If I want to be a comedian [or actor/writer/improviser/director], how do I get started?
The answer from Mike Birbiglia, plus his advice on getting a solo play off the ground.
6 Tips for Getting Your Solo Play to Broadway by Mike Birbiglia:
1. WRITE IN A JOURNAL. Document your life. The good stuff. The bad stuff. But mostly the bad stuff. What’s wrong with you is more interesting than what’s right. I’ve always felt like we go to solo theater to be told secrets. When I was developing “The New One” I was writing in my journal all of these secret feelings I had about being a new dad. Feeling like everything I did was a mistake. One day I wrote, “My wife and daughter love each other so much … and I’m there too.” In the margin I wrote, “This could be something!”
I shared it with my wife, Jen, who’s a poet, and she encouraged me to say it onstage. That line ended up forming the foundation of the whole play.
Birbigs had a depthful convo about the piece with his director Seth Barrish on his podcast. Def worth a listen.
He also wrote this: Mike Birbiglia’s 6 Tips for Making It Small in Hollywood. Or Anywhere. In it, he answers the question “If I want to be a comedian [or actor or writer or improviser or film director], how do I get started?”
2. FAIL
Don’t worry about failing. There’s a great video where Ira Glass explains that when you start in a new field, your work won’t be as good as your taste. It will take years for your taste and the quality of your work to intersect. (If ever!) Failure is essential. There’s no substitute for it. It’s not just encouraged but required.
The bedrock of all good pieces of writing is 10 bad drafts. Maybe 20. I wrote 12 drafts of “Don’t Think Twice,” 14 drafts of my first movie, “Sleepwalk With Me,” and worked on my first one-man show for six years. My first five-minute set on “Late Show With David Letterman” in 2002 was mined from three hours of so-so material that I had tried and failed with for six years.
And here’s a good bit from #5 (BE BOLD ENOUGH TO MAKE STUFF THAT’S SMALL BUT GREAT):
Leaving the system behind and creating something of your own may actually be thing that gets you into the system, hopefully on your own terms.
The point is, forget the gatekeepers. As far as I’m concerned, what you create in a 30-seat, hole-in-the-wall improv theater in Phoenix can be far more meaningful than a mediocre sitcom being half-watched by seven million people. America doesn’t need more stuff. We need more great stuff. You could make that.
Misguided Meditation
If you’re in NYC on Friday night (June 9), come check out my show at Gaia NoMaya (an amazing space in Brooklyn):
🍄🌿🤫🧘🏾♂️😹 Misguided Meditation with Matt Ruby: A Psychedelic Comedy Happening – discount code: tunein
A COMEDY SHOW FEAT. LIVE VISUALS AND AN AMBIENT SOUNDSCAPE…The show is about psychedelics, death, therapy, meditation, and way more. Along the way, Matt details his own rocky road to wellness, discusses the thorniness of the mindful life, and pokes fun at woo woo wackos.