Comics and club owners in New York and across the country are trying to figure out alternate ways to reach audiences in a pandemic. “People have told us they’re watching! ” the comic Elana Fishbein exclaimed into her laptop’s webcam from her Brooklyn apartment Saturday night. “Is that correct?
” At the moment, she occupied one of several squares arranged on a screen. Another comic, Eleanor Lewis, responded from her apartment, in a separate square, “Like Tron, we’ve been digitized into the matrix. ” It was an unfamiliar setting for a comedy show. Typically on Saturday nights, Fishbein, Lewis and others would be performing the improv show “The Armando Diaz Experience” at the Magnet Theater in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
But with the coronavirus pandemic forcing theaters and clubs in New York to close, seemingly overnight, the city’s comedy scene has been working to reconstitute itself online. Venues and performers across the country are looking for new ways to reach audiences now that the physical spaces that up-and-coming stand-ups and improv teams call home are in jeopardy. In the best of times, unless you’re a Chris Rock or Jerry Seinfeld, comedy doesn’t pay well, if at all. For little-known comics, this is a particularly harrowing moment.
Already the Upright Citizens Brigade, the improv theater that is a New York institution, has laid off its teaching and production staff, according to memos obtained by the freelance journalist Seth Simons. “If you’re a comedian, you are doing shows and you’re doing open mics and all of that is now off the table,” said Jaffer Khan, 30, a comic who recently moved to New York from Houston. Fishbein, who has been with the Magnet through much of its 15-year history as a teacher and performer, put the stakes of an extended closure in stark terms: “We will probably close if there isn’t massive relief efforts for small businesses, period. ” Livestreaming was one way to ensure the show could go on.
For $2 to $12 a ticket, Fishbein and her castmates performed on Zoom — a virtual meeting app — as an ensemble from their separate homes, acting out spontaneous bits for their webcams instead of in person onstage. Though community is key to improv, these comics had to find a way to be on the same page without being on the same stage. As it turned out, there wasn’t much physical humor, and they lacked the one thing that all comedians long for: the validation of laughter from a physical audience. There was no way they could tell what was funny and what was not.
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All they had was each other. “It feels really awkward,” Fishbein, 37, said in an interview later. “First of all, we were all trying to deal with technical difficulties that we had never dealt with before. But because we’re improvisers, I think we’re pretty adaptable.
” She added, “It was interesting to see how you could play in different ways using proximity, object work and your screen. ” (Full disclosure: This writer is part of a sketch-writing team at the Magnet and performs standup. ) Still, Rick Andrews, 33, an improv comedian who also took part in the online show, said, “It was cool as performers to see people in the chat and on Facebook afterward, not just being like, ‘Oh it was funny, I liked the show,’ but talking about how it was meaningful for them to connect back to this community because we’re all kind of isolated right now. ” The “Armando Diaz Experience” sold around 250 tickets — more than triple what the l space at the Magnet can accommodate.
Several other Magnet shows have since gone this route as well. It was not unlike what many late-night television shows tried in recent weeks. Except in those cases, some staff members served as seat fillers.
“Shortly thereafter, most of the broadcasts went on hiatus, though the hosts have been uploading bits online, like Jimmy Fallon’s “At Home Edition” on YouTube.”
Club owners, too, have been trying to adapt to the new reality. Stand Up NY, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, invited 50 comedians to come in Tuesday and separately livestream individual 15-minute sets to the empty house. Those at home looking for a laugh could access the feed all day for $5. Several other venues, large and small, around the country, tried similar approaches, including STAB!
Comedy Theater in Sacramento, the Curious Comedy Theater in Portland, Ore. , and the Stand near Union Square in New York. “I’ve been thinking about livestreaming for years, but I always pushed it off because I was focused on filling the seats at the club,” said Dani Zoldan, the owner of Stand Up NY. As the pandemic continued to make headlines, Zoldan said, “within a half of a second, I pivoted.
” He added, “We have the stage. We have a venue. Comics will want to take part. They have nothing else to do.
We’re giving them a platform to come, go onstage and work out their material. ” Zoldan, 39, added that his goal was to make the programming streamable every day. “When I found out that this could affect my business and we can possibly close for several months, I right away think, ‘Opportunity! ’” Khan, who took part in the Stand Up NY event, said that the difference in performing without a physical audience went beyond whether a joke landed.
”There’s no qualitative judgment you can make on that set whatsoever,” Khan said. For example, he said, a no-name comedian could be followed by Dave Chappelle, but who could tell whether one was better than the other if there was no audience reaction? Livestreaming also provided outlets for comedians who could no longer travel to shows. Kelly Bachman, 28, and Dylan Adler, make up the cast of “Rape Victims Are Horny Too,” an hourlong musical that debuted last month at Caveat, a comedy theater in downtown Manhattan.
Adler and Bachman — who made headlines when she confronted Harvey Weinstein at a bar where she was performing for charity — were set to take the show on tour until the coronavirus struck. Now they intend to livestream it this week “Like basically all comedians, I’m out of a job right now,” Bachman said. “We perform because we love it. We also perform for a living, and it’s what we do.
Fish have to swim. Comedians have to tell jokes. But you can’t perform without an audience. Like a lot of other comedians, I’m trying to figure out a way to keep doing what I do.
” If the shutdown lasts months, there may be a sea change in the way comedy is delivered and taken in. Digital ticket sales alone are not nearly enough to keep physical spaces afloat, given rents and other overhead costs. At improv spaces like the Upright Citizens Brigade, the Magnet and the People’s Improv Theater, classes provide much of the revenue. At clubs, the bar is a crucial source of cash.
In the meantime, comedians will have to make do with their laptop screens. As Andrews said, “We’re trying to raise money and stay alive.
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