Whenever people find out I worked at a comedy club, they immediately request a joke or otherwise expect me to be funny. All I can say is that looks aren’t everything.
For the second entry in my now-dubbed Existential Resume expedition, I’m going to bring you to the job I landed immediately following the ever-scary Terror on Church Street: SAK Comedy Lab.
*I’d like to note for any would-be critics that the movie “Monsters, Inc.” wasn’t out when I decided to trade in screams for laughter. Any further similarities are purely coincidental, and if they’re not, I’m owed some serious dough.
SAK was on the other end of Terror’s block, just off Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando. They often enjoyed one another’s walk-up traffic, and as I said before, Terror made more money than SAK did. But unlike Terror, money wasn’t why the performers or house staff were there.
My pay was miserable, but the positives far outweighed the negatives… I made my rent money another block over as a cocktail waitress at the Kit Kat Club, so I could afford to hang out with professional funny people on the side.
Which brings me to my first admission: I’m not a funny improvisational comedienne. I followed my dream of becoming a world-famous actress and thought that meant I needed to work at a theater, mastering every dramatic challenge that came at me. As it turned out, I wasn’t good. At all. I was an excellent straight gal in a scene, but terrible (I mean really terrible) at on-the-spot hilarity.
I could help grow stories with “yes, and” right with the best of ‘em. I don’t block others or shut down the forward movement fellow players make in story lines. I’m actually quite good under pressure, but my full in-character commitment to off-the-cuff concoctions just wasn’t up to par. This should have upset me. Thing is, I followed the third most important rule of improv and focused on the present, only to realize that what I really wanted was to be the house tech where I had all the buttons, levers and dials a girl could ask for.
I could have realized that I wasn’t cut out to be a funny girl and stopped devoting my time to an outlet with minimal compensation. Instead I found something I liked a whole lot more that proved useful down the road when I landed jobs as a DJ and a stage tech at a couple other theaters.
Owning my shortfall ultimately saved me from a path that wasn’t mine, and being at peace with the fact that I won’t be the best at everything gave me the courage to try something completely different.
If I hadn’t adjusted the dreams I kept when I was 18 and ready to take on Hollywood, I’d be a very different and likely miserable person today. Instead I’m saving the world (one energy efficiency measure at a time) and living the life with my wonderful family.
While theater teching at SAK wasn’t THE pivotal moment for my current reality, revisiting this chapter has reminded me that my aim doesn’t need to be perfect to still be on target. Perfection is merely a measuring stick. Many times, close is close enough – then it’s up to me to put in the work to get to where I need to be…
You don’t have to work in a theater to know that we don’t need to be under a spotlight to shine. That said, if we’re in the spotlight and we’re not there because it feels like that’s where we belong, it’s not going to be a stellar experience for any of us. Shine when it feels right and your light will be impossible to miss…
(Quick plug: If you’re interested in getting a free copy of my theater tech materials and manuals, sign up for my mailing list. I’ve scanned everything and will give them to those on my list through a super secret subscriber area, where you can access all the free randomness I share. If nothing else, my tech doodles are worth the two minutes it’ll take to sign up…)
