THE CHALLENGE
___One
of our favorite partners, the Tampa
Improv Comedy Club, features an open-mic
night where the next Seinfeld or Sinbad
hopeful can get his or her fifteen minutes,
or in this case, five minutes, of fame.
It is a joy to witness the variety of
amateurs line-up and entertain, but
to report on this I needed an inside
look. What is it like to be behind the
mic and face a crowd? I decided to personally
find out.
___What
was going through my head?
___ My
friends and family know, and remind
me, that public speaking is not my best
talent. I had to tread with respect
and do a little homework. Fortunately
I have had the chance to meet some great
comedians within the past few years,
and as a closet-spotlight dreamer, have
been taking mental notes all the while.
___So Wednesday,
the night of December 29th, I went to
the club, introduced myself to the other
dozen or so comedians and decided to
pick their brains between acts. They,
like the MC and club owner, knew full-well
why I was there, and none of them thought
I was crazy to go up on stage myself.
My first observation, even before conducting
my first on-the-record interview, was
that these were really polite and supportive
people. Nor were they shy to answer
my questions. It was like being a room
of classy class clowns.
___Tony
Gaud, whose name alone inspires conversational
humor ("Not spelled G-O-D, otherwise
I'd have good credit"), is the
full-time MC at the Improv and an aspiring
comedian. He is also the open-mic amateur
wrangler and sole judge of the competition.
Yes, as he made everyone quite well
aware, unlike other venues, the open-mic
night at the Tampa Improv is a competition.
The prize: $100 and another shot on
stage. The fee: $25, or just $10 if
the comedian brings ten or more friends.
___"This
is ground zero, this is where the comic
starts," Tony told me beforehand.
"You take a while, do open-mics
over and over again and get on stage
a much as possible to hone your set.
Generally, it takes a comic an average
of five to ten years to develop their
voice onstage. That's hard work."
___Tony,
who himself has been "doing comedy"
for about six years, started at the
Improv as a doorman and tried his hand
at open-mic night. Now he conducts about
seven shows a week between Wednesday
and Saturday as MC.
___I asked
him what it takes to go on stage (after
all, had about twenty minutes before
I was going up myself).
___"You've
got to love it," he said. But there
are guidelines. "You get five minutes
a piece... original material, clean
material --no blue material."
And the second your five minutes are
up, he said, they turn the mic off.
___With
all the pressure involved with what
I just learned --is my show clean
enough? can I be done in five minutes?
do I really love comedy or am I just
curious?-- I gazed into the crowd
an noted that there were over three
hundred adults who paid good money to
be entertained. Was I nervous? I felt
okay. Was I slightly trembling because
I always get a rush interviewing, or
was I suffering from acute stage fright?
I knew it was time to talk to a few
of the competitors to see how they were
feeling.
THE PLAYERS
___James
Choquette, a young adult about my own
age, was the first one who wanted to
speak a few words about being an aspiring
comedian. I won't list the personal
dating information he wanted to be included
in the story (sorry James, perhaps they'll
someday start a "Tampa's Homepage
Personals" section). He did say
that he had always been the "funny
guy" in the family and seemed pretty
serious about entertaining others. This
was his "fifth or sixth time doing
this".
___Carolyn
Fields, originally from Tampa, was visiting
her family over the holidays and was
giving them their first look at her
act. She was very social and appeared
very at home among the other comedians.
I wanted to know what open-mic competitions
were like outside of Tampa, and she
told me how she thought she had "bombed"
at a show in Phoenix.
___"I
thought I did really bad, and I left
the stage in a haste," she said.
"I put the mic up, went back stage
and I went home. I get a call from the
guy two days ago and he said 'We're
getting all the winners back. You won!'"
You never know, I guess.
___"Try",
who did not want me to use his real
name, let me know he had been involved
with comedy "on and off about a
year and a half, two". He had won
a radio competition to open up for Mark
Curry; unfortunately that show started
too late for him to get onstage.
___Tony
Bowker, while relatively new to comedy,
had the demeanor of someone comfortable
and accustomed to his trade. He had
done comedy eight months prior at the
Tampa Improv and then "some improv
stuff in Miami and really got into it".
His advice for comedy covers many subjects:
"No matter how badly you do, just
keep at it."
___Andrew
Shultz, the only "first-timer"
besides myself, was not a stranger to
crowds. Having recently been on the
PBA (Professional Bowling) Tour and
having done some MC work for them, Andrew
was surprisingly calm.
___"I'll
give it a shot," he said. "If
they laugh they laugh!"
THE SHOW
__I won't
personally review their performances,
especially because 1) they were amateurs
and 2) I was sub-amateur. I will say
that I was delighted how well they did
as a whole. Most were quite comfortable
onstage and all had the audience laughing
hard about something. A few did give
very notable performances and told jokes
that still linger in my head.
___As for
myself, I had a blast. I accepted the
butterflies as would an adrenaline junkie
and started my much-practiced routine
as if in front of the bathroom mirror.
They sit so close to the stage!
I thought. I'm sure the more comfortable
I tried to appear, to more it looked
like I wasn't. There's little time to
think. I sat back inside my head and
listened as the words poured out. They
say every fighter has a plan until they
get hit, and my hit was my first audience-wide
laugh. Of course laughter is the point,
but when that first big response came
I realized then why they, the amateurs,
go up every chance they can. It clicked.
I got my "big answer" in the
first ten seconds, and had four minutes
and fifty seconds to go. Whether I did
well or not, I left the stage smiling.
___The
winner of the competition was a charismatic
man with the handle "Goldiee".
I didn't get to interview him, but we
promised to catch up later.
___I found
first-timer Andrew Schultz as the crowd
was leaving and asked him what he thought
of his performance.
___"I
had a lot of adrenaline, and ad-libbed
for the first half. It just sort of
came to me," he said. I asked him
would he do it again. "Definitely,"
he replied.
HOW TO BE A PART
___Tony
Gaud, the MC, says that comedians need
to check the paper, visit their website,
call the club for details, or just stop
by. "If you're interested in comedy,
you'll go to the club"
___The
next open-mic night is January 26th,
2005.
___To the
audience members: thank you for supporting
live comedy in Tampa. Tell your friends
to come out and have an enjoyable evening
of entertainment!
