Being a Good Host
One of my goals in starting SuperEgo Comedy with Michelle was to get more experience hosting.
Mission accomplished ... I've been hosting ... and not a moment too soon. Turns out MC'ing a show, like so many things in life, is more work than it looks.
You're "on" all night long and you have a lot of competing responsibilities.
Here's what happened my first night hosting SuperEgo.
GOAL & ATTITUDES
- I'm going to do 10 minutes of whatever I want at the top of the show, after all, I'm the host.
- I'm going to have lots of funny things to say in between acts.
- I'm gonna rock and everyone's gonna see how awesome I am.
- Many of my forced attempts at humor died horrible deaths.
- The crowd was bored by my long, self-indulgent set of experimental stuff.
- Many comics had to come on stage to a lack of energy because of my floundering. This affected their sets. Which in turn, brought the show down.
- I put a fair amount of pressure on myself to succeed, which did not give me a good stage presence.
- I did succeed at one thing spectacularly. I made the show all about me. Specifically, I made it all about me not doing a very good job of hosting.
- The show wasn't a failure, per se. But my poor effort gave it a weird vibe.
The difference between just doing a regular spot and hosting is very much like the difference between going to a cocktail party and hosting one.
As a party guest, I get to talk about myself. I get to be fabulous and flirty and get attention and "have fun".
As a party host, I feel a responsibility to make sure other people have fun. I make sure their drinks are full and that they're involved and ask them to a talk about themselves. As a host, it's not uncommon to actually not have a lot of "fun" at my own parties. But I still get a lot out of hosting. It's deeply satisfying seeing my guests having a nice time and to know I made that possible.
It's a different sort of experience. "Fun" is exchanged for "satisfaction."
I went into hosting SuperEgo with an attitude of ... "It all about me, me, me!" Note the completely lack of mention of both responsibilities and anyone else in my goals.
In retrospect I realized how deeply wrong this was. I thought of MCs I admire, like Jim Mendrinos and Guy W and going into my second time hosting the show, I gave myself a major attitude adjustment.
Dale Hosts SuperEgo ... Take Two!
GOAL & ATTITUDES
- I'm gonna do everything I can to help the comics have a good show and the audience have a good time.
- I'll do a few, short, warm-up bits at the top of the show and then get right to the line up.
- I'll do my best to draw the audience in and keep the energy up.
- I will make an occasional joke or offer an occasional tag when it will add something to the show. But if I have nothing interesting to say, I will say nothing.
- I will keep things moving along.
- I will not make the show "all about me."
- I will make the show "all about the comics."
- Success!
- I did everything I could to try to deliver the audience to each comic, primed and ready to laugh.
- The comics had great sets.
- As the energy waned toward the end of the show (as it often does) I made sure to pump it back up so that no one had to come up to dead air.
- By making fewer tags and doing fewer bits in between acts the things I did do were far better received.
- I put almost no pressure on myself and had almost no expectations. So I was relaxed and casual, which allowed me to be occasionally spontaneously funny.
Your thoughts about what makes a good host?
(The illustration I stole is by my very talented friend, Tyler.)
Labels: standup, SuperEgo Comedy
posted by Dale Sorenson @ 3:55 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Great post, Dale! I hope to catch the show with you hosting sometime very soon. And it was very cool of you to mention me in the same breath as Jim Mendrinnos!
Guy W
I once had an experience that was in some ways similar, in some ways different.
A long time ago, back in college before I ever studied acting or had any similar ambition—back when I was a Math & Computer Geek—I was in this class called "Media Studio" in which basically students made these sort of movie-things using an array of slide projectors, a sound-track and a computer. It was a fantastic class, and it had a reputation of yielding some creative and often hilarious works. (This was also a class which, for some reason, you could take multiple times for credit, so I ended up taking it three times. It was unquestionably my favorite college class ever.)
At the end of the semester was a Friday night show of everyone's work to the college; it was always a lively, packed-house event with at least a few hundred people in the audience. An MC was necessary because it always took about 3-5 minutes to set up the next student's piece.
The second semester I took this class, I was informed that I would be the MC. I was completely terrified. I was a meek, nerdy type with very little self-confidence. I really didn't want to do this, but the only "senior" type of student in the class had to operate the equipment in back, so begrudgingly I went for it.
I have very little memory of the event—I was too much in shock I think—but however it happened, I was fantastic! I came up with material spontaneously. I somehow had a completely responsive audience. (They were probably empathetic to the fact that I was out of my element but doing the best job I could.)
The following year I was spoiling to MC the event again. I had been so excited about the past success that I ego was pretty inflated and, like Dale in this post, I think it was going to be "all about me". And it fell so flat it was painful.
Apart from that I've never done any stand-up or improv or other "unscripted" type of acting, so I don't have enough experience to analyze things further. If anything I'd just have to guess it had something to do with being honest with the audience and, as you said, not making an MC position about you.
As Lt. Cmdr. Data would say, "Intriguing!"
Your experience was exactly inverted from mine.
DALE
Ignorance->Arrogance->Failure->Awareness->Humility->Success
MURRAY
Ignorance->Humility->Success->Arrogance->Failure->Awareness
However, our different paths have brought us to the same conclusion. Namely, the key to a being a good host seems to be humility and the realization that the show isn't about the MC. That, and, "Pride goeth before the fall."
If we can add a dash of confidence to the formula, without losing touch of the humility, it ought to be just about perfect.
How about this ... "I'm going to be a great host because I'm going to make sure everyone has a good time, the audience is engaged, the acts are well received and because I realize it's not all about me."
Thanks for your observations.
I've been doing a LOT of pondering recently about the balance and interplay between ego, humility and honesty—not just in performance, but also in work, dating, friendships, etc. And I'm also very curious about what the distinctions are between how one performs as an MC and as a general "performer". Ie. is it important to have a higher ego-to-humility ratio as a performer than as an MC? Can these thoughts on generosity and 'making it about other people' apply, albeit in different ways, to both roles?
For myself, I know one of my core problems is my ego (as it relates to self-confidence) is really lacking right now... to the point of my having a hard time getting interested in my own life. (As I said before, I've been doing a lot of soul-searching lately.) An interesting question for me would be: if I suddenly found my ego (ie. some level of success or forward momentum) would I run into the sudden "Success -> Arrogance -> Failure -> Awareness" cycle you described.
But this is all getting a bit heady... I think the MC role is just a similar role with slightly different parameters, which you are now realizing. Again, it's fun (and really insightful) to read another artist's blog and analysis of "the process".
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