show to get some more energy. I then stood up after pointing to my ass and said “I don’t know what ‘Pink’ is, but… I’m a fan!” And the cheesier I delivered the line, the better laugh it got. I found out later that the laugh was coming at my expense rather than at my delivery (See picture below). The line about this move being good for my ego… and also presumably my id – just wasn’t sticking the landing. But I thought it too clever to take out. I need to take my own advice and not fall in love with certain lines.I realized my problem with getting laughs at this point in the show with material like that is that I’m not really an endearing character to the audience yet. And that’s by design which makes my character conclusion so much more meaningful. But it isn’t helping now. Especially not when I’m talking about girls in such a sleazy manner. For good reason, many of the members in the crowd probably didn’t appreciate this ass hole on stage enough to care about his trials and tribulations trying to score with women. Hell, I walked right in front of Jenn to start the show just after her “you have to believe” moment. I was made the villain. Oh well. Fight through it and get what laughs you can.

Then I got to talking about this culture that I wasn’t a part of, which was a person the audience could relate to. Though I did have a line about girls dancing with their hands “sometimes already on their ankles” that made Molly and Jenn cringe for real and they know me. In retrospect, this makes a lot more sense now. I talk about witnessing a guy go down to the dance floor and mimic him riding her from behind like a racecar seatbelt. I try to channel some of Kevin’s energy for this part. It gets a laugh, but not the one I’d hoped for. Nor does my “five-point harness” comment. Just throw it out, already.

So I come to a part where I have to try to figure out what to do in this town. Amy came up with the idea to pace around the stage like a mad scientist talking to myself. This went over awesome. The crowd is starting to identify with me more. And then I seek out that victim I’ve chosen while sitting in my seat for the last 15 minutes. And I stare at her. And I’ll tell you, it’s fun, but sometimes it doesn’t go well. Sunday night, I had picked the same girl as the first part, which I didn’t always do. She was equally uncomfortable this time too. Oh well. The show must go on. This isn’t about her anyway. I stare at her. I freeze. I slowly back up. Molly comes in hot. “I would drink 6 Miller Lites and approach the prettiest girl in the bar…” Still staring. Why not?

Friday, August 6, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 3

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 3
Logic, Luck and Love

Jenn came to the stage with a slight contrast of style – seductive and stationary – and a complete contrast of relationship theory – lovey and hopeful. There was a part in her piece when she made reference to me in fact, and I didn’t even realize it for the first couple performances. Truth be told, I was happy to be done and sit down for a few minutes at that point to shake out all the poo nickels that had built up over 2 months of prep and half an hour backstage. Molly explained to us that a “poo nickel” was a little piece of poo that came out when she got nervous, which flattened out to about the size of a nickel. I know. Just what I wanted to think about before I go on stage. And as nervous as I was and having to perform first, I was bound to have a poo nickel one of these nights. Maybe even a poo quarter. Or a Sacajawea poo.

Jenn talked about how she has been waiting for that perfect kiss. “You’ve probably been waiting too.” I thought she was addressing the audience. Turns out she has been turning over her shoulder looking at me each time. And by the 4^th show, I figured it out and thought I would react to it. Subtle enough to not derail the story, but something. Just a shoulder shrug. Whatever. By the last show though, I had a plan. I timed it so that I’d be taking a drink at the time. I didn’t do a spit take or anything stupid, but the addition of either having water in my mouth or having to stop an action mid-stream with my eyebrows, shoulders and hands forming a question mark was enough to get a laugh where there was not one before. Huh. Acting. Who’da thought?

And she ended. “You’ve got to believe…” That was my cue. Second part of the “Statistical Probability Model.” It started with me walking very dismissively and directly in front of Jenn to drive home the contrast of our beliefs in geographical fashion on the stage. And to make me seem more of an ass. At least for now. This part was easier – only about two minutes long, but again without many laughs. I managed to squeeze out a couple here and there, but nothing consistently. There was a part of the piece where I had to drag out a sentence and build it up for a big payoff. Pretty important part of the thesis of the show. I believe that I did it well because it felt good and because Amy said it was good and she’s not the type to throw around back-patting compliments (which is good for a director) – but there were no laughs. And there aren’t supposed to be, but you can’t really gauge thought from a crowd without hooking them all up to electrodes and that likely would have distracted from the enjoyment of the show.

