Posted by Last week I covered Open Mics, Writing Everything down, Setting a date in Get Started as a Stand up Comedian Pt.1 Here is second and final part in the series written by comedian Dan Bingham.
Step 3: Practice
From my experience this is the most helpful tool for overcoming stage fright, for calming your nerves, and for succeeding on stage. You will no doubt be terrified for the entire day before grabbing the mic for the first time. Your stomach will be in knots, your palms will be dripping, and your heart will be pounding. There’s some good news and bad news. The bad news: the nervousness might never go away. Jim Carrey threw up
before every single performance. Lewis Black was so shaky that his only way to overcome this was to create a character based on his nervous twitching. I’ve performed over 500 shows and I still need to wear dark clothing to hide the crop circles of sweat that develop under my arms.
Audiences can smell fear. Any stuttering, stumbling on words, fumbling with the microphone wire, or any other signs of weakness will make all the difference between a room full of people laughing and dead silence. The good news: preparation can hide your nervousness. The better you know your material the less scared you’ll appear on stage. Most open mics require you to perform five minutes of material. Make sure you know every second of those five minutes off by heart. Some comics rehearse jokes in front of a mirror, some bounce them off friends, I pace my apartment while talking out loud. Sometimes when I’m walking the streets I’ll be rehearsing jokes, so to avoid looking completely insane to people I’ll pretend to be talking into my cell phone.
The point is to know what you’re going to say and exactly how you’re going to say before you step on the stage. The more prepared you are, the less frightened you’ll be, and the better you’ll be able to handle situations which occur while you’re on stage. If you’re too focused on the words coming out of your mouth, a waitress dropping a glass will ruin you. You’ll forget where you are, you won’t know where to pick up again, and then panic starts to set in. I’ve been in panic mode a few times and let me tell you, not fun. You’re exactly like a deer in headlights, you’re body is frozen and your brain is completely blank. The harder you try to find your next joke, the more elusive any rational thoughts become. So the more you practice at home, the more the material becomes a part of you. You’ll be talking, but your brain will be free to think a few steps ahead and you’ll be able to handle the broken glass, or the microphone cutting out, or a drunk dude flipping backwards off his chair, anything.
Before my first open mic, I knew my five minutes so well you could have yanked me out of a deep sleep and thrown me into a mine field, and I still could have performed it without one stutter.
Rehearsal Tips
-Record yourself while you practice. You’ll be amazed at how much you have to say about certain topics and you don’t want to forget some of the hilarious observations you come up with.
-When rehearsing your stuff, it also helps to hold something in your hand like a marker or a cordless phone, to get yourself used to the feel of a microphone. You’d be surprised how the simple action of taking a mic off its stand or adjusting it to the right height can completely throw you off your game. You might also adopt a more stationary style, in which case you’ll simply stand behind the mic stand, giving you the freedom to incorporate both of your hands into your jokes.
-Time yourself. Write down how much time it takes for each joke, and don’t forget to leave a few seconds in between each one for “laughter.” All together your first set should be timed at about 4:30, leaving space for mishaps and/or laughter. Most comedy clubs have a red light which lets you know when to wrap things up. Make sure you know where it is so you don’t miss it. For a five minute set you might get lit at 4:00 or 4:30, ask whoever’s in charge when they give the light.
Nothing will end your comedy career faster than going over your time. You’re disrespecting everyone else on the show when you hog more stage time than was assigned. Some club owners will ban you for months if you go one minute over. It’s infinitely better to go short than to go long. Even if you’re killing and having the time of your life, when you see the light, wrap things up.
Step 4: Hecklers
For some bizarre reason, when you tell your friends that you’re getting into stand up comedy, the first thing they’ll say is “Cool! I’m totally gonna come see you and heckle.” They’ll even go as far as saying “I’ll bring tomatoes.” Friends are supportive like that. Whenever my accountant friends say stuff to me like that I say “Great! Then on Monday I’ll come to your office and take a dump on your keyboard.”
But heckling is one of any new comic’s greatest fears. But trust me when I tell you that for your first few months you shouldn’t even worry about it. Open mics are generally a supportive atmosphere, and the audience is usually filled with people supporting their friends on stage (minus the tomatoes of course). The host will hopefully tell people to refrain from heckling, and they usually get the crowd to “Show some love and respect for the next comic.”
If, however, you do get some drunk douche bag heckling you, the best thing to do is ignore them. Don’t do what I did the first time I got heckled which was to stop the show and ask the guy to step outside to “talk.” No one felt good after that, least of all me. Hecklers are looking for attention and they don’t deserve yours. It takes years of experience to A) shut these people down without starting a fight B) Maintain a positive atmosphere with the rest of the audience C) Jump back into your material without skipping a beat. The more shows you do and the more you watch professionals handling hecklers, the more confident you’ll become with stepping out of your act to properly handle these situations. Watch how legendary Bill Hicks dealt with a drunk woman, notice how you feel during his “retort,” and then watch how he makes it all better in the end.
Step 5: Just have fun
When I was a rookie comic starting out (I’ve been doing this for a little under five years now, and I’m still considered a rookie!), I would bug all the headliners for advice and tips on being successful, and they would all give me the same frustrating advice: “Just have fun up there!” I would come at them with all these technical questions about punchlines, personas, scenarios and they would always hit me with the same answer. “Just be yourself. Have fun up there!” I would get so annoyed, because I felt like they were avoiding my questions. It took a few years but it finally sunk in. It was right before a high pressure show, I was auditioning for the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival, wall to wall people in the club with two judges in the back of the room, and I was a complete stress bag. I couldn’t decide which jokes to tell, which order to tell them in, whether or not I should make last second changes to my jokes, I was a mess. A good friend of mine and a fantastic comic saw me pacing intensely and he placed his hands on my shoulders, looked me dead in the eyes and said “Dude, relax. You know you’re funny, you make people laugh every day. Going up on stage is no different. Just tell your favourite jokes, be yourself, and have fun up there!” I finally got it. It doesn’t always matter what you’re talking about on stage, as long as you’re enjoying yourself. If the audience sees you having a blast, they’ll want to join the party. When you’re happy, you’re relaxed, and when you’re relaxed, you’re not worried about what to say next. Just have fun, and you’ll be the hilarious person that got you into this whole comedy mess in the first place.
