"Is this thing on...?"
I was invited by two friends - both extremely funny comedians and exemplary human beings - to do a set at their fantastic show last week.
It was, by all metrics, a pretty well-attended indie comedy show. No one on the lineup was a huge star or anything, but we had about a half-full room on a weekday night - the Wednesday leading up to a weekend of Halloween shenanigans, no less! Whenever there’s a big “party weekend” coming up, I assume that impacts weekday night ticket sales. I have absolutely no data to back up that assumption.
Not this theatre - but holy shit can you imagine?
People will blame all manner of things on poorly-sold shows; “Oh it’s Winter, nobody goes out in Winter.” “Oh it’s Summer, people want to be outdoors in Summer.” Everything from “Inflation” to “People suck in this city!”
(Which is an extreme reaction, but with the energy you’re bringing to this conversation, I’m sure that your show is great.)
I think the truth is - it’s just hard to produce shows. And we can either make excuses for ourselves or we can knuckle down and do the hard work of marketing, promoting, and doing our due diligence as comedy producers. [1]
But as I say, this one was well attended! The comedians didn’t outnumber the audience, so that’s always a plus.
I was very excited and honoured to be a part of their show. Especially because spots for comedians at my level are always in high demand. And I was being given ten minutes of stage time! A rarity! Also perfect, because that gave me the opportunity to film this set (which I have been TRYING to get filmed for months now) so that I can submit it to the Winnipeg Comedy Festival! (Which is a pretty big deal to get into if you’re a no-name comedian with stratospheric aspirations.)
Ten minute sets are also incredibly useful for a comedian like me with a Theatrical Background!
The “I’m not here to ’do a tight five’,” he scoffed, while adjusting his turtle neck and beret. “I’m here to ~*W*O*W ~ Y*O*U*~” kind of energy.
(Drama Kid Energy [2] doesn’t always go over great with the stand up community, though.)
But really, my style just is what it is. I like to take audiences on minutes-long routines that bob and weave between reality and fantastical little pockets of theatricality, where I get to play scenes out between characters to (hopefully) delight and entertain. It’s honestly just how I would usually entertain or joke around with friends when hanging out, but the craft - the ARTISTRY - is expanding that energy to an audience of strangers.
And it doesn’t always go well.
As I was saying to my friend Jessie recently, my latest pretentious artistic realization about comedy is that I have almost no interest in “the club scene” [3]. Without sounding elitist (because who the hell am I? I can’t even spell “elitist” right on the first try) I know that I want to make shows. Finally put that Theatre Degree of mine to good use. I’m also not “cool” or “mean” enough to be a tough-as-nails club comic, I have to hang out with the other artistic sissies in the Alt Comedy Scene.
So, more stage time is great for getting long chunks of material up on its feet, seeing how an audience responds to your material, and in time build up longer and longer sets. Doing sections of a larger show piece by piece lets you stitch them together and learn what material goes well next to what. It’s like on-stage endurance training. Five, ten, fifteen minute spots are like a treadmill run. It won’t totally prepare you for the big day, but if you can handle ten minutes in a low-stakes environment, you grow those muscles bit by bit. And before you know it, you’re running marathons.
Unfortunately… the audience was NOT having us, this night.
It happens from time to time. Hell, individual comics on otherwise blowout shows with fantastic audiences will bomb their set for any number of reasons completely beyond their control. But for a whole crowd to be completely unresponsive to everyone on the lineup, it’s a hell of a ride. Especially for those who have to stand in front of joyless, arms-folded strangers for ten minutes apiece.
I was fourth up on the bill, and by this point in the show it WAS a bit of a running joke that no one was getting any laughs. It was a real “pulling blood from a stone” kind of crowd. I was four minutes into my ten and thoroughly enjoying how poorly it was going.
(That might read as sarcastic, but I’m being dead serious. Sometimes when a crowd is giving you nothing you can kind of just enjoy how all of them paid money to come out and NOT enjoy themselves. It’s a surreal experience that you might as well submit to, it’s happening either way - have fun if you can.)