Then I hit my last line. I was talking about love being incomparable from person to person “coincidentally… much like pain.” That got my biggest laugh of the show thus far and I didn’t think it would. Again, when I wrote it about 3 years ago, I probably thought it was funny. But I had forgotten. Anyway, it was nice to go out with a bang. But wait! A false exit! Kevin suggested it and I had never done it before. I actually start to leave the stage and come back Columbo-style with “Oh, one more thing…” The following line got a decent laugh too, but I felt like I was stepping on my own material. Like I should just get out while they’re laughing. It felt like having a great flirty conversation with a girl, getting her phone number, and leaving. Then going back in, telling her you’re still having trouble getting over your ex, who she reminds you of, apologizing, apologizing for apologizing, and leaving again with several feet in your mouth. I didn’t want to go back to the bar. But the script said so. And it was a decent line. Maybe in the rewrite, we can figure out something for that part. Oh well. But now is the Molly and Kevin show. And more Jenn. And Kevin again. And Molly again. And Kevin again. I have bit parts during a couple of Kevin’s stories, but it will be another 15-20 minutes before I would be needed on stage again. Time to retreat and regroup.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 2
Logic, Luck and Love

“For those of you who believe in romance [pause] and would like to continue to be fooled [pause], you may want to leave now.” I said this from just in front of my chair to appear a little casual before I was to take center stage. I completely expected a laugh at the second pause, but got none. I did not expect a laugh after the entire sentence, but got one.

See, we’ve been writing, workshopping, rewriting and rehearsing these pieces so much that I’ve forgotten what was funny when I originally wrote it. That is the disadvantage of being this prepared. I just had to trust Past Dustin’s writing and hope that Present Dustin’s delivery of now numbed material with the help of rehearsed stage directions would do the writing justice. We had spent the last month and a half telling our stories to two equally numbed people with clipboards. It was refreshing to get a laugh, even though it didn’t come when I thought it would. But I’ve seen that happen on occasion before in my stand-up world so I wasn’t so thrown I wet myself or anything.

As I said before, this was the thesis of the show so I did not want to forget my lines or botch the delivery. It probably made it a little more stiff, but that also played to the content. There is a concept in art called “formalism,” which is really the only thing I remember from 5 years of film school. It is defined as “the marriage of form and content.” So if you’re shooting a violent scene, choppy camera action and quick cuts are valuable, whereas you may want to handle a love scene with soft lighting and a steady tri-pod (no pun intended). So my calculated movements probably played to the mathematics inherent in the piece anyway.

This was in direct contrast, however, to my urge to start the show with energy as I’ve learned from my stand-up days. If you get a crowd on your side early, you get a lot more leeway with longer set-ups and they’ll give you the benefit of the doubt with a later joke or two as they already like YOU. But here, it was my job to set up the thesis, almost in lecture format. It wasn’t without laughter, but it was uncomfortable as I’m used to trying to make laughter happen every 15 seconds. Because of this, I probably rushed it a lot more than I should have. By the last couple performances, I started to play with the concept of silence in certain parts. A fellow comedian once told me to use silence almost like a business contract signing with the audience, where the first one to talk loses. Just wait for the laughs and demand them. It’s worked before but it was risky here.

There is a part in my opening speech where I talk about being compatible with a relationship partner. “There are areas of high importance. Religion… willingness to have children… willingness to perform certain sexual acts.” I would pick out an attractive girl in the first two rows – one the rest of the crowd could see – and stare at her during “perform certain sexual acts,” while changing my voice from lecture to cheesy lounge singer and summoning up a horribly pathetic eyebrow-flickering smirk on my face. I found that the longer I waited after the end of that phrase, the more laughs I would get when I snapped back out of it. “Then there are areas of less importance. Preferred hair color… room temperature… the willingness to perform… other… sexual acts.” This was even longer and cheesier and I would go back to the same girl. It went over at least serviceably well each time, but I think I had honed that craft by my last performance, though the girl I picked out could not have been more uncomfortable. That sucked, but this wasn’t necessarily about her anyway. The crowd just needs to see me hitting on the same girl twice (three times as I will do it almost an hour later). Sorry, blond girl in the front row from Sunday’s show in case you’re reading this. The same thing happened to the girl Molly had to hit on in one of the performances. Oh well. We’re both taken anyway.

