Comedy Club Open-Mike Night
Taking the challenge to strengthen your humor skills
Here's a great opportunity to expand your humor skills. "Open-mike Night" is a special event, usually at a comedy club, where you can perform on-stage to test new material. Sometimes the venue is a coffee shop or a nightclub. Not all open-mike participants are aspiring comics. Many performers come from all walks of life and are simply accepting a challenge to grow. Performing comedy at an open-mike night might be compared to giving a motivational talk to Junior High School students! It's not that you're speaking to a bad audience...you're just speaking to a demanding, sometimes critical, audience. It gives you a push to be your best. And that's a good thing. It will make other speaking assignments easier.
I'd recommend that you make your first trip to the open-mike night as a spectator. Get a feel for the room and the audience. Watch what works and doesn't work for the performers. See what the routine of the evening is. Maybe you'll have a chance to visit with some of the performers after the event. Ask questions and learn from them.
Normally the slots at an open-mike night are limited and you need to sign up. Check with the performing venue to see how this works. Sometimes you call in advance...sometimes you sign up the night of the event.
Most open-mike nights allow you three to five minutes on stage. You will need to prepare and practice a set of material, which will be different from material you'd use when giving a normal humorous speech. Material for a comedy club works best when developed around a theme and normally is structured with a setup line or two followed by a joke punchline. You'd want to shoot for at least three punchlines a minute. If you can do more than that, that's a good thing! After all, this is a comedy club!
When you're scheduled to take the stage, especially the first time, invite your friends. Most people find this makes for a friendly audience and a better reception for your material. If you're having trouble getting the regular audience to warm up to you, play to your friends! Even better, talk a friend or two into performing the same night you take the stage.
The great thing about taking this performing challenge is that while on-stage you begin to get a feel for what is funny and what isn't. The judge for platform material, whether in a comedy venue or a normal speaking venue, is always the audience. Maybe you thought something was funny. But the audience didn't! You merely had an error in judgement and they provided you some subtle feedback (they didn't laugh)! This is a good thing. The next time you'll be funnier. And you'll become a better judge of what an audience will think is funny...which is not always the same as what YOU think is funny!
So where do you find an open-mike? Start by checking with your local comedy clubs. Look in your local newspaper's community activities calendar. Let your friends (especially Toastmasters) know you're looking for an open-mike night. If you have your antenna tuned, you'll find opportunities that you otherwise would have missed.
Get out of your comfort zone and try an open-mike night. I performed at about two dozen open-mike nights in the early 1980s and it was a great experience. Put a few of them on your calendar and you'll open the door to a funnier you!
Copyright 2006 by John Kinde
You may republish this article with the following credit line:
"Copyright by John Kinde, who is a humor specialist in the training and speaking business for over 30 years specializing in teambuilding, customer service and stress management. Free Special Reports: Show Me The Funny -- Tips for Adding Humor to Your Presentations and When They Don't Laugh -- What To Do When the Laughter Doesn't Come. Humor Power Tips newsletter, articles and blog are available at www.humorpower.com."
