Turning+Lisbon+comedians+into+comedy+show+hosts

Turning Lisbon comedians into comedy show hosts

2020, Feb 16
That Guy

So last year was fortunate for me in terms of opportunities that opened up. For comedy. For short film projects. I was able to travel to several cities in Portugal and perform stand up comedy in English. I became the host of several different English comedy nights. I had one of my jokes adapted into a short film. I got involved with a bunch of other short film projects. I don’t think a lot of people can appreciate how fortunate I am to have received those opportunities.

Only two producers were putting on English comedy shows in Lisbon this time last year. At least somewhat regular shows. And I was able to become the established host for one of them. I got tons of minutes of stage time because of it. Tons. I knew it would help make me a better comic, and it did. I was absolute hot garbage when I started, and I’ve worked hard to become room temperature garbage.

There is no circuit of cities in Portugal to travel around and do English comedy. But I was invited for some special one-off comedy nights in Porto, Coimbra, and Famalicão. I could never have dreamed this shit up.

I used to struggle a lot last year trying to find places to perform or to put on shows. But now I became a licensed promoter, and now I have tons of venues asking me to do more comedy shows for them — too many. I’ve had a couple of weeks recently where I did three days of shows in a row or four days in a row. That may seem like nothing if you compare it to cities that have a lively comedy scene like Berlin, London, or any major city in the USA. But here in Lisbon, doing three nights of English comedy shows in a row is pretty amazing. It’s getting better, slowly, but it’s still far from those other places.

Even so, my whole focus has been trying to create more opportunities for people. Like all the ones people gave me last year, that helped me improve as a comedian. On top of the existing shows I’ve been hosting and assisting other people to put on their English nights, I’ve been running Lisbon English Comedy Jams since the start of the year. The jams give people opportunities to get more minutes on the mic. Anyone can show up and sign up to perform, and they can do multiple sets in the single night if they like. It turns out to be an entertaining format, and sometimes it’s a bit of a shitshow, but people seem to enjoy them. I get a lot of good feedback from them. The essential part is that it maximizes minutes for comedians in a single night. Cause that’s the only way to get better. Get the fuck up there and do it. So they get to do a set, sit down, write some more jokes, get inspired by other comedians. And then jump back into the lineup and perform again. Fun shit.

And now, one of my next goals is to give people their chance to become hosts. I was suuuuuper fortunate when I became the hosts for the o.zebras group because they would manage all the comedians and set up the night with the bar. All I had to do was show up, make the lineup, and focus on learning how to host. So I’ve set up the jams to be similar, and I’ve started rotating new hosts to give people that opportunity to host comedy nights.

The first guest host is a local comedian from Slovakia named Yasmina. She’s been doing standup comedy here in Lisbon for like a year, at least. She was always performing at the o.zebra nights I was hosting. And she’s grown a whole lot from having all that stage time. So she ran her first jam a couple of weeks back - all by herself. I became sick right before the show and had to run off. But she’s good at managing shit and did well from what I heard. Last night was the second guest host.

He’s a local Lisbon comedian, Jacopo Spaziani, that I’ve been performing with since the o.zebras nights as well. I remember his very first-night doing standup comedy there, and he killed it. So he had his first opportunity to host a comedy show last night, and it lined up with his Mom and other family coming to visit. So it was a pretty special night. We had a lot of fun. I showed him how I set up the lineups to keep track of who’s performing (because people can go multiple times on jam nights). How to do the intriduction. I didn’t really have to tell him. He’s been to basically all the james and perfomred at shows forever. But there was small tips and tricks here that really help out.

It feels good as fuck to help create these opportunities for people that have been here supporting me for so long. I wouldn’t have had so many amazing nights learning how to become a comedy host if these people didn’t come out to perform. And to be able to pass on that role of becoming a comedy host to them is honestly special for me. So I have more jams lined up with guest hosts. And I’ve already helped one friend set up his comedy show that he’s been running for a bit now: Paul Kang and the buttery Kang Clan Comedy. And I’m going to keep doing this as long as I can. Who knows how long that will be, but it’s working for the moment.

One of the next things I want to do it take comedians around Portugal to travel for shows. I have a bunch of connections in other cities, and it would be dope to bring a bunch of comedians from Lisbon and do a couple of nights in Coimbra or Porto. Like I had the opportunity to do quite a bit last year. We’ve been doing a lot of hostel performances, so we’re going to try and work out some deals where comedians get discounts staying at the hostels if we do a few shows there. We’ll see how it goes. It would be great if we could make it a regular thing to move comedians back and forth between cities a couple of nights a month. But it would make a lot more sense during tourist seasons. So, I’ll have more tasks on my place come Spring/Summer.

For now, I’m trying to turn more comedians into comedy hosts and it’s going well so far.