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Be afraid but do it anyway

© Kelly L. Henderson

I can't help but admire people who want to be stand up comedians. There can't be too many other professions that have you getting up in front of a group of strangers and putting your wit on the line every night. You're going for the laughs. You're relieved when they arrive as anticipated. But what if they don't? You have to have some funny lines to deal with that situation too.

Stand up comedians make their jobs look so easy. They appear to be relaxed. Their repartee sounds unrehearsed. They sound like they are having a casual and intimate conversation with the audience.

Yet the stand up act is far from casual and unrehearsed. Stand ups will have gone over and over their material and its delivery again and again, polishing it, perfecting it, getting the words right, getting their tone of voice and expression right, getting the timing just right. Timing is everything, after all, in comedy.

I watched a television documentary a while ago about stand up comics playing the circuit in Canada. These were not comedians whose names you are likely to know. They were just average people struggling with the same problems all of us do. But their jobs had them driving from small town to small town, from club to club, staying in cheap hotels, and eating bad restaurant food. One stand up mentioned that in the early part of her career she had worked for drinks instead of money just to get a chance on stage. A tour of Canada for a stand up would involve long distance driving, often through miles of unpopulated areas, and in the winter through inclement weather. It's not a lifestyle for everyone but for stand ups trying to build a career or make a name for themselves, it's a requirement of the job.

When I consider the idea of doing stand up comedy, one word comes to mind: fear. How do you work through it to put yourself and your ego on the comedy chopping block again and again?

I once read that when she first began working as a stand up, comedian Roseanne Barr was very afraid but she had a motto: Feel the fear, but do it any way. She knew that the only way to move on to the next level in her career was to act despite her fear. She believed if she let fear stop her she would not get anywhere. She knew that by going on stage with her fear again and again she could begin to master it.

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