Please lead people to the joy!
OMG! It’s driving me nuts!
I performed in a variety show a few years ago and the host was just dragging ass. No charm, no jokes, no vibes, no consideration, no energy. I was on deck soon, and I did not want the room he was setting up for me. I pulled him to the side and asked “Are you on morphine?”
“What?” Good, I got his attention.
“What the fuck, dude? Why are you asleep out there?”
“Well, yeah, the crowd energy is really low tonight.”
“It’s not their job to decide the energy level. That’s what you’re here for. Go, kick their butts. Don’t accept it. Tell some jokes! Force them to wake up!”
He did. He turned on all that he had, one act before me, and I got the best crowd energy of the night. I like this story because I was the hero.
It’s happened to me plenty
It’s easy for us to forget that we’re the leaders. It’s easy to forget that this is our domain. Entertainment, the way we choose to do it, is our position of power and that’s what people want. They want to come in and play by our rules and experience the mastery that we provide.
Sometimes we fall into a popular vote mentality, creation by committee, or a belief that we are limited by our genre.
So, I understand the zoom drag
I keep seeing these zoom shows where the host of the show says “Let me see how this thing works” “Is my audio on” “Ok, what’s next” “We’re having a little bit of a technical issue” or all the other complete oxygen sucking phrases that entertainers think they need to say…I understand it…BUT NO!
We don’t have to do it like this, people. Get off the morphine. Quit succumbing. Quit sucking. We might be doing the best zoom show we’ve seen, but that’s not good enough. We need to make leaps and bounds right now, but we’re sitting in our chairs in front of a cameras squinting at the comments, degrading ourselves and our audience.
Make it move.
Do we sweat on stage? Heck yeah! So we better be sweating twice as much on zoom, because sacrificing our energy doesn’t mean as much on camera.
Quit stopping
There’s no stopping on stage. There’s no apology. There’s no accidental breathing. C’mon everybody! Give more!
Imagine starting a show with “What would you like? This whole show is your way.” That would be the worst show ever. It isn’t up to the crowd, it isn’t up to the technology. It is up to us. What do we want to bring?
The stage is a wooden box. If we let the box call the shots, the show wouldn’t be tres great. It would be a lot more about wood and rectangles than most audiences would like.