Mission: Stand Up

The basic story is this: I started off life as an actor, who got funny enough to become a comedienne, who got physical enough to get sucked into burlesque. Then burlesque figured out that I can talk, and I started hosting as a comic once again.

For anyone who has ever considered a career in stand up, it is no secret that life-o- the stand up comedian can be pretty rough. Comics don't tend to be the happiest of folks, and the industry, itself, errs towards the dog eat dog. So since I was putting enough pennies in my penny jar from working in the burlesque world, and was making people laugh to boot, I stopped working as a stand up, except for the odd set as a hangover from shows with which I had worked with in the past, and even then, my sets tended towards the ukulele, an instrument I play just barely well enough to fumble through a handful of funny songs. No more calling myself a stand-up.

Then one Saturday, out of nowhere, everything changed. I had three shows that night: the closing of my one-woman musical in the Frigid Festival, a burlesque extravaganza where I was debuting a new number, and finally, at midnight, The Naked Comedy Show--read, one of the shows I got into back when I was hungry for stand-up stage time and still requests me on line ups, I think because I am a pretty girl and it's a naked show.

After le naked show, je suis completement pooped, but a fella in the business approached me to give me feedback, real feedback, not like pat on the back, well done, kidd-o feedback. Montreal Comedy Fest auditions were early that night in the same venue, so he had lingered. I've known this fella for quite some time. He knows me as most comics know me, as living in the neither here nor there, kind of comedy, kind of burlesque world.

Now, sit tight, for here comes the big a-ha. I told him I had given up stand up and he said, quite simply, "don't." I don't think he would even remember most of what he actually said to me; it wasn't particularly eloquent or inspired, but perhaps that's part of what caught my attention. He was talking to me like I was a comic--a sitting at the big kid table, albeit at the far end of the big kid table, comic. For reasons that are neither hither nor tither, something in my head clicked.

"Hit the mics hard for a year, and you'll be fine," he said. "Go to a mic every night--every night--for a year, and you'll be making lots of money," to which I responded, "money? What's that?"

Now, I'm not sure how literally he meant this pep talk to be, and, perhaps I am clinging to it because it is giving me the kind of structure I so desperately crave in an industry that is so far out of my control, but I took it at full face value. 365 stand up sets in 365 days, and I'll be fine. If not rich and famous, at least a comedienne who gets to keep her clothes on for a living.

So here I am. 365 shows in 365 days. Then came the pregunta, what counts as a show? I can't give up burlesque all together. My penny jar needs those pennies, but burlesque can't count towards stand up. It's similar, but different. There's no talking. Well, here's the skinny--and I do mean skinny.

A show doesn't count unless I speak at least 2 minutes of original or improvised material. (2 minutes is the length of the shortest mic I know of in the city. Thanks, The PIT.) So burlesque only counts if I get to speak for at least that long before a number.

And that's pretty much it. It's back to the mics, back to $5 for 5 minutes and buying a lot of diet coke's at bars, which only a comedian can understand.

For one year, I have signed a contract to be a stand-up comedienne. No option period, no backing out, no distractions from feathers and fans. Wish me luck!