As I said, I have been working on this set so I can submit it to a pretty big deal comedy festival. This material has been through hellfire and back, in front of MANY different audiences of mixed quality and quantity. Because I’ve never seen myself perform live, (but I hear that I’m great - get your tickets now) I assume that since I have this set down, and I know that I’m a little bit more active on stage… I must have arrived at one punchline (of many) that usually gets a laugh - and telegraphed [4] it a little too hard. And as I delivered one line of a now quite polished routine [5] for this absolute damp squib of an audience, I heard one voice out of the darkness say - not maliciously, but in more of a good-natured chuckle - “…this crowd is brutal.”
Now, a lot of comedians (maybe understandably, but not justifiably) might have heard that and lashed out, but from where I was standing, there was really no sense in getting aggressive. Even from my vulnerable position on stage and in the spotlight, I had no impulse to fight the guy. If anything it was a relief. Actually I thanked him.
An audience member talking out of turn isn’t typically ”fun“. Unless a comedian builds their whole act out of crowd work, stop assuming you can talk to us. We aren’t just bullshitting up there, most of us have like… an act that we prepared for you? That you’ve… paid to hear.
However an audience member calling out the behaviour of the audience was actually very helpful in that moment. Because if a comedian is on stage, not getting any laughs (as we mostly weren’t), pointing out that the crowd is giving us nothing might just look petulant or defensive.
“All of these chairs cost the SAME AMOUNT.”
But thankfully this crowd - this Being of many beings, and the collective soul of any live show - was introspective enough to point it out for me. More successful comedians than I will often talk about the back-and-forth between audience and comedian, because “The Audience” is an individual entity made from a mass of Individuals. Almost like Akira. You can’t have a conversation with every single person in it; but for the entirety of that show they form a singular entity. And because that particular group of people will likely never sit in that same room in that same mood in that same configuration ever again, it’s an ephemeral thing. Born when the lights go down - dead by the time you’re paying your tab. And crowds each have different personalities - or even multiple personalities within.
(If you’ve ever been at a show that had a Bachelor/Bachelorette Party mixed in amongst a few first dates, plus a coworker’s night out between a bunch of Finance Bros from Bay Street [6], you understand what I mean.)
After “this crowd is brutal,” we all got to breathe a little easier. I got to point out that they were also part of the problem, here. (I didn’t want to be too honest and tell them that they were actually most of the reason the show wasn’t going well, I had only just gotten them to tolerate my presence, after all.) And by the time I was up there I realized something that you simply can’t see from the back of the room; “Oh, these people are smiling! They’re just not… laughing.”
Which is… nice? I guess? But it’s definitely not what we’re up there trying to get out of you.
Relax your shoulders and have a chuckle. We won’t make fun of you - that’s what we want.
And that’s what I think a lot of people who have only been audience don’t get about the importance of a crowd’s participation. When you’ve been both performer and audience member, when you’ve seen it from both sides, you can see how the gears turn. It’s like after you’ve built something out of wood with your own two hands, you gain a better appreciation for what it takes to build a table. Or when you’ve studied even a little bit of music theory, or start to pick up a new instrument, you can actually hear music differently.
Whenever I’m hosting a show I always right off the top ask the audience to help improve the night by moving closer to the stage (“you’ve paid for tickets after all, don’t you want to get your money’s worth?”). I can’t explain why comedy is better when the audience is closer together - or to the comedian - it just is! You can logically explain why low ceilings are better for comedy (better acoustics, laughter bounces back down and feeds back into the audience) or why we dim the lights for shows (low light focuses attention on the brightest thing in the room - the performer). But the human-to-human Audience Alchemy [7] is something that doesn’t quite make sense - even though when you ”get it”, it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
And I want to make it clear that the hosts at this show absolutely did their job and invited people to come closer to the stage off the top of the show. The problem was that only two women bit, leaving most of the rest of the crowd in the dead centre of the room. Not up by the stage near the performer, not quite at the back with all of the comics waiting for our turns - just in a dark void between empty rows. A Comedy Demilitarized Zone, if you will.
It was one of those nights in comedy that in the moment makes you question why on earth you still keep trying to do this. “Is this what audiences are, now? Is there any point to any of this?”
(And again, this wasn’t a hostile crowd, they weren’t mean or malicious, and I’m not saying that I hate them - they were just quiet! I’m NOT trying to vilify anyone here.)
