Am I Being Funny Yet

Local comic dishes on COMO’s standup scene

Imagine yourself on a stage.  

You’re standing up there by yourself with a microphone in your hand. You’re tired from working all day, and now you’re in a dimly lit bar late on Tuesday night, bright lights shining in your face, you’re starting to sweat, and you’re standing in front of a crowd full of strangers. Who are all those people watching you? 

Does this sound like fun? 

No, in fact, this sounds like a terrible idea, which is what you’re thinking as you’re standing up there on stage, microphone in hand, about to perform.  

Why are you even up here anyway?  

COMO stand-up comic Ryan Sheehan takes a shot at open mic night.

Well, it’s because you watched a stand-up comedy before, and you thought it would be easy. You watched some comedy specials or other comics perform live, and you thought you could give it a try. Everyone tells you that you’re a funny person, so why not get up on stage? Being funny in a conversation is the same thing, right?  

No, it’s not.  

But it’s too late now. You’re standing up there on stage, the host has already introduced you by name, people have clapped for you, and everyone is waiting in anticipation. You’re the one who signed up to do this thing, remember? No one forced you. 

You have to perform. 

And so, you do. You start your set by opening with one of your best jokes, your second-best joke ideally. And you save your very best joke for last. It’s the beginning and the end where your audience will remember your material the most.  

But you’ve never performed your material before, only in your living room or in your car. So, you truly have no idea if the audience will think it’s funny. The only way to find out is to do it live. Which is what you are doing, right now.  

You go into your material. You have it memorized, beat-for-beat, the flow of it thought out, and everything. You even have it written down on your phone just in case. You’re in the zone.  

But wait, you didn’t get that many laughs with your first joke? Now what?  

From here, you just have to keep going. You’re like an athlete, who is not going to get the time they were aiming for. But you have to keep going and see it through. Just keep it up. Just for a few more minutes.  

The audience is laughing now, but not at the jokes you thought were actually funny. Were you wrong before or was it just your delivery? But hey, they’re laughing, right? That’s what’s important. And it’s their laughter that gives you the drive to make it to the finish line.  

When you are finally down and you get off stage, after what felt like way longer than just five minutes, you feel relief. Honestly, in my personal experience, that’s my favorite part of performing stand-up. When it’s all over, for better or worse. And I can just go home.  

Now, once you’re off stage, you can quickly gauge how well you did. It’s all in the way that people come up to you afterward. People will usually tell you that you did a good job, regardless, but it’s in the way that they say it that you can really tell. If one of your friends or another comic comes up to you, and says you did a good job, but in a very delicate way, then you probably didn’t do that well. But if a complete stranger walks up to you at the bar, and says, “Man, you were good up there,” then you probably did pretty well. 

At the end of the day, performing comedy can be really hard. But it can also be very rewarding. It’s the worst of times, and the best of times. 

Every comedian fears bombing live on stage. Bombing is when you just say joke after joke, and no one is laughing. The audience is just sitting there, watching you silently. But bombing is part of the process. Every comic will bomb when they are first starting out and then some. But, as another comic explained to me once, people will forget about it within a day or two.  

It’s when you perform well on stage that you will truly leave an impression on people. They will remember a good set for a while, I know I do when I watch other comics perform. 

Having people, friends or strangers, come up to you afterward and give you positive feedback is a good feeling. Really, that’s what makes you stick with it week after week. It makes the whole thing worth it.  

A lot of the joy in performing stand-up also comes from when you are off-stage. When you’re just standing around with the regulars and the other comics and having a good time. Part of performing stand-up is finding a good comedy scene, which means finding a good place to perform, where the more experienced comics are accepting and don’t exclude anyone. 

They give you something to be a part of.  

It can be a scary thing, but I would sincerely recommend giving stand-up comedy a try for anyone interested.