I quit (producing comedy shows)
Why I started. Why I'm stopping. And what's next.
In my last post I teased some ‘juicy details’ of why I was stepping down as the producer of Comedy at The Factory. Here’s the short version: my life is very different from when I started the show. I’m married now, I have a dog, a cat and a gecko. My interests have changed and grown. And at some point I stopped feeling excited about running the show and started feeling excited to stop running the show.
Here’s a long version:
To answer ‘Why stop?’ it’s helpful to answer ‘Why start’ so here goes.
Some people produce because the just love comedy and want to bring people joy blah blah blah with absolutely no desire to get onstage themselves. Those people are saints.
I am not a saint. I am fundamentally depraved—I need talk about myself in front of strangers and I need hear them laugh. Unfortunately, when I started standup I was not funny which is normal.
It doesn’t matter if it’s comedy or the clarinet: beginners suck.
The difference is you can practice the clarinet at home. When you put your lips to the reed the first time you will immediately notice that you suck but almost nobody else will know.1 Sucking at clarinet can be your secret until eventually you don’t suck at clarinet and then everyone will be mildly impressed: “Did you know he plays the clarinet?”.
Standup comedy doesn’t work like that. You write and rehearse in your room. You hear a theater roar with laughter (in your mind). Then you gather the guts to go to your first open mic, wait an 1+ hours for your turn, and when you put your lips to the microphone for the first time… it’s all squeaks.
You suck publicly. And you can only really get better 5 minutes (often 3) at a time at open mics in front of other beginners and a handful of dive bar derelicts (if you’re lucky).
This is bad formula for skill development.
Malcom Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything. The math is dismal if you only could get better at open mics: 10,000 hours = 60,000 minutes = 12,000 five minute sets. At this rate if you went to one open mic a day you would become an expert standup comedian in… 32 years?2
The solution is to get booked on lots of real shows. The best way to do that is to be extremely funny but, as we have now discussed, you suck so one solution is to… book yourself!
Congratulations. You are now a comedy producer!
The good news is that being a comedy producer is actually way easier than being funny. All you have to do is think thoughts like “What do I need to do to make sure the show is good?”, make a list of your answers, and then actually do those things before, during, and (yes) after the show.3
Near the top of your producer to-do list should be something like “book funny comedians”. As a comedian-producer you can revise this to “book funny comedians (and also one that kinda sucks (me))”.
If the first show goes well there may be another. Rinse and repeat. With every show you get better. Eventually other producers will take a chance on you for their show.
Eventually, you wont be the worst comedian on your own show.
Eventually, you might get good enough or well-liked enough or a combination of the two so that people will book you regardless of if you will book them on their show.
Eventually, the downsides of producing might start to outweigh the upsides.
There are a lot of downsides.
Producing is work. There’s the booking, bookkeeping, marketing, audio, lighting, setup, teardown, dealing with customers, figuring out how this affects your taxes. Most of this is unglamorous and tedious. As soon as you check the boxes for the next show, there’s a whole new set of boxes for the one after that, and the one after that, forever.
It is emotionally exhausting (and I think especially for me). You will receive booking requests constantly. You will constantly have to tell people “No” in the nicest way possible (and feel like a dick) or leave them on read (and feel like a dick). Most will understand but if you’re like me you’ll constantly feel like somebody (everybody?) is mad at you (for being a dick). Those you don’t book will resent you (dick). Those you do book might resent you for not booking them more often (what a dick!).4 You’ll tell yourself that most of this is just in your head but you’ll never really know. Most booking requests come from people you don’t really know. Many will come from your friends or people you would like to be friends with and those are the ones that will weigh on you. You’re the kid on the block with a pool in your backyard. You’ll never know if anyone actually likes you or if they just want to swim in your pool.5
Opportunity costs. All of the time and energy spent producing is time and energy not spent on writing jokes, performing, or doing the basic shit of living or even possibly enjoying your life. For example, instead of making plans with friends or your partner you’re Facebook messaging an open-micer that you are terribly sorry that you do not have a 5 minute guest spot for them.
You might be asking yourself, “Is it really that much work to produce one show a month?”
No, it is not that much work. It is extremely easy.
I’ve run multiple weekly and monthly shows since 2019 in addition to having a day job, getting married, continuing to write and perform as a standup comedian as well as doing a bunch of other hobbies. It’s just that lately the downsides outnumber the upsides.
By the time I started producing Comedy at The Factory I had already been producing shows for about 5 years. Now after 7ish years it’s really just starting to feel like a job and I already have one of those.6
Also, producing shows sort of feels like a kid holding onto the edge of the pool. It’s time for me to let go and see if I can swim in the deep end. I’m either going to be able to just be a comedian and get booked without my own show7 or I won’t get booked enough to stay sharp and I’ll eventually just… fade out.
Mostly though, the last couple years or so I found that whenever I was excited about doing something else I always had some producer shit that had to get done first and I’m over it!
What’s Next?
I’d like to spend more time just doing the things that I like to do and following my inspiration.
I like the format here on Substack so I’d like to share more here. I’ve got a lot of interests ranging from woodworking, gardening, classic car restoration, baking, etc. and I’d like to ground my writing in my interests and write more essays similar to ones I’ve already posted. Maybe some other more experimental stuff. We’ll see. Thanks for subscribing!
(Also at my last set as a producer for Comedy at the Factory Bar I did a 25 minute set and it went really well! I had another 15-20 minutes of material I was ready for but had to cut. I’ve got another 15-20 on top of that I think I could incorporate into a full hour long show. I want to continue to develop that hour. I’d love to do a fringe fest and maybe take it to Edinburgh. Maybe in not too long I’ll run the full thing at The Factory Bar!)
Unless you live at home with your older brother. At this time I would like to apologize to my younger brother James for making fun of him for sucking at the clarinet when he was in 4th grade. That wasn’t very nice of me.
If you’ve never been to one search “stand up open mics suck? reddit”.
This amount of forethought and executive function excludes 98% of aspiring standup comedians.
If you are a dick then you will LOVE being a comedy booker.
Low key, having a pool is kinda a dick move.
Which pays much better and gives me health insurance and it’s way easier and I’m good at it and I don’t really ever have to be a dick to anybody… hire me?
FWIW this currently happens though not as often as I might like and I’d like to headline more and at better venues and I have to ask bookers to book me which I hate… book me
I want you to know I laughed out loud at “if you are a dick you will LOVE producing comedy shows”