after hosting a rocking, high-energy show of 10 comics at the sf comedy clubhouse saturday, i went up in the pro lineup for the first time on the clubhouse’s new 5th floor pro stage for a drunk audience of about 80.
there’s a huge difference between performing on a smaller lounge-style stage for 40 where you can make eye contact with everyone in the room, and a larger stage with bright lights where everyone but the first two rows is lost in the glare. i love the roar of the larger crowd (when i can *get* them to roar…), but prefer the intimacy of jamming with an audience i can actually see. performing under blinding hot lights is like performing in a room by yourself; the larger the stage, the easier your energy dissipates, so you have to work extra hard to conquer the space.
here are some big-stage tips.
first, open with something quick and hilarious—you want ‘em laughing as fast as possible.
stalk the stage to make it seem smaller, and occasionally come to the foot. getting closer to the crowd even for just a moment makes you seem more accessible, and gives you a chance to escape the lights and see farther. make real eye contact and work as many rows as you can see during your set. there’s a reason why people in the first 2 rows get all of the attention at a show: the comedian probably can’t see anyone else! work those rows, riff with them, turn them into fools or stars or fool-stars, and the crowd won’t notice that you’re three-quarters blind up there.
if you hear an audience member in the back row yell something, use it if the timing feels right. if you didn’t catch what was yelled, shield your eyes, look out, smile, and say, “what was that?” then go after it. don’t ignore it just because it came from 50 feet away; let the people in back feel connected to you too. who knows, they could wind up being the best laughers in the whole room.
before your set, hang out in back and watch the comics who are performing. it’s a polite gesture and great for networking, plus it gives you a chance to scope out the crowd for riffing ideas and capture whatever details the previous comedians are mining about the crowd that you can then use for callbacks when you go up.
finally, use these onomatopoeic words to emulate the dental, alveolar, and laminal clicks of the clicking languages spoken by indigenous peoples in parts of africa and northern australia:
click
clack
clock
cluck
gleek
July 31st, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Hey SNL Ripoff Police,
You’re a rotten hypocrite; your comments are longer than the blog content areas.
Think before ya write. Better yet. Drink, Drive, don’t survive and don’t write anymore of your own shit. Hey, instead of turning in your badge like small time commish recommends. Once you’re dead, your significant other, son, daughter, et al can keep the badge as a reminder of their asshole father (assuming you have a penis) who writes too much.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Oh you fuckin’ fraud commish.
Season 4 of Curb ripoff on that last riff of yours.
“larry, david. david, larry.”
I remember Mel Brooks line when he was reproducing the Producer’s on Curb, in season cuatro, homz.
It went a little like:
Ben Stiller had just quit the show and they just signed david schwimmer to take the accountants place and mel brook says to L.D.
“Hey, now we can save money on the Marquee – Starring in the producers: Larry David Schwimmer.
Caught and arrested, Cheat sheet. what’s up little league? gonna play now, beatch?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
i am unworthy to lick the comedic sweat from larry david’s sack. he’s the funniest jew there is, and i can say that because i’m a muslim jew and a health food nut. i founded an organization called
“Muslims for Juices.” look it up.
so it must be strange for him when he gets introduced to someone named david.
“larry, david. david, larry.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
You got me: I didn’t read all of the pre-blog entry, and youre right. i took a pot shot and got my ass kicked. but to add insult to injury, i’m gonna tell SFJEWs that you don’t think seinfeld is funny.
just kidding… i don’t think he is either. he forces it. i remember him trying to get back on the comedians circuit either in LA SF or NYC, and HBO did a documentary about it. I just think he got lucky in the early 90′s and GE-NBC just kept it on – knowing somehow we – collectively as an audience – would fall pray to stupid ass humor.”
But then look at Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” it’s the best thing going, ever! He was co – creator of Seinfeld – with Jerry, so maybe it was his (LD’S) genius that got the show to do so well for 9 -10 years. But it’s obvious that too-benign J. Seinfeld could do anything substantial on his own. If he was brilliant; like his partner for 10 years (Larry David) he would’ve done something long ago, after the show stopped, to show that he had an “edge” to be a true comedian – in his own right. or pick a medium to show his talent.
And if anyone says that by being in TV for 10 years means that you have true comedic talent, you and your family is just one big brain fart and should kill yourselves, jamestown style. Kool-Aid and Syonide bitches!
those pre-show and mid show stints that the show “Seinfeld” showed of him doing stand up w/n the sitcom are analogous to movie snippets of a movie trailer with video and soundbites to stimulate; the downside is you know it’s the best thing in the movie and that all the other content, just sucks.
Plus mr. Commish: i never said he wrote it. so, you’re just as guilty as me not reading what I fully said, just as i was guilty about not reading the blog entry on back stage comedians.
It’s just that everything wichmann writes on his blog is too fuckin’ long to read, that one is just inclined to read the last part and create his/her own snap judgement or perception of things.
His writing is creative and good; and more importantly his medium that he chooses to communicate is cutting edge, but the fucker just needs to foreshorten some areas on his blog. In other words too much reading; before one gets to “post”, properly!
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
there was no SNL violation, you copper anus! first of all, scotch’s entry wasn’t a skit. second, the mere use of cluck-cluck in some hacky SNL bit doesn’t mean that somebody else can’t utter those words in a humorous way and make a joke; if that were the case, nobody would do dick jokes anymore cuz some dark ages wanker in chainmail probably did the first one in 1015 A.D. finally, the post’s humor was in the double-meaning of “clicking” — a reference both to the noise, and also to the notion of “getting along” or “doing well” on stage, as in “clicking with the audience” — look at the title of the entry. jesus. plus, SNL didn’t even begin to capture the variety of english words that mimic clicking languages — cluck-cluck, fine, but where was click? where was gleek? nowhere, that’s where, except in scotch’s VERY ORIGINAL blog entry. and seinfield didn’t write that bit, so don’t call him a fuckin genius. he’s a douche just like every other comedian who wonders aloud, “golly, george, what’s the deal with cotton?”
time to turn in your badge, bitch!
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Dude: that skit’s been done on SNL, douchebag! It was when Jerry Seinfeld played an 8th grade basketball stud for his Jewish private school; he and mr. cluck-cluck who could only speak the cluck language scored all of the baskets. Mary Catherine Gallagher was in the skit, as well trying to scam on the Jewish Private School Basketball star!
Mr. Cluck-Cluck, over and out.