My biggest beef is with the classes that promise they can teach anyone to be funny for a mere $400. And then turn out these cocky bastards that want to demand time due to the fact that they brought people. Every comic has friends at the beginning of their career. For your information, most "friends" show up to see you fail, and starting out, you often don't disappoint.
What I would tell my class and anyone thinking of doing comedy is just get out there and try it. I can only teach from experience and my comedy schooling was write, perform, fail, rewrite. And then watch others fail, feel better about myself and come back next week. So, I had my students write down three humorous experiences and present them in class. Wherever people smile or laugh, take note, that's the funny. Then, half the class was spent at an open mic, the Star Bar to be exact, where Rotknee begrudgingly let three of my students get up each week and fail. See, that's another great lesson of comedy, picking yourself up after completely humiliating yourself in front of a group of strangers. It has to be good for the soul - at least that's what I tell myself. And at the end of the class, they collected the stories that didn't suck, reworked them and presented them to a sold out room of friends. Now did they all hit it out of the park? No. Did they have a good time and impress their friends? Yes. And are any of them on Letterman? Unfortunately, not, but then, neither is their teacher.
But my advice is that if random strangers keep commenting that you are funny, you should seek out an open mic in your area. Now, make sure that they are not being sarcastic or lying. If you are pretty, there is a good chance they are telling you what you want to hear. And it's not that your funny, just fuckable. And my last bit of advice is to be humble. Allow your performance to speak for you. And always be wary of the shy comics, they're your biggest competition.
EC: Dream on sister… So you are the Cougar Comedienne. What is a cougar exactly?
CC: A cougar is a woman who has reinvented herself for her second act. We all have acts in our lives and my first act was a flop. I started to reinvent myself in my 30s partially out of boredom but also because I really didn’t want to be the old chick at the bar. I was with my friends drinking my way across Chicago. Everyone was either divorced or broken up and we had this Sex in the City cabal. After a few years of that I was done with it. I needed a new outlet so I started doing comedy.
EC: An outlet that has become a career.
CC: Finally. Yes!
EC: Why do you think there a so few women doing stand up?
CC: I’ve worked in several different male dominated professions, run sales teams that were all male I’ve never encountered a more misogynistic environment than comedy. As a woman, you just don’t get the leeway that men get to grow as a comic.
EC: Right. If a guy is on stage telling bad fart jokes he downloadedfrom the internet the perception is that he’s just a newbie but he has potential. A girl starting out better not even consider talking about her bodily functions lest she be burned at the stake for breaking the sacred double standard. If she doesn’t have a great set it’s because female comics just aren’t funny.
CC: Exactly. Women get one shot at a club and if you don’t do well and the club owner isn’t interested in trying to bang you, it’s over for you there. Most of the time the only way to get in to a club is if a male headliner brings you in. As a chick you can’t send promo to a club, they won’t even look at it.
EC: Even the audiences participate in the prejudice. “I don’t like female comics, but you were good.”
CC: They say so nonchalantly, as if it’s not offensive. It’s the equivalent of telling someone of a different race that you don’t usually get along with their people but “You seem nice”.
EC: But women are funny! There are so many great lady comics- Rita Rudner, Ellen Degeneris, Kathleen Madigan, Maria Bamford, Kathy Griffin, to name a few. Obviously, it’s possible for a woman to succeed in this field despite the stigma.
CC: There are only three media markets for women: New York, LA, and San Francisco. Those cities really embrace women and they take them from the stage to television and film and there is a specific demand for their talent.
EC: Right. You’ve done very well in New York. And LA.
CC: Yes. I’ve been on Geraldo,I’ve been on Secret Lives of Women. Montel called me…Inside Edition. Recently, I was contacted by Simon Cowell’s organization.
EC: And you’re still working the road?
CC: Absolutely. It’s where you really define your character and develop your act. You have to get away from where you live. The material that works regionally may not go over everywhere else. You need to be able to communicate with any audience. I’m still learning so much.
EC: I put 50,000 miles on my car last year doing one-nighters in places like Pollock, South Dakota and Kamiah, Idaho and the experience was invaluable. I love to travel, but as a feature, between the low pay and rising gas prices, I can barely break even.
CC: It’s a brutal path and you have to be ready for the long haul. You have to want it obsessively and be willing to make sacrifices but I truly believe if you stick with it long enough, something will happen. There’s an expression, “It takes ten years to be an overnight success”.
EC: Let’s talk about the Funny Femmes.
CC: I’ve been doing this for years… because there was such a lack of representation in Chicago, I started producing these shows that allowed comediennes to get stage time in a safe environment where they were encouraged to grow. Now I do them in Atlanta and a few other cities here and there. I call it the Funny Femmes but I’ve always involved men because I don’t want it to be like what we’ve seen, 90% of the time you’re the only female. I don’t want to exclude anyone. There are rules though. I don’t book any guys that talk about banging fat chicks or rabidly hate women. There are so many male comics out there that are great and work well with women and even bookers that are really supportive but we need more.
