A Hack's Potluck

[Cerak]

Hey everybody!

I help run an open mic here in Albuquerque and on the 14th my co-producer is gonna be out of town -- leaving me with the reigns. I really wanna try something different and while I was driving home last night I came up with the idea of hosting a Hack's Potluck.

Basically, all of the comics would be bringing 5 min of another comic's material -- famous or local.

Granted, this could seem nightmarish, but I figured the open mic was a safe space to experiment (the crowd is almost always comprised of the other performing comedians). It was also, I believed, an opportunity to get to know the comedians better by seeing who influences them all while having a little fun.

Is this an abomination to the comedy world or something that would be ok, since it's so intentional. Lemme know. I'd love feedback.

[ASR]

At my university we have a stand-up comedy organization for students on-campus who perform, and we try to have meetings as much as possible. Usually we try some joke-writing exercises or practice in front of each other or even try improv games, but one time we did something interesting and similar to what you're talking about: we all went up and tried doing each others' acts.

Granted, this was in the confines of a tiny room in some run-down university building with only ourselves as the audience, but it was definitely a fun exercise. You get to see how your act would look translated through somebody else, and you get to try your hand at using somebody else's material.

This was great for the first few tries, but then it quickly devolved into us just making jokes at each others' expense and doing caricatures. Which was really funny, mind you, but nobody really took it seriously. Which is fine, because we just wanted to have fun anyway, but I figured I'd let you know it's probably going to fall apart pretty quickly and might not be sustainable for a whole night of comedy. It'll also be strange to do in front of an audience. Maybe organize a meet-up or something in private?

[Phil]

sounds like fun! (see if you can get Nick Madson to headline)

[Cerak]

sounds like fun! (see if you can get Nick Madson to headline)

Well, I was thinking Nick Madson to feature, Carlos Mencia to headline.