This past weekend marked an exciting milestone for me, as it was my first weekend hosting at a comedy club. It wasn’t my very first time hosting on a weekend — that happened last month — but it was my first time hosting all four weekend shows.
The venue was Giggles, and the headliner was 2009 Giggles Laugh-Off Champion Mike Cummings. A number of other great comics did feature sets, including headliners Rick Kunkel (visiting from LA), Drew Barth, and Andrew Sleighter.
While I had my 5-7 minutes of best material down cold, I was still Nervous. As. Fuck. All in all, though, I think it went pretty well. The ups and downs, specifically:
Oops — Stupid Mistakes
Areas to improve…
- I’m still not entirely comfortable on stage, especially when speaking extemporaneously. I had some weird word-salad jumbles, like saying “this night’s headliner” (instead of “tonight’s”), calling an unmarried female comedian “Mrs.,”1 and other little goofs. I expect this will improve with time and practice.
- I was probably stricter with the light than I needed to be, especially with the earlier acts. Typical rookie overcompensation.
- A good friend of mine, doing his very first weekend show, bombed really badly. Like, crickets and tumbleweeds. As the MC I should’ve acknowledged it and then goofed on him a bit, to bring the crowd’s energy back up before introducing the next comic. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, though, even though I know he could’ve handled it. I was too much of a pussy.
- This pretty much goes without saying, since I’m still pretty new, but my act in general needs lots of improvement.
Yay — Good Stuff
Stuff I managed to not screw up, or otherwise seemed to go well…
- Opened with topical, high-energy crowd participation (“Let’s hear it for 2010,” then New Year’s jokes) which seemed to warm them up pretty well. Not doing this was the biggest mistake during the first time I hosted.
- Included a routine (“Tech Support”) specifically built around crowd work, further warming up the audience.
- Didn’t mispronounce any names — not to be taken for granted when the features include Paul Mestemaker and Edi Zanidache.
- Displayed some adaptability between sets by throwing out material that didn’t work very well (“Spiders”) and adding some tags to material that was doing especially well.
Being able to adapt my act so quickly is a luxury that I don’t usually have. When I’m doing open mics, it can take two or three weeks to get on stage four times, so the evolutionary process takes a lot longer. Going up four times in a single weekend sped up the improvement process immeasurably. It was like a Rocky montage (without any testosterone).
Not really an asshole. Unless you
sit in his section at the restaurant.
One final note about the weekend. When people in Seattle’s comedy community hear the names Mike Cummings and Terry Taylor, the first words that spring to mind probably aren’t friendly and encouraging. They both seem quite content with their hard-boiled reputations, too. Well, I’m sorry to dispel the illusion, but they were both supportive of their humble host and a pleasure to work with.
Plus, I can’t imagine how many doors “I’ve opened for Mike Cummings” will open for me, now. If I moved to LA tomorrow I’d probably have a sitcom by next week.
Related entries on this site:
- My first weekend show as host
- Preparing a set list
- How to write a joke: Joke Structure
- Crowd work: playing with the audience
- “Why do you do comedy?”
- After her set, I tried using a saver to get out of the faux pax… and it bombed, too. Ah well. Sorry, Carol! Next time I won’t dig the hole in the first place. [↩]
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