Review - Performance
Day 339 (27) – Don’t Be Judgin’ Me
I performed stand-up in what will likely be my last public show of 2007 (I say public because I’m doing a private event next week). It was good to get back on stage after a month-long hiatus; it’s always a challenge to try to get back into the flow of performing. What I didn’t realize about the open-mic was that it was actually a judged-competition – something I wasn’t aware of when I decided to do 2 minutes of still “in-progress” bits and a minute of entirely new material.
I’m not entirely sure how I placed (it wasn’t in the Top 3), but I did receive my scores. Overall I thought I did a decent job, started off strong, got a little shaky in the middle, but the new jokes went great and I ended strong. According to the judges I did average to slightly above average. It’s always great to receive feedback about a performance, (in addition to the feedback of laughter, or lack there of, that you have in each performance) but it sucks when the only feedback is a number. And the weird thing is that each of the judges rated me differently. One judge thought I was a 2 in Originality (the scale was 1 to 5, 5 being the best), while others thought I was 4.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to talk with judges afterwards, as I’m always curious as to why I received what score. And it’s not out of pettiness, or belief that I was better than other people who rated higher (comedy is subjective, what one person thinks is better might be worse to someone else, plus I understand that I might be a little biased), I just want to know how I can improve. If I’m a 2 in Originality, what didn’t seem original? Jokes about my voice, why Michigan sucks, the Alphabet Acronym?
All in all (where did this phrase come from?), I had a good time tonight, did decent, and received some feedback about my performance. I would have loved to learn more details, and thought that I should’ve done a little better, but in the end, it’s all about stage time and doing the best you can.
