About a month ago, I was presented with the opportunity to Emcee my high school’s After Prom. For those not in the know, After Prom is a school sponsored event held to prevent teen partying / knocking up your date / countless other dalliances that tend to happen after the Prom. It’s a pretty cool agreement between the school and its students – in exchange for an entertainment and snack-packed after party sponsored by the school, the prom goers agree to stay within the premises between midnight and 5 AM. The only problem is, even the best of us get fed up with free soft pretzels and skee-ball after a few hours, and just want to go to bed. I remember getting a little cagey at 3:30 AM when I went.
Long story short, I was never really crystal clear on what my responsibilities as Emcee entailed. I knew the theme was New York, and I’d be handling segues between acts on a stage that was set up in the gym (AKA, Central Park), amidst bumper cars (New York traffic), the prize desk, and other attractions. Any friends or family that advised me on the gig mostly said to not worry about preparing stand-up material. As Emcee, I should just keep things moving, make the occasional comment when appropriate, and just generally be charming. And for the most part, these people were right.
For the first four hours of the evening, I barely had a chance to even crack jokes. Both the high school band with a penchant for Creed covers and the break-dancing/martial arts dance troupe (apparently that just isn’t a joke from Zoolander) used as much stage time as they felt they deserved, and weren’t exactly receptive to my role. Mainly, I would sheepishly ask for the microphone during every break to read never-ending prize winner lists for the prize committee. And really, you can make only so many jokes like “Hope Caldwell, I HOPE you make your way over to the prize desk to collect your winnings” in a short time. I was a glorified list-reader, and I was OK with that.
Out of some delirious impulse, toward the end of the night, I felt that I needed my time. Thoughts of “I was hired to be funny, damnit, and I haven’t done what I can do” started to creep in. So when the prize committee needed to fill ten minutes in between the Break Dancer’s last set and the large prize announcements. While they organized the drawings for the Nintendo Wii, flat-screen TV, and car, they needed me to entertain the increasing crowd of students waiting to hear if their name would be drawn. Bam. My first opportunity to do stand-up.
Let me tell you, it went terribly. Not Michael Richards terrible, but pretty damn bad. I BOMBED. However, that gut-wrenching realization that the look in my brother’s eyes from the audience was genuine pity came with a few lessons. While a number of these rules may seem to be common sense, let me tell you – they are much easier to remember when you experience the consequences of not following them first-hand.
1) Never, ever, ever depend on audience participation.
Let me justify my decision to rely on audience participation. Since I had no stand-up experience prior to last Saturday, I figured I’d go with an opening technique that Full Ammo uses. It’s called a wallet, and it’s based on a volunteer from the audience. While interviewing the volunteer, you look through their wallet and ask them about whatever strange items you might find tucked away. In exchange for the attention, you get to poke fun at this stranger’s belongings. I went with an amended version – I didn’t ask for wallets, but started with a “Prom/After Prom” theme to the questions as a launching pad.
Surprisingly, it went well at first. The first volunteer was fairly receptive – I managed to weave in a pre-written joke about an assistant principal giving me a cavity search that – as I remember – was well received. After I thanked her, things got a little out of hand.
You see, after the rest of the audience realizes you aren’t going to do anything horrible to the volunteer, they do not hesitate to jump right into the chair across from you on stage. In a three-minute span, I had one of the break-dancing troupe members grab the mic to beatbox, (Thanks man, that was really relevant and appropriate. You’re totally not starved for attention.) a student use his interview opportunity to drop the F-bomb (classy), and another kid give me “I’ve got nothing” as a response to four straight questions (not douche-y at all).
I realized that when the audience feels like it’s their turn to be funny (which, I can say, they quite possibly failed worse at than I did), you’re doing more harm than good when choosing to involve them. So I essentially decide to ditch the improv-inspired stuff (to be fair, at 4ish in the morning, the mind wasn’t exactly what it is in Room 6 on Sundays), and do my stand-up material.
2) Inexperienced comedians should not cut their teeth in front of an audience with which they are personally familiar.
I got heckled by a kid I played street hockey with in middle school. How fucked up is that?
The truth is, if the audience knows you, they’re probably not going to fear you. This is especially relevant if you are a nice person. Whether they think they’re “helping” or just feel like being a dick on a whim, you’re not some new, unpredictable figure. You’re just a guy who’s probably going to take their shit.
