Violent audience/comedian interaction

[pg13]

OK, fine... I'LL do it.

The topic of violent audience/comedian interaction came up in the Worst Show Ever thread.

Yes, it does happen. I've seen it happen in front of me (and I've been the one to run up towards the stage to get in front of an audience member about to go after the comic). I've watched YouTube clips of it happening to friends of mine. I've felt like it was about to happen to me while I was performing.

It happens. But, so do fights in many other, non-comedy-related, situations where alcohol is being served...and the same rules apply. You've got to know who not to mess with...when not to push things any further...and what to do when you run into those "Clint" kind of guys that you just can't seem to avoid a confrontation with... (That's a "Dazed and Confused" reference, if you're wondering.)

But Erik's advice (over in the Worst Show Ever thread) is totally valid and real--many of these violent audience/comedian interactions are brought on, exacerbated or even begged for by the comedian on stage and what he/she chooses to do.

Audiences are misguided by the perceived notion of what a heckler is...and how "expected" it is at most comedy shows. But so are comedians misguided about what is expected of them when confronted by any number of distractions...and many leap into the breach, guns and f-bombs ablazin', as they've been looking forward to their chance to be antisocial misanthropes without, seemingly, any repercussions. (Trust me, there are ALWAYS repercussions.)

Contrary to some comedians' beliefs, dealing with a heckler is not about who ends up with the ultimately funny line. Dealing with a heckler is about CONTROL. You are the person on stage that everyone in the room should be paying attention to...if something else draws the audience's attention away from you and what you're trying to do, then it is your job to figure out how to regain CONTROL...or the show suffers. It is as simple as that.

If a well-timed put down shames a heckler into being quiet--great, you've regained control... In practice, however, you'll find that most drunks have no shame...and if someone was rude enough to interrupt a comedy show with their babbling, there's not much chance that they'll suddenly have a moment of clarity, apologize and hide, meekly, for the rest of your set...even if you nailed them with the perfect put-down.

And every situation is different--the very term "heckler" is often a mislabel of what's really happening. For comedy to work, you need everyone's attention...but people are used to talking to each other in bars, they're used to talking to each other during television shows, movies, sporting events, concerts, church...what have you. They're not particularly well trained in shutting up and paying attention so they can enjoy the entertainment they've paid for... Or, sometimes, audience members respond...as if YOU'RE talking to THEM and they're carrying their end of the non-existent conversation. Or any of a thousand other things might be happening...and you, trying to do your set, has to quickly assess the situation and determine the right way to deal with what's happening so the majority of the audience can continue to enjoy what you're doing.

There's no one perfect way to deal with things...but there are plenty of ways that will get drinks thrown at you...or will get you threatened after your set.

Common sense should prevail--but try having common sense when you're sweating out a set where people keep interrupting you... It's hard, it takes effort AND experience.

...and all of us risk falling into that trap every time we take the stage. It happens to the best of us, it happens to the worst of us...

But if you can manage not to get into a fight every time you go to a bar...you'll probably manage to keep your nose from being busted just because you're doing comedy now.

pg--Control is elusive. You're playing with fire. It could go out or you could get burned. Good luck!--seattle

[chrisrozwod]

Dude, you are the king.

I think I'm the one that sparked the discussion about this topic in the worst show ever thread. The part about control makes a lot of sense. However, as you mentioned, that is hard during a set that might not be going well.

I'd brought up the topic because I've experience dealing with crowds from playing music, but I wasn't sure if that would translate to the comedy stage...which I have zero experience in (unless you count reciting Seinfeld bits at a middle school talent show as experience). I'm interesting in trying comedy, but wondered about the crowd difference because I figured I'd have to deal with hecklers often...maybe even large groups of hecklers. After reading how often Erik was heckled though, I'm amazed at how infrequently it might happen.

While playing music, I was pretty cool-headed when dealing with one or two unruly audience members. However, when it was large groups of people, I seemed to just get mad, and turned against the audience. That happened twice--where there were groups of people heckling. The second time, I definitely lost my cool, and don't really remember what happened, only that I started talking a lot. My friend later told me that at one point I called everyone (even the people who weren't heckling) in the audience cunts and then went through whoever I could see from the stage and told each person what I didn't like about them. I was sixteen. Amazingly, no one bothered me after the show. I believe that had to do with it being a venue for music though.

