The Story Behind My Stand Up Comedy Premiere

 

  Heather's First Stand Up Performance, at Standup Scottsdale in AZ

Click on the above link to see the youtube video of my first standup performance! 

This past Christmas while visiting my family in Phoenix, Arizona, I went to a stand up comedy show featuring Chris Strait. My sister, Summer, and my best friend for the past 19 years, Holly, came with. I am grateful to be friends with some incredibly funny people and one of the things I love to do is go to see stand up comedy. That night as we all gathered outside Standup Scottsdale, I was somehow getting a lot of laughs from my jokes as we mingled with comedians. I had never imagined doing stand up before, mostly because I have so many talented friends who are much better at telling jokes than I am, but everyone seemed to be encouraging me to try it. My sister even told me she could get me into a show at the bar she is a bartender at because they host a weekly comedy night. I was pretty excited and added doing stand up once to my "bucket list". One day I'll share more of the wacky things I've done in the name of living fully and being a daring force of nature.

I began to prepare a few jokes in anticipation of doing a three minute spot in the summer. My other best friend, Jennifer, who is an amazing comedian, was relieved when I told her I was going to try stand up. Why relieved, you might ask? Because for the past ten years I've been encouraging her to do stand up and I have been cutely (aka annoyingly) evaluating her conversational jokes and telling her to "throw that one on the joke pile!" Now she is delighting in telling me to throw it on the joke pile myself.

I was pretty fed up with the seemingly unceasing amounts of snow in Massachusetts this winter, and in February I decided to go to Phoenix for Spring Break in March. I flew in at midnight on Monday and Holly and I saw that there was a comedy show at Standup Scottsdale on Wednesday evening. We went, and it was an open mic night, though to be honest, most of the comedians were professionals and were very good. There was even a guy who came from LA to do the show! As is our style, Holly and I decided we would make friends with everyone who was willing to hear our stories and enjoy laughing with us, and before the show we ended up trading some humorous chat with the show's producer, Nick Paul. He wanted me to tell him one of the jokes I was preparing for the summer and of course I said "No! I don't want you to steal it! I'll share it tonight with the audience, though." Yes, that is what I said. Sheesh, Heather, way to get yourself into a bind! But also: way to "live, live live!" as Auntie Mame would say. He invited me up during his set and I gave a one minute routine that was greeted by loads of laughter and the respect of many of the comedians afterwards. I am enormously ecstatic to be able to have successfully pulled off my first stand up comedy performance. Thank you, Holly, Summer, Jennifer, and Nick Paul! You all rock!