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    Showing posts with label comedy competition. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label comedy competition. Show all posts
  1. Updates & a Shimmy

    Tuesday, June 11, 2013


     

     

    Hi readers. Back in February, I posed for an artist who photographs and then draws from an arrangement of the photos.  I was happy because it was a clothed and paid gig.  The artist sent me a photo of the drawing in progress.  She assured me she will send me a more professional photo when she is finished.  I like the shot of the in-progress drawing.
     
    About a month and a half ago, I was one of five judges at a comedy competition.  I had enjoyed doing it.  The other judges and I took our role seriously and it seemed everyone was in agreement with our decisions.  The producer, long before the contest was over, told us that our scoring was spot on.  I was inspired to compete in the next competition the following month. 

    The judges this time were three men and two women.  I sat behind one table of judges and saw them in action.  Though when I judged, we were instructed not to confer with each other, this group felt free to whisper things to each other.  One judge who was dressed in his corporate work clothes shared with the other judges at his table that he tried stand-up and did it until the first time it didn’t go well.  Then he stopped.  He did not sound like he understood what it takes to endure those horrible moments or seem to have any respect for the process.  I wondered if he was a bitter one.  He had his girlfriend/wife with him, but she wasn’t a judge.  She didn’t sit at his table but at the adjacent one.  Next to him was a judge who seemed serious and mature about things, fair in her scoring of those competing.  On the other side of her was a guy who seemed bitchy.  I don’t know how else to describe the vibe.  He gave everyone their low score and seemed to take pleasure in it.  Then at the other table was a young woman judge sitting by herself.  At another table was another man who I think may have been a comic, and I got the feeling he was asked to judge as a last minute fill-in for a no show judge.  Not confirmed, just my impression.  He laughed at the stuff I detest, so I knew I was not going to have an easy time of it.  The host was different.  I preferred the first one I had met.
    One comic was good at delivery but the material was not anything great.  The funniest joke he did was one I had read on Facebook.  It was funny and he got laughs.  He scored decently with unoriginal material.

    My material is material I am proud of and I’ve done well with in the past.  This time, there must’ve been something wrong with my ability to connect.  Something was not happening.  Even when I got to a point that has always gotten a strong reaction, there was barely anything.  Then I remembered to slow down and look at people and smile.  It got better after that.  Thank goodness, my set finished on a laughing note.
     
    The scores were whacky.  The options for each judge to give ranged from one to ten.  On the very same set, one judge gave me a nine and one gave me a three.  A fuckin’ three.  I acknowledge that I must’ve had a delivery problem, but a three?! while also getting a nine?! and things in-between.  That was disappointing.  However, I will do it again.  It’s always a different panel of judges.  And I’ll be working on my delivery.

    I auditioned for a short play, something I hadn’t done in a long time.  I had the script page and was able to prepare.  I found the role (what I could gather of it) to be fun.  The character is a divorced woman who was proposed to by her ex-husband’s former best friend.  She doesn’t accept because she is still in love with her ex who now has a girlfriend half his age.  The play was written by two women.  I had to play it to one of the women writers.  In my mind, she was my “Max.”  I acted my butt off.  I believe trying to rise to the challenge of doing stand-up (which I find harder) has made me a better actress.  Then they had an actor, who was there to audition for a different part, come in to do it with me.  He did not know this part at all and was not told where the scene ended, and his pages were different than mine, blah blah blah.  So while I am trying hard to seduce him, he is buried in the script looking for his next line.  I remained in character and sort of shimmied (jiggled my breasts) and said, “Gee, you’re a tough one to get a reaction out of.”  Both women burst out laughing.
    I got the part.

     

     

  2. MOM + COMEDY = MOMEDY

    Saturday, June 1, 2013

    By Lisa Harmon

    My Mom did a set! A real stand-up comedy set, at a real stand-up comedy club! Yes! I can’t believe it either! After years of supporting me at open mics, she finally took the plunge!

    Over the years comics have told my Mom how funny she is, and she’s been invited to the stage many times, but she has always refused.

    If you’re a comic you may be wondering where my Mom has been. She moved to Florida last year. So I can no longer do even a one person bringer show!

    But I’m down here visiting da Muddah and we hit the open mic at Catskills Comedy Club last Monday. They were having a comedy contest - $3 to enter.  $2 of the $3 goes to the pool for the winning comic, and second place wins a guest spot.

    Well we’d been there before. We went to the open mic Thursday night, which was just a regular mic. It was our first time there and it was fun. I performed, Mom did not!  I got to meet some comics I only knew from Facebook. And of course we’re comics, we could be on Mars, but if there’s an open mic, we feel at home. So even though I only knew some of these people through Facebook, and even though I was far, far from home, it made no difference. I may as well have been sitting in Tino’s or Frank Terranova’s mic. With comics, it is all the same. All so familiar and comforting.

    I signed up for the contest and paid $3. Mom and I bought sodas and sat down. Eventually some more people showed up and they started the contest. The prize money was placed on a barstool on stage. After a couple of head-to-head rounds, the MC announced there was one comic too many. Instead of giving the comic a buy to the second round, he told my Mom (as the sole audience member) she had to do a set and compete! He paid her entry fee! To my surprise, my Mom agreed to do it!

    Mom did three minutes, which I taped on my phone. She told me if I ever showed that video to anyone, she’d kill me!  Call me, I'll show it to you!

