When I had decided to audition for the seventh season of "Last Comic Standing," I had thought that standing in line and waiting for my shot to prove myself as a comedian wouldn't be easy, but I had no idea what a strange experience it would end up being. I was a sophomore in college when it came time for the auditions in early February 2011. The Hollywood Improv was one of the two locations in the U.S. where comedians could audition, the other being the Ice House in New York City. Being about an hour away from Hollywood, sans car, I skipped class on a Friday and caught a train to Los Angeles. I arrived at about ten in the morning, where I was number 47 in line for an audition in 24 hours. We were told to sign in at the front, and to try to stay in line. No one from NBC had arrived yet, just 46 other comedians who were dying to be seen. Having been doing stand-up for only about a year, I had only one reservation about the performance: if I absolutely bombed or was a laughing stock, I would give up, but if I had received any positive reinforcement I would keep going.
We didn't need much to audition; in fact, many comedians would have preferred a bit longer to perform, as opposed to the two minutes of clean material we were required to produce. We also were told two bring a form of identification, but compared to other auditions there was very little required to participate. I would audition for other shows after this one, which required many appointments and doctor's appointments, but this was simply an audition where participation was the main requirement.
I waited in line with a strange cast of characters. There was Ti-Ma, an African American woman that seemed to never stop talking and was the most self confident person I've ever met, Boom Shaka Laka, a homeless man who had a second job as a stand-up comedian, Allister, the gigantically tall man with a special fondness for marijuana, and Hence, the former male stripper. These were some of the more normal participants, as I was also greeted by a man dressed as a ninja who refused to communicate with anyone normally, and a kind man in the front of the line who sported stilts. I sat with many of these people talking and passing the time, and though we could've stayed up all night talking and remarking about everything, most of us passed out at 9 p.m. I quickly found the reason I was so popular was because I had a huge tent, and the stranger comedians seemed to be insistent on staying in it, but nonetheless we all fell asleep. Suddenly, around 2 a.m. we awoke to screaming and yelling, as a man sporting a cane and some extremely fancy clothing, walked up and down the line yelling about how this was all useless and none of us would become famous… as well as a lot of other points about history and race and some very strange stuff. He was trying to anger us and get us to leave after being told that, with the line around 300, he probably wouldn't be able to audition. Anger us he did, but none more than a drunk group of friends who had cut in line and drank loudly about thirty people behind us. The loud, strange prophesying was soon accompanied with a loud and profane retort from one of the friends, and we heard a bottle break and a fight about to ensue the next time the fancy man came down the line. We all waited in the tent, not having the nerve to walk outside, anxious to hear what would happen. Suddenly, the fancy man was intercepted by the cops, and taken away for the night. The drunk man went to asleep, and we slept for another few hours before we woke up… to the rain.
By 10 a.m., we all packed our bags and got into line. The fancy man had returned the next morning to the end of the line, and the drunk fellow (who was still drunk the next morning) was asked to leave. The judges arrived around 11 a.m., and we found out they were the late Greg Giraldo, Natasha Leggero, and Andy Kindler. They were there to judge us and either invite us back to the showcase of talent that night or tell us to go home. Many of us were excited over the experience and status of our judges, but our joy was temporary: the rain started up again, and one of the first people to audition, the man on the stilts, was refusing to leave the stage. He had brought duct tape to attach himself to the stage, and was not going to leave until he was accepted into the next round of the show. It would be the second time the police showed up that day, and it prolonged our audition process. We also were delayed because of the process. All contestants who attended the open audition were to wait in the rain, enter into the green room and sign some paperwork, and then go directly into the televised audition in front of the judges. There were no producers there to do any pre-rating, and it seemed like there were a lot of delays after a late start in the day. Additionally, more experienced comedians were contacted and allowed to schedule their audition and go straight into the green room at a scheduled time. For being less than fifty people in, I entered the green room at 3 p.m., and ended up appearing in front of the judges around 3:30. Over two hundred and fifty people, perhaps more, would not get to audition that day, as only about ten more contestants got to audition after me.
I was half asleep and sopping wet by the time I was in the green room, filling out paperwork. I had passed out in a chair and then woke up to the sound of my last name. I was shuffled into line with about six other people, and told to prepare our material. We got to hear each person outside of the door, knowing who did well and who tanked, with only a pair of Italian comedians passing into the next round out of our group. I was the last to go from the line. A production assistant sat at the door, waited for a cue, and then tossed me inside. I went straight to the stage, smiling and wet and nervous, as the judges sat smiling. I bumbled through my routine, messed up some punch lines, and otherwise let nearly twenty four hours of strange company, exhaustion, and trepidation impact my performance. "That's it," I thought, "that was my last time doing stand-up", but the judges were extremely kind and encouraging, telling me to come back next season after gaining a bit of composure and confidence. I ran out of the building, part out of excitement, and part because I knew I needed to catch a cab to the last train home.
I have since not only continued stand-up (I recently opened for Demetri Martin, Jeff Ross, and Russell Peters), but auditioned and been on different reality television programs. "Last Comic Standing,"however, was the only one I've been a part of that has been a benchmark for what I wanted to do in life. Auditioning for Last Comic was exhausting and extremely unique, and though I enjoyed it, it'd be a bit difficult to do twice.
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