My performance at Broadway Comedy Club was interesting. Of the 8 minutes of stage time I had, I'd say that about 7 of those minutes were made up of completely new material. New material is tricky. On the one hand, I never want to be a comedian that does the same set word-for-word year after year, thus boring the fans, but on the other hand, it's hard not to perform something you know is killer. I went for mostly new stuff and hoped for the best. Some was good, some wasn't. So it goes.The crowd was a little more restless than I'm used to. There was a loud drunk guy in the back of the room. My friends in the audience told me that if I had gone up one comedian later, he would have been quiet because he finally got sick and needed to be dragged to the bathroom by his friends. I wouldn't give him the title of "heckler," per se, but he was a distraction. I still have yet to be officially and directly heckled while performing. *knock wood* (That's NOT an invitation to heckle me.)
As I've mentioned, I write the bullet points of my set on the back of my hand so if I lose my place, I can craftily look down and get back on track without the audience being the wiser. Well, on Thursday, I lost my place, casually looked down and realized I couldn't read what the fuck I wrote on my hand. For what seemed like 50 seconds, I just stared at my hand like a freak. I wonder if people thought I fell asleep. Finally, I realized what it said and started in on my next joke. It was agony. And it completely threw me. When I watched the tape later, it's really only about 4 seconds. It's amazing what a mere 4 seconds of silence can do on stage. Oy.
I hear it happens to everyone. And it could have been a lot worse. I'm glad I got it out of the way and that I survived and that most of my set got laughs. That's new material for ya. A wild adventure.