Chemcially Imbalanced Comedy’s Blog

by Angie McMahon

Recently I went and performed at the New York Underground Comedy Festival. First of all lets talk about the good stuff. I got to perform on Broadway! I got to meet some awesome road comics, and learn a bit more about that life style. And I got to hang out with some best pals in NY.

My Agent was gonna come out and due to last min family stuff could not. Then she tried to call a local agent to put me in there pocket for the weekend and couldn’t get anyone to do it. My pal that works for ABC’s Wifeswap was gonna play Manager for me but got called away to Michigan to deal with a fighting family that was gonna quit or something like that. So I had no one to rep me.

This Festival gets lots and lots of industry to it. But it is so massive that they are very spread out. So if you don’t have someone industry savey to find out for you where the hot spot folks are you will likely not get seen. They run approx 30 shows at the same time every hour in various clubs. Some with big Celebs some with not so big Celebs. And the small stages suffered and got canceled a bit. One of the best things I was told (and agree with)by one of the road comics about this fest is it is so fly by the seat of your pants. The worst thing about it is it is so fly by the seat of your pants.

I had planned on doing my 20 min set on Thurs night. Really the only night I was promised and expected to do. I was called by the producer and told we could get a few more shows while in town he just had to move some stuff around and I would have to do 10 min sets on the second stages so be ready for it.

The other hard thing is this is a 99% stand up festival. And what I do (and what some of my pals who were in town do) doesn’t always fit with that. So the first night I got in and was told I had 10 min at the HA Comedy Club. I got there and my show was canceled. So they pushed me into another show. It was a bit tough cause I was a mist of all of these stand ups. And I was doing something Theatrical. So it threw the audience off a bit. I guess it was good that there were only 10 or so folks there. It was a Wed night after all.

The second night I was in a real Theater (not a stand up room) and my 20 min went well. The audience was small and I was told the night before the set of mine that got canceled someone from E! was there. So I was a bit bummed. A slight murmmer of “Did you hear so and so from MTV is at this club right now” or “So and so from NY Times is over there right now” But it was never where I was at the moment.

So I begged for another spot. And was granted a 10 min spot the next night back at the Theater space. I get there and the folks running the house say “We may cancel” I respond “That means the Theater sits empty for 2 hours and you make no money right?” Answered with a “Yes”. Then I grab a stack of tickets and say “Well now its a free show!”

I didn’t even wait to see if that was ok, I ran down stairs with 20 min to go till showtime and started yelling at the crowd walking through Times Square “Free Comedy, No Drink Min starts in 10 min” I got 30 people to come up stairs. One women asked me “Why is it a free show?” and I said “Cause I want to perform.” and she answered “Is it full?” and I said “If it was full it wouldn’t be free.”

More comics started coming down stairs and joining in begging for folks and a spirit of the show must go on embodied us.

I went up stairs so proud of myself, at least I would be seen by a decent crowd for a wonderful 10 min.

I was on 8th. After the first three comics went on 15 people got up and left. After each comic 2 to 3 more people got up to leave. I was heart broken. I had taken my 45 min show cut it to a tight 20, down to 10 and no one was gonna see it. I started talking to the publicity guy, who just so happened to be there. I was standing with Marz Timms another Chicago Comic who was having a similar experience to mine, except he was at least doing stand up. The publicist said to cut everyone remaining set to 6 min and he would take me and Marz over to a club where NY Times was just doing interviews and get us up in front of him.

So now I’m doing 6 min. My 45 min show in 6 min. Fine as long as we can at least get in front of a paper.

We each do our 6 min (Marz was right in front of me) and the publicist takes a picture of Marz and I with sad faces and walks us over to the other club. He tells them to put us up. They are full, not to mention NY Times is gone and no other industry is at this club right now. Marz is leaving in a few hours and I am tired of begging for laughs so we leave.

The same road comic told me next year to set up meeting ahead of time. Try to make sure the industry folks know where I will be, and do it before I get to the fest. He said he has been seen at this fest but it is so large you have to do a lot of the leg work on your own, and ahead of time.

We have been invited back for next year and was told it will be smaller and more focus will be given to Highlight Sketch and Improv on its own. So I look forward to next year, hopefully with an agent by my side.