I Produced My First Comedy Show!
Everyone survived, and no animals were harmed
If you’re wondering why I didn’t post much in September, I was producing my first big comedy show and was in way over my head. I spent a lot of time on preparation and promotion. Especially promotion. Oh. My. God. Do you know how hard it is to get people to come to a comedy show? Even really good ones? I saw a really good professional comedian at a club on Thursday (more on that later), and the room was half empty (or half full if you’re an optimist). And the comics in my show were not what you’d call touring professionals, though one was close and most of the others are funny amateurs.
We did have one hook to bring people in: this was a benefit show, with the proceeds going to nonprofits helping Jewish students who have been blamed by their peers for a war they have no control over. It’s an issue that I’m passionate about - that’s why I did the show - as are many other Jews who can’t believe what’s been happening since the Hamas pogrom-orgy last October 7. So I really played this angle in the promotion. The unspoken message was, “I know you wouldn’t normally pay $36 to see a group of amateurs like me, but it’s for a good cause! I mean, it’s for the kids, for Pete’s sake. That could be your kid getting harassed!” (Say what you want about Jews; if you need someone to bring the guilt, no one can do it better.)
I hosted and emcee’d the show. Was I the best candidate for the job? Not on your life. You could have thrown a dreidel out the window and hit someone better qualified. I’d never hosted any show bigger than an open mic. And to be honest, I’m not even that involved in the Jewish community. But the show was my idea so I figured I’d bite the bullet. I convinced another comic who is way more Jewishly connected to co-produce it, and we were off the races. She handled the day-of stuff like food and drinks. All I had to do was book the venue, book the comics, make an Eventbrite page, get everyone’s headshot and bio, make the flyers, send the flyers to every synagogue, post it in every relevant Facebook and Whatsapp group, beg all my friends to come and beg all the comics to do the same, convince two skeptical Hillel directors that we would raise money and not embarrass them, and write and memorize an opening set that tried to hit just the right combination of earnest and funny.
That’s my excuse for not posting on Substack.
The show went pretty well. I give myself a solid B. Keep in mind, this is factoring in grade inflation. Back when I was in school, it would have been more like a C+, but these days everyone gets a B if they show up for class and don’t shoot the teacher. But given the low expectations everyone had of me, I didn’t fuck it up too badly. Okay, the lobby before the show was chaos. The bartender was a last minute no-show, so I couldn’t log into my Square account on her phone so people could pay for drinks and day-of tickets while I was on stage doing sound check and telling the comics where to go. It wasn’t exactly the Fyre Festival, but not as smooth as I had hoped.
We got over a hundred people to attend. I was hoping for bigger, but I can’t really complain. The mayor of Palo Alto came as a VIP guest (the only one invited who did). Talk about a young mayor, he looked like he had just graduated Palo Alto High. There were no protesters or hecklers. That probably doesn’t sound too surprising, since the event wasn’t even about Israel. But that hasn’t stopped people from demonstrating at synagogues, or spraying hate grafiti on bagel shop windows, so we were hoping for the best and prepared for the worst.
We raised a few thousand dollars. Is that going to move the needle in the fight against Jew hate in the Bay Area? Hard to say. It depends on how Hillel spends it. They tend to be non-confrontational; they don’t try to get people fired or rally the troops, focusing instead on providing a safe space. Personally, I’d rather use the money to build a golem.
Remember the golem from the middle ages? He was a huge man built out of clay to protect the Jews, who would rampage against the antisemites of Europe. We could use a guy like that now. Not for every run-of-the-mill protester, just the ringleaders who are leading the “globalize the intifada” chants. Imagine if a clay giant thundered into the encampment, tore off all the Covid masks and demonstrated what an intifada actually looks like. But golem construction is expensive, and the technology hasn’t been demonstrated in several hundred years. Not everyone these days even believes he golem was real. It’s just like the moon landing.
The survey feedback from the audience can be summed up thusly:
The last comic was great! The rest of the show was whatever.
“Not every joke has to be about antisemitism.” (Point taken.)
And about the show I saw on Thursday. The club was Rooster T Feathers, the comedian was Laurie Kilmartin, and she put on a clinic. Working the crowd, remembering the details of their answers (where they met, where they worked, their dad’s terminal illness), and tying them together into a neat little story at the end. I went to the show because she used to write for late night TV, and I was hoping to chat her up about tips on breaking into that game. But halfway through her set, I turned on my phone’s flashlight to read the drink menu and must have tilted the phone a little too high, because she saw it and said incredulously, “Is that my light?” (When there’s multiple comics in the lineup, the host lights the earlier comics when their time is up, but they generally don’t do it for the headliner unless a police raid is imminent.) I yelled out an apology, feeling like the biggest dork. Needless to say, I hightailed it out of the club after the show and didn’t try to talk to her.
And there it is. A 1000+ word personal essay to make up for a month of slacking. You’re welcome, America.