Returning To The Stage

A Stand-up Re-enters Comedy

Photo of the Author taken by Taylor Steele during her first performance post lock-down

I am, among other things, a stand up comic. The pandemic shut down live performance in New York City and I didn’t realize how much I’d miss it until I wasn’t having it. I’d been performing in front of an audience my whole life. I started off in church, like so many black performers. I grew up in southeast Virginia and attended, along with most of my relatives, a Black Baptist church. There were loads of opportunities for kids to get up in front of the “crowd.” Read scripture, giving announcements, taking up the collection. Putting the youth “on stage” was really encouraged and I always remember being there.

In high school I auditioned for school plays and was a regular performer on the school stage. Same with college. Even in law school I found my way to being cast in an undergraduate play. I started performing stand up when I moved to New York City and had been doing it off and on for over a decade.

When the pandemic hit I’ll admit I was somewhat relieved. Being a full time lawyer and a full time comic was physically draining. I didn’t have a car so I was often riding my bike or the subway all over town, from downtown Brooklyn, to the upper west side of Manhattan to back deep into Redhook Brooklyn where I lived. Sometimes cycling home at 2 AM with my work laptop and costumes for my sketch comedy team strapped in the book-bag on my back. A little break from running myself ragged and giving 110% to a sometimes drunk sometimes bored crowd of people sounded like heaven.

But as the days turned to weeks turned to months, I realized that I missed it. A lot. During the pandemic enterprising comedy producers quickly revamped their shows and put them online. I did a Zoom RISK! performance before my largest international crowd ever. I performed for George Washington’s Law School commencement and for small business cocktail hours. The work hadn’t dried up, people wanted to laugh more than ever. But if you think telling jokes in front of a laptop is the same thing as standing on a stage in front of a crowd — you’d be wrong. It ain’t the same. And I wasn’t prepared for how much live performing had become something I needed and craved and had clearly taken for granted.

I’m sure part of my pandemic depression (because we all got depressed last year)…