But it was also one of those ones that brings everybody on the show just a little bit closer through trauma bonding. (Again, it truly wasn’t a “Bad” show, because no one person bombed. We all came out of it laughing and asking ourselves “What the fuck was that?!”)
I think it’s a problem that we don’t review our audiences. Everyone thinks that the artist is the ONLY one being judged on their worth - but when we’re on stage, WE’RE looking at YOU! Artists judging to see if YOU are worthy of appreciating THEM!
And why shouldn’t we? You’re in a relationship with each other for those precious few moments. It’s almost like a date, where you get to decide if you want to see that comedian ever again - but don’t be offended if we decide we don’t want to see you [8] again.
Of course, there’s no way to actually do anything if we did start reviewing audiences. Because each audience is a unique collective of so many different people that form one entity. One Being. Unfortunately, sometimes that Being contains way more assholes than it should.
And it’s almost [9] down to the collective to fix itself. And I’m not saying you need to laugh at things that aren’t funny at the next comedy show you attend. For one thing, laughing at material that isn’t funny doesn’t help us improve or edit it out of the act. For another, you’d be robbing yourself of one of stand up comedy’s finest experiences - watching first time Incel Edgelords self-implode as they learn that not everybody conflates bigotry, sexual assault, or their general insufferability with Comedy. (Unless it’s supremely well written. And you’re just not going to hit excellence at your first open mic, so stop yelling at everybody Kevin.)
But in that moment, one voice from within calling out the whole crowd - and them being accepting of our critique - lifted up the whole evening. After that, you could really feel the crowd opening up, people felt a little bit looser… we had finally found our groove as Audience and Comedians!
That said, I wouldn’t say that it “saved the show” or anything as tidy as that. It’s not like they started whooping and cheering and buying us all round after round of shots - they remained (as previously stated) a real damp squib of an audience.
Probably won’t be calling them back for another date, but it sure was memorable.
[1] No one told us to do this, we’re all in it for the extra stage time.
[2] Or DKE, as I have now decided to call it.
[3] Not that I’d say “no” to a club opportunity or anything!
I just know where I am comfortable.
[4] “Telegraphing” is a concept in performance where either through a line delivery, nonverbal cue, Jim looking into the camera, whatever - a performer indicates to the audience that “this is a moment where you laugh”. They aren’t always subtle, but using them as a part of your act allows comedians to give themselves a beat; and if the audience DOES consent to laughing, since you’re taking half a second you aren’t steaming ahead and stepping all over their laughter. Which can unintentionally prompt them to stop. I almost think of them as Performance Commas. In the same way that a comma is an indication to a reader that they can take a small break mid-sentence, mid-thought; telegraphing gives the performer, crowd, and the show a second to all catch our mental breath a bit.
[5] That I remind you, I have been trying to film for MONTHS, but EVERY TIME I have had the misfortune of finding an audience with some fresh, new, maniacal way to make the show unplayable. One time at my OWN show the crowd was just… talking. To each other. Throughout the whole show. Another time, two women brought pizza and their own drinks to the front row and seemed to think that the comedians were there to have back-and-forth chats or a Q&A session with us.
Again - all of these people paid money to NOT enjoy a comedy show. It’s baffling.
[6] For any non-Torontonians, that’s where the stock exchange and all the big banks are… It is an awful place.
[7] As I call it. Because I am pretentious! Can’t let anyone forget that!
[8] One of the worst kinds of hecklers in existence is the kind that thinks they’re being helpful by yelling out comments and talking to the comic during their set. They are usually quite intoxicated. Unfortunately one of these folks was in the crowd that night, and yelled at one of my comedian peers. Then, after the show, tried to be friendly, repeatedly tried to give him a big, sloppy hug, claiming that’s “just how he enjoys shows”.
My fellow comedian was NOT having it (would you?) and it took several of us pointing out that Drunken Heckler was actively being pushed away before he finally understood the concept of “consent” in that moment.
Sometimes it really is you, and not us.
[9] And I’m OBVIOUSLY not saying that the comedians have NO responsibility here - but come on people. Being withholding in a relationship is one of the worst things you can be - so cut it out!