One remedy to this problem is outright challenging someone to a duel at the beginning of a set, kicking them in the stomach when they’re not ready, and smashing a bottle over their head – screaming “I GET OFF ON THIS SHIT!” I didn’t get the opportunity to try this strategy, but while I’m Monday Morning Quarterbacking my first stand-up experience, I thought I’d bring it up.
3) If it’s after 3 in the morning, chances are, the audience will not be receptive to your more bizarre material. Or any of your material, for that matter.
I know that the majority of the audience just wanted to hear who won the car, and get the hell back to their fluffy beds. But somehow, that knowledge didn’t come to mind when I started my “babies having babies” bit that I had been working on.
You see, somewhere in the “hey, it’s cool you guys aren’t doing it on prom night” discussion, I brought up my distaste for the phrase “babies having babies.” I wrote a bit about how in my mind, it’s terrifying to imagine an infant in the delivery room, going through labor. I find it funny and would be glad to recite it to you in person. In that gymnasium, I was the only one who found it funny.
I realize that if you’re tired and cranky, laughter doesn’t come naturally. Believe me, I understand it on an entirely different level now.
4) “Edgy” material can provide a spark. Or just make things go up in flames.
When I had exhausted the majority of my material, I had the bright idea of “hey, maybe I’ll do something in the ‘borderline’ category to shake things up.” So, out of the blue, I say:
“Question for the audience – I go to church every Sunday. Does the fact that I’m playing Who Would You Do? most of the time cancel it out? On one hand, I’m a college student, taking the time to wake up early on a Sunday and celebrate Christ dying for my sins, but at the same time, I’m wondering if the carpet matches the curtains.”
Not only did it not get a big laugh, but my brother said the general response from where he was sitting was “intense hatred.” Especially with an audience that didn’t necessarily show up to see comedy, it’s best to keep this material to yourself.
5) If it’s 4 AM and you’ve been up since the previous morning, there’s a good chance you won’t remember your material - especially if you have barely rehearsed it.
Thank God I wrote prompts for bits on an index card I kept in my back pocket. It’s the only way I barely filled those 10 minutes. At the same time, an extra two minutes of material that I had written completely vacated my mind when I was sweating under the spotlight. I wouldn’t call it nerves – I actually took bombing in stride. It was that I was so tired.
I realize that the tempting assurances of “don’t worry about writing material” allowed me to eschew rehearsing the material. This was no doubt relevant even to the barely cogent audience when I didn’t bother to segue in between jokes about T.I. and the aforementioned “babies having babies” abortion (criminally easy joke to make, but I couldn’t resist).
6) If you’re giving shit away, people don’t want to hear about how funny you found drug assemblies in high school.
The absurdity of administrators going over the finer points “turbo blunts” is probably genuinely funny to people. But it’s not funny enough to precede giving away a car.
Not only was this audience ready to get the hell out of the school, but they all had a chance to win fabulous prizes. And this sweaty, sad, shell of an alumnus was the buffer between them and their named being called.
7) Technology is rarely your friend.
What’s worse than comedy no one is enjoying? Comedy that no one is enjoying, that is interrupted by the microphone cutting out. During the night I used four different sound systems - from the band’s mic, the DJ’s sound system, a midget amp that blew, and finally a stand-alone fender amplifier with a mic plugged in. Unfortunately, when I moved around (as I often do when talking), the microphone would occasionally cut out. Unfortunate given the circumstances.
8) Always prepare more material than you think you would ever need.
The second-most important lesson I learned. This goes hand-in-hand with #5, but really if you want to be taken seriously, pauses should come naturally, and not when you’re fishing for that index card and muttering about college coming up. Not surprisingly, the most excruciating part of my set was when I ran out of pre-written material.
I have had a recurring dream where I am asked to do stand-up unexpectedly. Somehow I just muse aloud and it works out in the dream – I do OK. Yeah…that just doesn’t happen. Within the final minute, I asked a crowd that was half-populated by high school seniors if anyone was preparing for college. Seriously. Then I ended on question whether or not it was racist for me to be excited when I found out my first college roommate was biracial, and that I really shouldn’t have been excited at all because he turned out to be kind of a dick.
Clearly, this was not a strong closer.
Let me tell you, I cannot remember how many times I have seen genuine pity in my brother’s eyes. But I will never forget the look he gave me in the middle of my set in the twilight of After Prom. It was that bad.
Of course, I can’t end on that performance. I owe it to myself to do it again. And again, and again. Until I get good.
Hopefully I’ll learn less next time.
