Yesterday(10/23/11) I tried my hand at one of the toughest things to do, making a room of people laugh with a stand-up comedy act. Over the past month I had been taking a six-week course provided by a show programmer at Caroline's in New York, one of the best known stand-up comedy establishments in the country, and the graduation for the class was a live performance on Caroline's infamous stage in front of a live audience. Granted, most in the audience were there to see us students perform and the place was only about 30% of capacity, but it was a sizeable enough crowd to rattle the nerves a little.
There were two shows in which our class was broken up into, one at 2pm and another at 4:30pm. I was slotted in for the 2pm show and I went about 6th or 7th in the performing pecking order. There were also more seasoned comics on hand for both shows to host, open, and close, as us students didn't have enough experience for those types of roles. My set last about 4 minutes, although the goal was 5 minutes, but in comedy shows like that its better too be short than go over your time limit. The bit was a humorous look at being in a racially mixed relationship, and overall I think it went well. Not all the jokes got laughs, but most of them did, so that's fine with me. I was nervous being up there on the stage with the bright light and having like 40 people looking at me, but once I got that first laugh it took the pressure off and I was able to go into my routine.
I'll need to write some more material and test it out at some open mic shows, which I plan on doing, but getting back to Caroline's I was also able to experience what its like for performers. We entered through the kitchen, we hung out in the dressing room (Comedian D.L. Hughley was scheduled to perform that night at a later show and they had his name posted on the dressing room door). Also in the dressing room is a private bathroom which must have been used by the most infamous names in the history of comedy, which also forced me to have to take a pitcure of it. One of the other students also said Darrell Hammond, longtime star on Saturday Night Live and best known for his impersonations of Al Gore and Chris Matthews, stopped in the club for a brief moment. Our teacher is good friends with him and earlier in the day she told us he might be stopping by. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see him and I don't think he struck around very long to watch any of the acts, but at least I got a good picture of the toilet.
There were two shows in which our class was broken up into, one at 2pm and another at 4:30pm. I was slotted in for the 2pm show and I went about 6th or 7th in the performing pecking order. There were also more seasoned comics on hand for both shows to host, open, and close, as us students didn't have enough experience for those types of roles. My set last about 4 minutes, although the goal was 5 minutes, but in comedy shows like that its better too be short than go over your time limit. The bit was a humorous look at being in a racially mixed relationship, and overall I think it went well. Not all the jokes got laughs, but most of them did, so that's fine with me. I was nervous being up there on the stage with the bright light and having like 40 people looking at me, but once I got that first laugh it took the pressure off and I was able to go into my routine.
I'll need to write some more material and test it out at some open mic shows, which I plan on doing, but getting back to Caroline's I was also able to experience what its like for performers. We entered through the kitchen, we hung out in the dressing room (Comedian D.L. Hughley was scheduled to perform that night at a later show and they had his name posted on the dressing room door). Also in the dressing room is a private bathroom which must have been used by the most infamous names in the history of comedy, which also forced me to have to take a pitcure of it. One of the other students also said Darrell Hammond, longtime star on Saturday Night Live and best known for his impersonations of Al Gore and Chris Matthews, stopped in the club for a brief moment. Our teacher is good friends with him and earlier in the day she told us he might be stopping by. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see him and I don't think he struck around very long to watch any of the acts, but at least I got a good picture of the toilet.
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