Pro / Am Night

Last night, I was at Absolute Comedy in Toronto hosting their Pro/Am night. About 120 brave souls dug themselves out from the 8 cm of snow we had received and made it out for the show. If you've never been to a Pro/Am night, I have to tell you, you should check it out. The Pro/Am is essentially the club's amateur night, but unlike other amateur nights, the night is closed off by the weekend's headliner who usually does a 20-25 minute spot. Also, you will typically have 5 or 6 comics in addition to the headliner. This format is great in that the audience gets decent variety of some of the city's amateur comics doing their best stuff in hopes of being offered weekend opening spots, and you get a professional giving you a taste of the weekend show. Not to mention, the admission price is only $6. The other thing which makes these shows fun is that you really never know what you are going to get. You could see some of the best comedy you've seen. You could also see a train wreck. Last night was a very fun show from start to finish. All of the comics did well and the crowd was really into it.

I haven't hosted at the club in a while. The last few times I've been there, I've middled. In a typical show you'll have a host, a middle and a headliner. The middle usually does 20 to 25 minutes. I really like middling. It's a great way to build up and tighten my "act". But I've middled the last couple of times so I wanted to host this time around. Hosting is also a lot of fun, but it's a more challenging role. You have to be more in the moment, and have to set the tone for the show. You have to play to the crowd and really control the room. Arguably, hosting is the most challenging spot on a show. Headlining can be tough because you need so much material to do it well, but hosting is a much different beast. Hosting forces you to exercise different comedy muscles.

Not having hosted a "proper" comedy show in a few months I was worried that I'd be rusty. Well, luckily for me, and for the audience, it was like riding a bike, except I wasn't wearing spandex shorts and I didn't run out of breath. Okay I did, but that was after my dance dance bit which is to be expected. I really need to work on that. The crowd wasn't overly chatty, but I was able to bring a couple of people into it and it led me into a couple of my bits about relationships. So while I didn't get as much of a chance to spritz as much as I would have liked, it was still a lot of fun. I am looking forward to hosting at the club for the rest of the weekend with Denis Grignon and Ali Hassan. Throughout the week there will also be a few very funny comics dropping by for spots including the hilarious Deb DiGiovanni, who is scheduled to drop in on Sunday night.