You are your own marketing department

“I live to perform in front of desolate, echo filled houses” - No One Ever.

Nothing like baring your soul in front of a group of 6 people, 3 of which are performing after you. I mean even Helen Keller liked Anne Sullivan to be around when she performed. You know, for constructive feedback. So why is it deemed so evil to advertise for your own craft? Don’t you want people to see you? Don’t you want to feel the energy of people connecting with your output, your viewpoint, your sense of wonder? And to another extent, to pay to see it. I mean the baby’s got to eat. Full discloser, I’m an improviser. Anyone who does improv knows it pays in $1 beers and green room assorted nuts. Not a slight against the scene at all, just the reality. While improv is getting bigger in our fair twin cities, the demand isn’t quite there yet. I don’t see an end in site for my performing days, just as much as I don’t see it as a career. But that doesn’t mean I want to perform for 6 people. When I started my Twin Cities improv life a few years ago, I was ecstatic. “Look at me Ma, I did it,” I would say. I wanted all of my friends to see me. It was fun, it was funny, and it was gratifying when they would come, which was quite frequently. I lose track of how many time my sister Danielle and her husband Josh would bring their friends by the Bloomington Sheraton to see me with Stevie Ray’s (which has since moved towards the South Dakota border). But that got old. Yeah, it’s new every time you see improv, but how much can I expect my friends to come and see me. This is maybe the most underrated metro area in the country; there are lots of cool things to do every night. Plus, I feel like my friends at a certain point would feel like they are obligated to come. Maybe that’s my own paranoia, but I don’t want them to ever think, “well, I should go”. So you pull back on the promotion a bit. I did. I still do. A lazily made Facebook event here and an awkwardly non-sequitur mention of “my plans” for the night there. Nada. No dice. Plus by this point I’ve really narrowed in on very niche market of people who put up with my shenanigans enough to hangout with me (Webster’s dictionary calls them “friends”, Oxford’s calls them “blokes”). Again, I don’t do this for a living. But I know lots of people that do. And it makes me sad to see them in front of an empty house. Whether it’s for their pocketbook or their soul. Yes, yes, art should be for yourself first. But whoever said that first probably had a grant, an inheritance, or died with no one knowing what great writing they have done, until some estate sale ruffler found their journal years later for 35¢. I guess it’s just my two cents that art is for you first. Then the discussion and discovery of others in a very close second. But it makes me sad when I find out a day later that a really cool show was going down at Bryant Lake Bowl or that there was a Rent Party at Huge Theater. Why don’t I go to the Southern Theater more? You were at Comedy Underground at the Corner Bar last week? Sigh. No one bats an eye when other forms of “business” promote themselves. @MrResturantPerson advertised their menu specials on Twitter or the insurance guy gave you his card. Yes, that insurance guy is annoying, but you still bought insurance from him didn’t you? Cause he did half the work of letting you know it was there to be purchased in the first place. Just don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, you do it on stage anyway. You pour yourself naked onto the canvas (figuratively and some of you, literally). Your heart is all over your hooks, stanzas, and arrangements. Yes, I know so very little about music, but that doesn’t mean I won’t appreciate it. Just be genuine and honest when you promote yourself and what your doing. I won’t mind. I bet others won’t either. And you might bump that crowd of 6 up to a crowd of 7. Then that 7 turns into 8. Next thing you know you’ve got a Schoolhouse Rock song and a full house. That’s something worth talking about.