Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Working out new material
Working out new material – Judy bombs!
After years of doing corporate comedy, keeping it clean, and edgeless, I was getting bored. Money is great, but I missed the excitement of the comedy salad days. I challenged myself by working a comedy club in Berlin. I hit topics that I would never do at a corporate gig: concentration camps, gay marriage, erotica museums… (See Berlin blog). Wow! It got me so high walking the comedy edge again.
So, I’m now doing something that is one of the scariest challenges I’ve ever done: I’m going to my standup classes, not as the teacher, but as a student. The first day, the teacher, Cary Odes did an incredible exercise of finding the “Anti-You.” Meaning, what are the qualities of a character that would be your opposite. We then had to get up and perform need material. I’ve performed with President Clinton in front of 8500 people. But that pales in comparison to getting up in front of the 9 other comics in the class. It’s not easy being the “Comedy Goddess who wrote the book.” I knew I was going to suck.
That’s the thing that makes doing standup a constant challenge. No matter how much success you have – you will always suck when trying new material. Go watch “The Comedian” and watch Seinfeld struggle and bomb trying to put together a new five minute set. But avoiding bombing by doing the same material gig after gig is a killer in a different kind of way. So, I got up, did my new set, some bits worked, most bombed, but joining my students in their struggle rather than sitting back in the comfortable teachers chair – exciting!
After years of doing corporate comedy, keeping it clean, and edgeless, I was getting bored. Money is great, but I missed the excitement of the comedy salad days. I challenged myself by working a comedy club in Berlin. I hit topics that I would never do at a corporate gig: concentration camps, gay marriage, erotica museums… (See Berlin blog). Wow! It got me so high walking the comedy edge again.
So, I’m now doing something that is one of the scariest challenges I’ve ever done: I’m going to my standup classes, not as the teacher, but as a student. The first day, the teacher, Cary Odes did an incredible exercise of finding the “Anti-You.” Meaning, what are the qualities of a character that would be your opposite. We then had to get up and perform need material. I’ve performed with President Clinton in front of 8500 people. But that pales in comparison to getting up in front of the 9 other comics in the class. It’s not easy being the “Comedy Goddess who wrote the book.” I knew I was going to suck.
That’s the thing that makes doing standup a constant challenge. No matter how much success you have – you will always suck when trying new material. Go watch “The Comedian” and watch Seinfeld struggle and bomb trying to put together a new five minute set. But avoiding bombing by doing the same material gig after gig is a killer in a different kind of way. So, I got up, did my new set, some bits worked, most bombed, but joining my students in their struggle rather than sitting back in the comfortable teachers chair – exciting!
