Comedy Career Q & A, Part 7: Grow Big or Grow Home

Alicia: I think doing what you love should be the goal and if doing the other things to pay the rent make it easier to be creative then that’s beautiful. If they make it harder and they drain  you, then it’s one reason to consider making it more of a fulltime experience, but I can say while I make a living doing it, it’s been a long run to get to this place and it involves a mass amount of administration, marketing, web-design, flyer design. Like every other not stage, not creative related thing, I have to do. You know working with people,  managing groups of people. Like there is so many pieces that if I didn’t just love what I’m doing and just love that I get to do this would be a nightmare full time job if it wasn’t like oh my god this is my dream. So I remind myself that oh my God, this is my dream.

So it’s not a thing to do in my mind just to say you do it. I think it’s the thing to do because you really don’t want to do anything else and when I had day jobs I just couldn’t, both didn’t want to be there anymore and it was too many different places to put my head and some of them were draining to the point where I would get home if I had a full time job and I wouldn’t want to go out and perform and I wouldn’t want to go out and write and it’s still an ongoing discipline even though I have a good amount of free time working for myself. I now have to manage that level of discipline.

Like okay, I just enrolled a whole workshop and sent out an email and put a bunch of people on my newsletter and uploaded a video and now I’m going to write comedy. Good luck, I’m going to watch some tv.

Able: Yeah.

Alicia: So, it’s an ongoing challenge, especially if you want to like eat well.

Able: Yeah.

Alicia: Or not have a roommate. I think the thing that is best is have a great paying job that gives you enough time off where you can go perform and you have the energy and the aliveness to perform and then take time off from that job and go do a tour and then come back. You know create a show where you get booked and you get to perform that show and make it over time a bigger and bigger part of your life and develop your voice.

Able: So, don’t necessarily go big or go home. Start putting yourself out there little by little.

Alicia: It depends. Really, it’s such a personal decision. Like how old are you? What part of your life are you at? Like if you go big and go home could be like move to LA now and go big in that way. Like do that now. give it everything but in the right way, in a way that is methodical and clear and strategic and because it’s fun and you’re going to have a great time–regardless of how it goes.

Stay tuned for part eight…

Alicia!


Alicia Dattner

Comedian and Creatrix Alicia Dattner is an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning performer who loves to help others use the power of humor to transform their lives and write a new unfolding story for the world.

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