My first piece is broken up into two parts, separated by Jenn’s “Perfect Kiss” piece, which is supposed to serve as a sharp contrast to my “Statistical Probability Model” piece. The first part has a lot of numbers to remember, but like I said, I had done it to death and knew the numbers well enough to hit them all perfectly in all 5 shows. Where I struggled was with the delivery of such dated material. I had 5 shows to play with and got better and also never sucked, but I strived for the best reaction I could get each time. I specifically had trouble perfecting my line about deal-breakers “no smokers… no diseases… no fatties… no republicans, etc.” I never got my footing on the negative space there. Also, I know – I really do – that this is more analytical and satirical than it is funny, but I can’t help but try to do everything I can to use my facial expressions to make the material as funny as it can be. So I had to go back to my seat frustrated every time and just trust in the concept. Which, as I’ve already mentioned more than once, worked to perfection.

(Ed Note: Dustin has only gotten through his first story of the show. He has 7. So this Inside the Head version may have up to 10 parts. Sorry.)

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 1

Monday, August 2, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer III - Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer III – Part 1
Logic, Luck and Love

I’ve been recently writing about what goes on inside my head during specific stand-up and storytelling performances. I’ve only done this twice so far, though I’ve probably been on stage about 60-75 times in my short(ish) career(ish). Well, this most recent one was the most unique performance of those 75 shows. It was a delicious and intimidating performance smoothie, blending together equal parts stand-up, storytelling and theater – one of which I’d never tasted before.

It all started (for me) when Molly asked if I was interested in doing a show in the Fringe Festival with her, Jenn Moore and Kevin Boggs. I had just worked with Molly in Sucker for Love 2: Electric Boogaloo and graciously accepted doing whatever this thing was, having never heard of the Fringe Festival with no clue of the massiveness that it was. Molly and Jenn had gotten this concept to make a show based around the relationship experiences of both men and women, gay and straight and wanted four people, one of each gender and sexual orientation. After casting Kevin in a no-brainer decision, they needed one last piece for the puzzle – a straight guy. And there were none in the DC Theater scene. “Sure, I’ll be your straight guy.” And so I was cast.

We worked tirelessly on this project from February through opening night in mid-July. If this article were a cheesy 80s movie, this paragraph would be the cheesy montage scene with the necessary cheesy quasi-inspirational one-hit-wonder music playing in our earphones. Me sitting alone writing. Thinking. Idea! Writing again. Jenn, Molly and I on the roof laughing. Me crumpling up paper and throwing it dramatically across the room. The cat runs away from it. I pick her up and nuzzle her nose. More writing. All four of us around a table with salt and pepper shakers. Jenn moves them around a coaster as if they were people. Kevin then pretends they are having sex with each other and makes kissy noises. I roll my eyes. More writing. Rewriting. Editing. By the time June rolled around, I was thankful to go to work to get a break from rewriting all this crap. And then there starts the montage where we introduce Joe and Amy as directors and start pacing around the basement and get serious. This should have been the part of the movie where you got up to get an ice cream sandwich.

Cut to opening night. I’ve never been more prepared for anything in my life. No football game, no stand-up routine, no homecoming dance gig, nothing. Not even the SATs. Birth. Maybe my own birth and that’s about it. Still, I was more nervous than I had been for anything. In stand-up and storytelling, you’re hanging out with the audience before the show, flirting with the girls and drinking with your friends. Here, I was told we needed to be backstage. I never really had a backstage. I mean there was a green room at the Funny Bone, but we weren’t confined there like we were here. We kept peeking through the curtain to see people we knew. Molly and I both had a little audience participation, so we looked out to find our victims. All four of us took turns begin peppy with energy, nervous with anticipation, excited with motivational words and secluded in last-minute rehearsal. I can remember all three of them at different times telling me how great I was, along with each other. It was inspiring and comforting. Well done, fellow cast members. Amy came back every 5 minutes. “15 minutes.” “10 minutes.” “5 minutes.” This was what made me the most nervous. That and this was my first sober performance possibly ever.

