Moving on Up: What next?
This was in response to a question about moving on to “the next level” in comedy.
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It sort of depends on your intended career path. Typically you put together a press kit (bio, resume, quotes, headshots, you can download one from Eugene Mirman’s site to see an example). Road comics will send that to clubs around the area they want to perform, presumably the same is true for comics living in a major comedy area. DC really only has on “A” room (and only 2 rooms that I really want to perform in professionally). What I did was I entered a competition at the DC Improv. I won my round and am competing in the finals next week. The point of this though isn’t really to win, that doesn’t really matter. The point is really just to be seen and prove you can entertain people. Competitions are only really valuable from the exposure perspective. Winning is nice, but again I always try to bring the focus back to process. As I said though, I’m not really focused on doing this paid full time until I go up to NY or out to LA which I have tentative plans to do Q1 or Q2 2009.
Honestly, the thing I would mostly say is focus on honing your craft. When you’re ready, opportunities will present themselves to you (sometimes when you’re not quite ready they will too and you have to decide whether or not to risk it and take them; this is a difficult situation I’ve been in quite a few times). Focus on not only writing good jokes but just being present on stage and creating a funny live show — something people feel like they can’t just replicate the next day at work, something people will say “hey, you’ve got to see this guy live.” A lot of comics can make an audience laugh, but there are between 5 and 15 comics on most shows, so you’ve got to somehow be memorable. If you think about what makes Steven Wright so memorable it is both his abstract, philosophical jokes, but it’s also the fact that he delivers totally absurd ideas in a completely straight deadpan way and he looks like some kind of crazy homeless guy who wandered off the streets and is sharing his ‘vision’ with you.
The danger here is gimmickry. I’m not advocating gimmickry, and I think there is a fine line here, but your job here is finding an organic way of packaging and delivering your comic worldview. Something that is both unique and natural coming from you. Galifianakis plays the piano, bursts into yelling at his audience, writes on an easel, hires choirs and occasionally dresses in a little orphan annie outfit… It’s memorable and it’s there for a reason. Now you could claim the dress is a bit gimmicky, but a guy who looks like a gruff lumberjack wearing a dress singing songs from Annie is pretty hysterical, and he doesn’t do it all the time. His focus is on constantly surprising his audience, so he tries new things out and does something for a while until it gets tired, but it’s all stuff that makes sense coming from him. There is a logic to the dress because it is in direct opposition to how he looks (whereas if he were a sort of fay looking skinny guy wearing a dress it would be less comical. Opposite is a much stronger relationship than just odd).
Your primary responsibility as an artist is to your audience and to yourself. You’re almost certainly going to have to change your material to make it accessible to more people, and the balancing act is finding out how to appeal to a lot of people while avoiding diluting yourself or pandering to the lowest common denominator. You try out jokes and listen to the audience. If you’ve put a joke on stage 3-5 times and it still isn’t working… rewrite it or throw it out. Unlike other art forms comedy not only requires an audience but also asks for a specific and clearly discernible reaction, so everyone knows whether you’re succeeding or not — the sound of an audience watching a dramatic masterpiece is about the same as the sound of an audience watching a dramatic mediocrity, not so with comedy. Comedy is compared to athletics a lot for this reason. This makes it harder because there’s not much room for bluffing, but it’s also much more honest feedback, and if you can get past your own ego (a problem many comedians have, myself included) and listen to your audience they will tell you where you are funniest, and this will inform your craft and sharpen your comedy.
In classical music and other works there is always a tension between display (what is accessible and enjoyable to an audience) and discourse (what shows a mastery of the craft). Some people err on the side of too much display, i.e., they pander, and produce things like melodrama or stock genre pieces (e.g., hacky RomComs). Other people err on the side of too much discourse and produce pieces that are technically impressive but have no appeal (e.g., a lot of atonal contemporary music). A balance is needed, and struck by some (Mozart is probably the most popular example in classical music, but I would also be comfortable citing the cohen brothers). There are artists who produce work that is both technically masterful and able to be enjoyed by wide audiences. The mere fact that lots of people enjoy a piece doesn’t make it lowbrow or lowest common denominator, it is just that LCD stuff aspires specifically to appeal to the most people, wheras highbrow or high quality stuff aspires to articulate an individual or clear artistic perspective, and sometimes that does not appeal to as many people and sometimes it does. If you want to appeal to everyone you’re going to lose yourself. If you want to just do what makes you laugh, that’s fine but you’ll probably go hungry. There is a middle ground, and your job as an artist is to find it.
This is not to say fuck what the manager says. If the manager asks you to avoid something like cursing or politics, well yes you should try to comply to the extent that it doesn’t ruin your material because if you piss off the manager you’re not going to get booked again, but if you’re not at all funny you’re also not going to get booked again. A happy audience makes a happy manager, and if a manager isn’t interested in listening to a happy audience, then you don’t need to work in that venue. Road and bar venues also like it when comics encourage the audience to drink since it drives up profits, but don’t do it if it doesn’t fit with what you’re doing. It’s all about finding the right balance. In Comedy - and in life - compromise is critical, but don’t compromise yourself, you know?
