Working With Pros

Saturday June 7th, 2008 - Northbrook, IL

Another night of fun with the Chicago Comedy All Stars. Tonight we worked the Green Acres Country Club in Northbrook, IL. Jimmy McHugh and Sonya White were on the bill as they were on Wednesday as was Bob Jay. Bob is an impressionist and a super nice guy.

Bob has been very sick in the last while and is recovering from leukemia. I don’t know all the details and it’s none of my business but I had heard he wasn’t feeling well and we hadn’t seen each other in a while. I always liked Bob as does everyone else and it was an absolute treat to see him work tonight. He really nails his impressions and is very funny.

This was again a powerhouse performance but in a different way than on Wednesday. It was a different audience and many of them were older. ALL of them were Jewish and that isn’t good or bad but it is something to deal with. All of anything in any audience can be a major help or a major problem depending on how it’s handled. We handled this one right.

None of the four of us are Jewish so the best way to handle that is to admit it and just do the show. The worst thing to do is try to appeal as an outsider right up front because that’s a sure fire recipe to alienate them right off the bat. And by ‘them’ I mean any large group.

I’ve seen that situation in many areas. It might be a northerner in a southern crowd or an older act in a younger crowd or a black act in a white crowd and the list is endless. ‘Us’ is on stage and ‘they’ are in the audience and ‘we’ have to bring it together to find laughter.

We sure did that tonight. Personally I love to work Jewish audiences because as a rule it means they’ve seen entertainment before and know how to behave. They’re polite even if they’re not enjoying it and when they enjoy it they let it be known. Tonight they loved it.

One of the reasons they loved it was that all four of us are comedy veterans and read the audience beautifully. Each of us picked and chose our material and approach so that it had the maximum laughter effect without being offensive. We steered clear of anything that is even remotely controversial and all of us got solid laughs at some point during the night.

What made that possible is that all four of us have spent our lives perfecting our craft so we could know what to do in a situation like this. I make a comparison to a quarterback in the NFL because it fits perfectly. No matter how long a backup QB holds a clipboard he’s only going to get experience by getting into the game and taking his lumps for a while.

We’ve all done that for more than a while and it paid off tonight. The mike wasn’t great and neither was the lighting and we had a small stage and started late. Even though it was less than ideal we overcame it and gave the audience a great show and they appreciated it.

After the show people lined up to tell us how wonderful we were and they meant it. The audience was pretty well to do and they didn’t have to stay if they didn’t want to but they did and we appreciated it. Working with experienced comedians takes it to a higher level.