See, I have a very well-documented three-beer rule before all my shows. But for this, I didn’t want to even tempt losing my place. I had other people counting on me. Besides, we were on stage for an entire hour. Though I wasn’t talking for the entire hour, I was on the stage. I developed a new set of rules which I am happy to have followed to the letter for all 5 shows. On the day of the show, I would have no alcohol, soda or cheese at all. No alcohol for reasons of not only inebriation, but also voice. No carbonation for reasons of burping. And no cheese because I have recently not been able to process it very well. Actually, I still process it, but into short bursts of methane gas from my ass, which is inconvenient when seated for a whole hour. These three rules definitely helped me survive 5 nights of being on stage for a whole hour without needing to pee, burp or fart.

“Places, everybody.” Shit. This was it. I had the voice of Joe echoing in my head about how important this first piece was since it was the thesis of the entire show. Our individual stories were written and the cards just happened to fall so that I opened the show. I went over in my head the one part in the first piece where I stumbled the most in warm-ups one last time. OK, at least 11 last times. And then Queen spoke. “Find me – somebody to loooove, find me…” And we were walking out to the front of the stage, the men from stage left and the ladies from stage right. We sat down during the music on this particular night, which wasn’t always the case. The crowd was packed. Every chair was full. The music stopped. This was my cue.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Inside the Head of a Performer II - Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer II – Part 2

If you haven’t read Inside the Head of a Performer II – Part 1, you should probably do that first. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

…I had chugged my third beer about a minute before going up onto the stage. I was ready. And once again, I hadn’t planned to do this mic stand bit, but it was already in progress and I remembered from last time, so I decided to close it out. See, at the Speakeasy, the host will adjust the microphone and stand for you so all you have to worry about is telling your story. In stand up, you are expected to do it yourself and often times, will just be handed the microphone. So I decided to play with Amy. She was adjusting it and I pantomimed the universal symbol for “higher” with my hands, while making some exaggerated facial expression to the crowd to include them in on the joke. After an inch or so, I gave her the “lower” symbol. The crowd was already laughing a little. She started to realize she was the butt of a joke, but God love her, she took it in stride (if cursing him under her breath is taking it in stride). I was finally done playing with her and she left the stage. On her way down the three stairs, so that she was the only one who couldn’t see this, I took the microphone out of the stand and placed the stand behind me, smiling at the crowd. They were certainly alive tonight and already on my side before I said a word. If this were stand up, I’d have thanked Amy and the crowd, but storytelling is a little different, and so with respect for the genre, I went into my material.

The first line was “I hate cats.” It went on from there to describe their worthlessness and one person clapped. I didn’t want to lose the crowd that I got on my side from the beginning. I thanked the one person in the crowd clapping. Crowd connection is a cheap way to get crowd members on your side in stand up, and not just the one or more people you connect with. There’s a barrier that you break down and you turn more into a guy talking about a story than a professional. And that atmosphere just makes things more funny because subliminally, they sounds less rehearsed and more real. Some of the crowd laughed, but it was the gesture that was more important than the laughter. I then went on to a joke I almost cut out for the sake of time about how modern psychology would be set back 300 years of Pavlov’s wife was a cat person instead of a dog person. I never thought the crowd wouldn’t get it, I just wasn’t sure if it was worth the time, as it’s just a throwaway line and I was pushing 7 minutes. Well, I’m glad I kept it in. They loved it and it’s likely not a cat joke they’ve heard before. My first 30 seconds was definitely above average and my credos is that I want to get out of the gate strong. If you get them to laugh at your jokes in the beginning, they will start to laugh at your personality later. That’s the theory at least.

And this was great, because I knew the next 30 seconds was probably the strongest bit I had, or at least the one I was most certain about. Jenn introduced me to her 22-pound fat cat. I made fun of her fatness, which turned out to be worded about as efficiently as any joke I had “When I first met Sweetie, I was positive she was sitting on AT LEAST one other cat.” Reaction was about a 7. Then Jenn asks if I was allergic. I said no. Oh, well then you’ll love Sweetie. “No. I’m not allergic to… shit either, but I don’t want a 22-pound lump of it sitting on the couch getting hair all over my clothes.” This was my second best laugh of the night. And I’m still unsure if I stepped on my own joke. The laughter erupted right after the word shit, but I kept going as I needed to finish the sentence. I was tempted to let it resonate, but I thought I’d drive the point home. I’m OK with that decision. A definite 9 to 9.5 of laughter.

