NOTES AFTER GIG #14:

 

For the third time, I was able to perform stand-up three times this week. This felt really good after two consecutive weeks of doing no stand-up.

 

However, I bombed on all three nights. While some of what I write here might come across as excuses, that’s not how I mean it. I’m simply trying to process three consecutive performances that bombed.

 

SPECS FOR GIG #14A:

•    Weekly open mic night at The Edge Comedy Club at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green St. in Chicago. Tonight was my first time doing this open mic.

•    Hosted by Mike Joyce

•    Order on this night: 1 Mike Joyce. 2 Meg Grunewald. 3 Nick Enquist. 4 Kyle Diamond. 5 Jeannie Dugan. 6 Emily Something. 7 Jay Harris. 8 Ranjit Souri. 9 Marty DeRosa. 10 Austin Mitchell. 11 Matty Ryan. 12 Mike Sheehan. 13 Bob Palos. 14 Stephanie Cook. 15 A.J. Conover. 16 Kyle Something. 17 Nate Simmons. 18 Jim Zekis. 19 Mark Rosenthal. 20 Natasha Tash. 21 Ethan Pelno. 22 Junior Stopka. 23 Joe Shelby. 24 Eliot Rahal. 25 The Brothers Henderson.

•    I did one song: “Song for the Chosen.” It usually kills but tonight it bombed.

 

 

The Wednesday night comedy open mic night at The Edge Comedy Club at the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts is a pretty big and well-known comedy open mic night in the Chicago scene. But somehow, even though I’ve done a lot of Wednesday open mics, this was my first time hitting this one.

 

I took my musical equipment and took two buses to get to this place near Halsted and Chicago Avenues in Chicago. I prepared to do “In Other Words”, a song that is on my A-list but that I could use some practice on.

 

As I always do when I’m going to play music, I went to the host, Mike Joyce, before the show and told him that I’d be doing music and would need to set up my keyboard, keyboard stand, and boom mic stand, and asked him to riff onstage for a minute to allow me to do all of this set-up on the stage. He said no problem. And usually it truly is no problem.

 

But then when he came on stage to start the show, he said that he wouldn’t be going on stage between acts and that each comic should introduce the next comic. This meant that I wouldn’t get any set-up time without the clock running on my set.

 

He also said that each comic would get three-and-a-half minutes. This meant that I wouldn’t even have time to do the song I’d prepped.

 

When my turn came, the previous comic said, “Ladies and gentleman, here’s Ranjit Souri!” and then the audience was treated about one minute of my making two trips onto the stage and back into the audience to get all of my musical equipment up there, along with another comic who graciously helped me—I don’t even know his name. And the way the stage and audience seating were set up, there was actually no room to do this. There was barely room for a comic to get on-stage without bumping into audience members. So my musical equipment made each trip even more klunky as I tried not to strike audience members with my keyboard and stands. And then I further enthralled the audience by taking about 45 more seconds to set up all of my equipment. And of course, not only was this sight sucking all of the comedy energy from the place, but also it was counting as part of my 3.5 minutes.

 

Once the open mic night had begun and I’d realized the situation, I’d scrapped my plans to perform “In Other Words” and instead decided to just do one really short song: “Song for the Chosen.” This song typically kills. Tonight it got nothing. This was unsurprising given that my transition had killed all of the comedy energy in the place; and then, I introduced the next comic and fortunately for me, he (Marty DeRosa) actually asked me to stay on stage and accompany his set.

 

Which I did.

 

Accompanying another comic’s set was kind of weird—I was unprepared, and I was unsure of what to do: Do I look at Marty? Look at the piano? Look at the audience? How can I be up here and take as little focus as possible? Should I try to accentuate his punchlines with my music, or should I just play? All of these questions were swirling through my head as I listened to his set and played and tried to be as small as possible.

 

Later in the show, another comic, A.J. Conover, asked me to accompany his set too, and I did. I still didn’t figure out answer to any of those questions though.

 

In the end, as an accompanist I didn’t connect musically with Marty or A.J.—I just played music underneath their sets. It was pretty interesting though. I don’t regret that I tried it.

 

In all fairness to the host, Mike Joyce, what happened with my set was not his fault—it was mine. If I’d had my pre-show conversation with him, say, 15 minutes or more before showtime, we could have had a clearer communication. As it was, I spoke with him just before showtime—the place was dark and loud with comics conversing and Mike was getting things together in the light and sound booth. Also I think there were more comics than usual, which is why he cut the set-time to 3.5 minutes and did not come on-stage between sets, and I think he was dealing with that issue at the very minute I spoke with him—because he was looking at the sign-up list and writing some things down. There’s just no way he could have given me more than a tiny bit of attention at that moment. Anyway, now I have a better idea of how this particular open mic night works, so I think I’ll have some good nights at this place. I think I just have to accept that the first time I play a given room, I have to be willing to chalk it up as a learning experience.

 

SPECS FOR GIG #14B:

•    Wiseass Comedy Night at Columbia College Chicago, The Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash in Chicago. This event happens I think once or twice per year

•    Hosted by Will Crespo

•    Order: 1 Bob Palos. 2 Matt Lottman. 3 Nate Sanderson. 4 Austin Mitchell. 5 Dan Ronan. 6 Brandon Scott. 7 Myles Hughes. 8 Laura Baldeshuler. 9 Hannah Donnelly. 10 Drew Michael. 11 C.J. Toledano. 12 Ranjit Souri.

•    I performed my song “Solitaire” and accompanied myself on the piano. This song kills when I do it in the Cupid show. Tonight it went far less well.

