09.26.09
What’s the Problem?
Today I had an email conversation with another comic. She told me that she is uncomfortable with having her family at her shows. Some comics thrive on having family and friends at their shows; they can depend on their laughs. Other comics hate it–it doesn’t give a good barometer of your act. Your family and friends will either laugh at everything you say, just to be nice. Or they will heckle you because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do.
What IS this dynamic that operates when we move from a chair in the audience to a stage in front of those chairs? It’s the same dynamic that operates when we use humor in our lives:
1. We have to tell the TRUTH, and so we are vulnerable. The best humor thrives on truth. The more truthful we are, the funnier our material is. Many comics say it’s a lot easier to be truthful in front of people we don’t know.
2. We are confronting people with CHANGE. People have seen or heard one tiny part of our personality. But onstage we have to be larger than life. By definition, we change. This requires that others change, too. And if they don’t want to change, they won’t support your acts of change.
3. We are offering a CHALLENGE. Humor challenges our typical perspectives and points of view. We may prefer to stay safely within the confines of the acceptable. But that’s not very funny.
The choice is yours: Will you stay safely within the seriousness of the audience?
Or will you: Tell Your Truth*Confront With Change*Offer A Challenge so you can Life Life–Lite!