The next 4-5 minutes were filled with 4 short stories about Poe’s (new kitten’s) discovery, the cruel trick kittens play on you, the dried Sweetie poop toy and the kitty going into heat. They were met with intermittent laughter about as I thought they would be. The story about the Sweetie poop toy was understandably met with the best reaction, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I still had to make sure that I would be able to keep in my new ending. I really needed about 1:30 to pull off this ending without rushing through it to make it both funny and somewhat touching. I was tempted to skip the whole part about her going in heat. There was a contingency plan in place where rather than do the cat’s voice, I would tell a joke about it. This would save me up to 15 seconds. But right before I started to bit about her being in heat, I glanced down to see a clock sitting in front of Stephanie, who was timing the show. I also figured she probably wouldn’t ding me off the stage, but I don’t want to pretend I deserve special treatment. Shit, they dinged Vijai at a livewire. They might throw the bell at me.

Anyway, the clock read 5:00 or somewhere close to that. That was a complete stroke of luck not only to have that much time left over, but also to find out that info when I did. I was able to get into the character of the cat, which didn’t result in as many direct laughs as I’d hoped, but I got to do it and I’m sure those lived with cats in heat will remember that part. And I had about 1:30 to do the ending. The climax came when I get Poe back from the kitty hospital and she had a collar on that said “Poe Fisher.” That’s when I realized that I… was a father. That line was met with some awes and laughs and honestly went over better than I thought.

So I wanted to describe how I was a father to her and one of the funniest parts of my actual life with her is when Jenn and I will talk to her. She actually talks when either one of us gets near her toy. Not meows, but talks. It’s hard to describe, but I did some dialogue on stage. “Mare ma mare ma mare mare mare.” Oh really? Then what happened? “Mare ma mare mare.” Oh really? So the island was real and the flash sideways was purgatory? That’s interesting. “Mare mare.” I should have probably just stopped there and did my final line because that was the 10 on the laughter scale. I was unsure if a LOST reference would be gotten by this Tuesday crowd, but I figure everybody has a DVR anyway. And it’s only one week a month. But it was perfect and because it was interesting on a few different levels. First of all, it came out of nowhere. Nothing had anything to do with LOST in the entire show. Second, this is the first Speakeasy since the finale and topical stuff shows that you’re not just doing stock material all the time (see the connectivity to the crowd bit in the second paragraph). Third, it’s funny to imagine that the cat had figured out this relatively complex concept. And that’s what I was going for when I wrote it. I thought “What would a cat most likely not understand?” After thinking about several different ideas like Quantum Physics and Economics, I decided it really needed to be a current events issue. BP was on the table for a while, but then the LOST idea snuck in and I absolutely needed to see if it would work. And it did. Much better than I thought. There was some touching wrap-up that could have been cut down to one sentence after that line, but I’m still happy with it.

“Don’t get me wrong, I still hate cats. I just love my daughter.” That was the last line. Stephanie said it would be nice to hear a story that showed the crowd that I wasn’t such an ass, because most of the stories I tell paint me as such and she doesn’t think that I actually am in real life. Which was sadly a touching compliment, to be called not so much of an asshole in person. So anyway, I pulled off a story that not only didn’t make me seem like an ass, but also finally didn’t have any girls in it other than Jenn (which she was happy about) AND killed the crowd. Who knew? When Amy came back up on stage, I thought I’d play with her and mess with the mic stand. I lowered it all the way. This was honestly just meant as a follow-up to the first mic stand bit, which the crowd thought was funny, but may have been seen as a short joke, which I think she actually brought up as I was leaving. Oops.

So that’s the kind of shit that goes through my head when I’m performing on stage. This was a very pleasant experience. They aren’t always. And because I had gone over my material so much, I forgot why it was funny. I hate that. But it’s good to see that I was right when I wrote it the first time.

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