 

 

My second gig this week was an unexpected opportunity to perform at Columbia College Chicago for a semesterly comedy showcase called Wiseass. Columbia College Chicago often brings in the Cupid Players (the musical sketch comedy group I’m in) to perform at Wiseass. And we were scheduled to perform for this incarnation of Wiseass. We all showed up, but there was a very small audience this time. Usually there are probably 100 people in the audience for this showcase. But on this night there were maybe 30. So the producers of the showcase decided to still pay us but not have us perform. They seemed to feel bad that they hadn’t gotten us a bigger audience. They were very nice about the situation. I don’t feel 100% good about getting paid not to perform, but on the other hand, we did make the time commitment and show up prepared to perform.

 

When the producers told us we would not perform, the rest of the cast-members—there were about 10 of us—decided to leave. Usually I would have probably decided the same. However, thanks to this blog, my whole mindset regarding performance has really changed: I now am constantly seeking opportunities to do solo performance. I am certain I would not be thinking this way if not for this blog. So I seized the opportunity and spoke with the producers and asked them whether I could stay and do something solo, and they said yes.

 

So I said goodbye to my Cupid counterparts and started preparing to do a song. Fortunately there was a piano in the theatre. And fortunately, the comic who was hosting and running things, Will Crespo, was super-nice to me backstage and helped me get ready. He set up a boom mic stand for me, and found an extra microphone; and when the microphone wouldn’t fit into the boom mic stand, he got some duct-tape and taped the microphone to the stand. He did all of this backstage while other acts were performing. Meanwhile I figured out the chords for “Solitaire”—I’m new to playing the piano for the song, as usually Brian Posen accompanies me when I sing the song in Cupid shows—and prepped to perform.

 

I ended up going last, after several stand-up comics.

 

And I bombed.

 

This is a piece I’ve performed hundreds of times (no exaggeration) with the Cupid Players and 90% of the time it kills. So I know it’s a strong piece. So after this performance, I was thinking about the reasons I bombed with it tonight. Here’s what I came up with: (1) I was ill-prepared to play and sing it. Usually, when I do a solo performance, I’ve practiced exactly what I’m going to do many times over the past day or two. On this night, I never got to practice it. I just wrote the chords down on paper and then went on stage and did it. This made me quite nervous (“bad” nervous, not “good” nervous). I don’t know the piece well on the piano since I’m not used to playing it on the piano. (2) When I am accompanied by Brian Posen, I can focus all of my energy into the acting that goes into performing this song. And the acting is a large part of the success of this song. But tonight I had to put so much energy into playing the correct chords on the piano, that I really didn’t act the song at all. I simply sang it. (3) When I perform this song for the Cupid Players, I go out into the audience and sing it directly to a woman in the audience. Much of the comedy comes from the woman’s usually mortified reaction: All of a sudden everybody in the theatre is watching her. It’s usually awkward and wonderful. On this night, I was not singing to anybody. (And there’s no way I could have sang to anybody.) I was just sitting at the piano and singing. (4) In the Cupid show I sing this without a mic. On this night, though, I was singing into a mic. Given the energy I was putting into playing the piano, I had very little energy left to try to keep my head in the right position and at the correct angle to sing properly into the fixed microphone. So sometimes the amplification cut in and out as I inadvertently moved my head.

 

After the show I called Brian and spoke with him about it, and he made a great suggestion: I should make a CD of the piano accompaniment for Solitaire, and use that CD to accompany my performance of Solitaire. Great idea! I’m going to try it.

 

SPECS FOR GIG #14C:

•    “Your Sunday Best” open mic, Schuba’s, 3159 N. Southport Avenue (at Belmont), in Chicago

•    Hosted by James Fritz

•    Order: 1 James Fritz. 2 Drew Michael. 3 Othy Schwering. 4 Ranjit Souri. 5 Meg Grunewald. 6 Andrew Smirker. 7 Mike Macaran. 8 Seth Weitberg. 9 Mike Sheehan. 10 Emily Galati. 11 Chad Briggs. 12 Marty DeRosa. 13 Lauren Vino. 14 Mark Vana. 15 Kevin Hogan. 16 Sam Fells. 17 Jessica Tandy. 18 C.J. Toledano. 19 Junior Stopka. 20 Mike Joyce. 21 Dean Carlson. 22 Joe Kilgauen. 23 Danny Kallas. 24 Jeremy Weiner. 25 Tom Coyle. 26 James Searles. 27 Robert Somebody. 28 Chris Fair. 29 Jim Zekis. 30 Chris Condron. 31 Eric Pinelle. 32 Kyle Paris.

•    I did just one song: “Schuba’s Jingle”. If I ever do it again, it’ll be part of a set instead of the whole set. It bombed but I actually think it’s funny and could work as part of a set.

 

 

I thought this was going to be hilarious. I wrote a 10-second jingle for the “Your Sunday Best” open mic night at Schuba’s. And I thought it would be funny if I lugged all of my musical equipment to the gig, set it all up, just did this 10-second jingle, and did no other material.

 

So I got up there, and I did it. And when I was done and I started breaking down my musical equipment, there was confusion, then a confused and polite smattering of applause, and that was it. And after the show, one of the comics approached me and asked, “What happened in your set?” I said, “It was just a short set.” He continued, “What made you cut it off?” I said, “Nothing—I’d planned on doing just that.” So there you go. I think that people in the audience thought that something had happened that had made me cut my set short. And they were confused because they couldn’t figure out what had happened. And maybe the jingle wasn’t even funny.

 

So, in some sense, this night was a waste of time and effort. But hey, it was worth a shot.

 

I might try this jingle again at a future Schuba’s open mic. But if I do, it will be simply part of a full set. The jingle cannot stand alone.