Day in the life of
Comedian – Shaun Eli Breidbart
My typical work day
- Checking and responding to email
- Calling or emailing venues to pitch comedy shows
- Booking shows- this is negotiating contracts with clients, booking other comedians to work with me at these shows, sending promo/marketing info to the client/venue (theatres, corporations, private clubs like country clubs, charity events, religious organizations)
- Writing jokes
- Looking over videos from last night’s show if I had one- I record all shows to see if anything didn’t work the way I expected it to and figuring out why- in some cases changing a word makes a big difference or a different facial expression then getting on stage and making people laugh- and that’s what makes it all worthwhile
How do you come up with new jokes and how often do you spend thinking of new jokes?
Some comedians try to sit down and write an hour a day. I can’t just sit down and write. But stuff just occurs to me when I see something or hear other people talking. I was with family last week and somebody made a comment about a mail-order bride. I said, “I ordered a mail-order bride but mail service is so bad that when she arrived she was eighty.” All it took was someone saying mail-order bride and it made me think of bad mail service, and that was the result.
Or “A friend took me to an escape room. He said it was an escape room. Turns out, he just locked me in the closet.” Just occurred to me. I can’t explain the process any better than taking
something and twisting it around a little. Picasso would look at a face and to reduce it to two dimensions he might put two ears next to each other. Comedians do that with words and concepts.
That said, a lot of stuff comes to me in my sleep. I try to write it down. Sometimes it’s so vivid that I get up, turn on my computer and start typing. And hope that I’m not so tired that I forgot to open the word processor first.
A lot of times it’s just something that happened to me that’s funny enough to talk about on stage, like my story about fighting a parking ticket in Philadelphia criminal court or being on jury duty in The Bronx. Or my parents. Anything about my parents.
Like when my father told me his bank is giving him free checking for life. I said dad, you’re ninety two…tell them you’d rather have free Lipitor for life.
I can be inspired by anything that happens to me. Like during the pandemic I thought: How many of us are learning American geography only because we’re tracking our package deliveries on the web?
Performing at a show at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, NY
Pros
Making people laugh is the best job in the world
Especially favorite thing is thinking of a joke on the way to a gig and trying it out right when I get on stage. The standard advice is don’t open or close with a new joke because you never know how it’ll do. But my enthusiasm for a new joke helps me sell it so this usually works fine for me. And if it doesn’t, well, I’m skilled enough to dig my way out of the hole I dug and threw myself into.
Women say the number one trait they’re looking for in a mate is a sense of humor. But then they end up dating musicians. At least I don’t have to lug equipment around to gigs. I just show up and talk. My sound check is literally “Can you see me? Can you hear me? Okay, see you in a half-hour.”
Unless I have an early flight- and I try to avoid early flights- I don’t really need an alarm clock. Or should I say the alarm on my phone- who uses an alarm clock? On the rare occasion when I do need an alarm to wake up I use my phone. But I also set my alarm clock as a backup. And I have to read the manual each time because it’s so seldom I need to do it.
Cons
You’re giving a comedian from New York the opportunity to complain? Get comfortable, it’s going to be a long ride.
A common question I get from women on or before a first date is “You’re not going to talk about me on stage, are you?” And I say “No… Of course, I will. My father was a tax accountant… and dating’s expensive. So if I can find something funny about our date and talk about it on stage, it’s tax-deductible!” But no, I’ve only really talked about two women I’ve dated, and both times with their permission.
Also, people seem to want to tell us jokes, especially after a show. I try to explain- that’s not how this process works. I tell you jokes. After the doctor takes out your tonsils you don’t take out hers.
After your flight lands, you don’t drive the pilot home. After you confess to your priest he doesn’t turn around and confess to you. Maybe he should, but that’s not how it works.
And really, almost all the time people tell us jokes it’s three minutes long with only one very obvious punchline, it’s filthy and offensive and we’ve heard it before. It’d be like going up to a chef and saying “I have to tell you about this great meal I had in France- it’s this super chicken dish, called coq au vin…” and the chef would think “Dude, I’m a chef, I know what coq au vin is.” At least the chef doesn’t have to stand there and watch you make it and then taste an inferior version of something he doesn’t even like.
People also want to tell us who their favorite comedians are and how funny they are. I say “Would you go up to a model and say ‘you know who’s pretty? Someone else.'”
There are drawbacks to being self-employed- there’s no HR department, no 401(k) plan. Not a lot of worker protection. And as a comedian, I’m not just the writer and performer. I’m the bookkeeper, the web designer, the wardrobe guy, sometimes the sound and lighting guy, also the stage manager, the marketing department…
What advice would you give to others who would like to become a comedian like you?
Don’t be a comedian like me. Be a much younger comedian. It’s a pretty ageist business. I started by taking a comedy class. Some comedians will say you can’t learn to be funny in a classroom. They’re wrong. You can’t become funny but you can learn how to be funnier. You can learn techniques for writing and performing better. You’ll make friends with other people just starting out. And the most important lesson- how not to hit yourself in the face with the microphone if it’s stuck in the mic stand and you have to pull hard to get it out.