I figured if I did that at a comedy club, that I'd probably get beaten up right on stage. During that time when I was sixteen though, I wasn't even thinking about controlling the audience after a while. I was angry and was just looking to get revenge, or something like that. That's why I originally posted in the worst shows thread. It didn't seem like anyone really had experiences dealing with what I was worried about.

I don't know why I write these things out at 6am. I probably didn't even wind up getting what I wanted to say across. Basically, thanks for the post. There is some great stuff that I'll be committing to memory in there. Also, the post answered a lot of the questions that I had from the other thread.

I'm sure I've repeated stuff a few times. Sorry.

[James Smann]

I've found there's a lot of similarities, at least at the level most of us are at, between audiences at a bar watching a band and audiences at a bar/club watching a comedy show. I played in a rock band for ten years, and we always noticed that the farther out from a major metro area the more receptive folks were to hearing our music; and I've noticed the same thing doing comedy. So that's my first observation; the lower number of jaded douchebags in the audience, the better...though sometimes that can be the reverse because "local yokels" tend to take their watering holes very personally and if they feel you don't belong...you'll find out quickly.

When I first started writing and performing sketch comedy in college with my friend we noticed that audiences have an uncanny way of reacting and reciprocating whatever energy you give them; especially if it's negative. If you start turning on them because they don't like your material, or whatever they will amp up their hostility and either get openly negative towards you, or worse, just stop paying attention altogether.

I've only ever had one ugly moment with a heckler on stage...actually it was two hecklers. They were in their late 50s, drunk on a holiday weekend and they had called pretty much every comedian that had gone up "faggots" and told them "you fucking suck" literally from the start to the end of their set. Why the usually awesome security there at that bar didn't pull them away and out of the bar, I don't know...

So when Dave and I took the stage that night we played two songs, and the set was actually going really well...and then Statler and fucking Waldorf started piping up, telling us our songs were stupid, and that of course we were also "faggots". So Dave and I tried shutting them down by just ignoring them, but they started yelling loud enough to get over the PA, and at that point I just turned to them played an E major chord over and over and over and over and over. I didn't say anything, or sing a note.

That worked for another song...and then right after the song finished, they started yelling at us again. So I apologized to the audience and again turned right on them and played some bullshit I IV V progression and improvised a song about being old, stupid, drunk and homophobic...it ended with me screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP" over and over...

Needless to say that was really stupid on my part and while security did eventually escort them out; we definitely got looks from them and as we were loading out after our set, they were yelling shit at us from their car and we really thought it was going to get even uglier.

I'll never be that hostile towards a heckler again. All it does is feed off of and into the negative bullshit they're throwing at you to begin with. And if either of those dumbfucks had a weapon or something it might've ended even more shittily.

[ErikNielsen]

After reading how often Erik was heckled though, I'm amazed at how infrequently it might happen.

I might be kind of an extreme case, because a) I don't do a lot of rowdy rooms, b) I'm relatively loud (and therefore can drown out a lot of talkers), and c) I have little or no desire to interact with the audience.

But honestly, if you ARE confronted with a heckler, the best thing to do is keep going. Deny the heckler his power. If it continues, step back a bit -- pause. Let the heckler realize he's the one being weird, and let the audience realize this isn't welcome. If the heckler has any self-awareness left whatsoever, or if his friends do, the situation may resolve itself. The crowd will slowly turn on the heckler, which might dissuade him ("oh, wait, this ISN'T an awesome thing I'm doing, is it?"), and is DEFINITELY going to come in handy in the event that you DO need to address the situation directly.

(And if the venue is paying attention at all, they might get the guy out of there.)

Whereas if you get angry, or engage the heckler too quickly in an attempt to get laughter, nothing good's going to happen. Either you give up control, or... well, even if you get laughs, what does that do to the heckler? A lot of the time, it's going to embolden him. He's going to think, "okay, I'm part of the show now!" Presumably, if you're shouting at a comedian in the middle of the show, you want attention. No attention for the heckler = no heckler, more often than not.