    But it was funny! My Mom is a very sarcastic, acerbic, quick wit. But apparently all that goes away when you hand her a mic and put her on a stage in front of strangers. But she got laughs! She really did! I can’t believe the guts my Mom has!

    I tried to give her some advice before she went up there - I suggested she talk about something that makes her angry. I told her to get really animated and let it rip. She didn’t do that. I don’t know why, it would have been great, everything makes her angry. I mean, Europe, reverse mortgages, skirted bathing suits, it isn’t hard to find things that piss her off! But she didn’t talk about any of that. I don’t remember everything she mentioned but I do recall this line “Give it up for peanut butter and jelly.” She’s so crazy. I’m so proud of my Mom. I’m so happy I have a Mom with a mouth and an attitude and a backbone. I’m so glad I wasn’t raised to be a caretaker for some ungrateful family.

    I’m extremely lucky because I have a Mom that is loud, opinionated and ballsy. I’m so fortunate she’s not a doormat, slave, second class citizen. I’m very proud of my Mom and grateful for everything I’ve learned from her. And screw material, what you need up there on stage is guts, and the women in my family have plenty. I have to thank my Mom for making me who I am today! And I’m so proud of her for kicking comedy butt! That’s my amazing Mom!

  3. Some years ago, when I was in a show at the Limerick House, lots of women attended who had been in a play with me.  Also a woman who was having a crush on me came to the show and sat beside me.  Some young guy was on stage doing his set.  I was sitting in the unlit section of the room, and I assumed the privacy that came with that.  I had no idea that the guy on stage could see my face.  I wasn’t making faces or anything, but I probably looked like someone looks when their entire gender gets spoken of as if stupid and put here for men’s use.  I felt badly that my guests who came to support me were getting this crap that isn’t funny if you don’t share the values and just plain bad for female morale.  I felt self-conscious that the gay woman was seeing the misogynistic milieu called comedy.  So my face must have showed that without me realizing or thinking it mattered.

    “Could you stop looking at me all judgmental like my mother?!” he said pointing to me.  I was so off guard.  I went hysterical laughing.  That may have been the funniest moment of his set.  I was absolutely hysterical.  I had to give him credit.  He was in the moment, he reacted to what he saw, and it made us laugh.

    Last Friday night, I was supposed to be judgmental.  I was judging a comedy competition.  I’d never done that before (except privately in my head, at least I thought it was private).  I didn’t know if I was going to be the only judge.  That thought made me nervous.  I didn’t want everyone’s fate in my hands.  Once there, I was told to sit at the table where the judges sit.  Plural.  Whew.  Then I wondered if I’d be the only female judge.  I imagined each comic who wouldn’t win blaming it on “the cunt.”  To my surprise, there were five judges, and we all were female. 


    The judges:  the woman in the purple top, me (in the black and looking judgmental), the woman with the white blouse, the one in the red pants, and the one in the gold top.  Without any conferring, we each were to hold up a card from a stack that was numbered one through ten.  The highest and lowest were dropped.  The three middle scores were added.  There were many contestants; each had three minutes.


    The place was Le Poisson Rouge on Bleeker Street in the Village.  In the photo above, you can see the large drawings on the walls.  Those are from Leah Yerpe’s show.  If you remember my blog of 2/19/2013 called “Body Art,” it talked about my experience posing for her.

    However, I posed after she put her pieces together for this show.  I liked that I knew the artist whose work hung in the space.  It helped me feel at home in a way.  When she creates her work of me from the photo session, I will share.

    They put a comic on first who was not competing.  It was for us to set the bar in terms of scoring.  I found that as I drank, the jokes were not necessarily funnier.  I also discovered that I was one of the tougher scorers.  The judges all seemed to take their role seriously and responsibly.  They were artists of different sorts – poets, singers, actresses, etc.  Before the show, some comics looked at us nervously.  I had hoped it wasn’t because their set was based on us being bitches, sluts, and cunts.  That would be something to go up there with and face a panel of five women judges.  I am pleased to say that I don’t remember feeling repulsed at any time during the show.  I understand being at different levels of development as a comic, but I can’t stand listening to one’s hatred and prejudice portrayed as a given, as a premise with which we all begin our day.  I was glad this show offered true attempts at comedy, some more successful than others, of course.  I enjoy watching people develop their art.  There was a man who did his stand-up upside down.  He stood on his hands and delivered his set.  Most contestants made us laugh.
    The host, Advocate of Wordz (that’s his name), was a funny man from the Bronx.  I liked his style.  I guess we both speak Bronx in a way.  When we met at the bar before the show, I told him I was so excited to finally be asked to be judgmental.  He laughed and used it on stage. 

    The winner of the night’s competition was… Sarah Hartshorne.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    You can find Sarah on Facebook.

    I definitely would do it again.  I had fun.  And a bonus – one of the other judges, K Fhox, gave me her CD, Light Shines Through Me.  You can find her on Facebook and at youtube.com/kfhox.
    When I got home and was hanging out with myself, answering email, and thinking about being a contestant in the next competition, it hit me how late it was getting and that I had agreed to attend an all-day teacher conference starting at 8:30 Saturday morning.  It all sounded good when I registered.  The job was picking up the fee.  There were many choices of interesting sounding workshops to take.  I enjoy learning and expanding my teacher repertoire.  But late on Friday night, I looked at the time and said, “Why did I think this was a good idea?”