Comedy Career Q & A, Part 6: Slow & Steady Meteoric Rise
Alicia: Yeah, you can’t have a viral video if you don’t have any videos.
Able: That’s true. Yeah. So you’ve done that yourself?
Alicia: No.
Able: Okay.
Alicia: Why do you think I’m still talking to you? I’m totally teasing. I have been slowly and steadily moving forward. For me there may be no meteoric rise. There may be no lucky break. There may be no big moment but ongoingly I give myself to my audience and I share varying degrees of vulnerability and varying degrees of comedy in a way that I’m potentially engaging people. So, I’m doing Facebook live. I send out emails to people. I make videos and I put them out there and over time it feels like it builds. So, it’s an ongoing slow and steady process and if I can continue to enjoy the process and it’s fun because I like being on video and I like talking to people, that has to be enough. So, sure I’ve got my projects that are on the docket for the next level and the next level and the next thing and I need to be happy with this level.
Able: Yeah.
Alicia: I just did two radio interviews today and I had an article come out in the paper about my show and like how can I be happy with that level.
Able: Yeah.
Alicia: And it doesn’t have to be that right now or in a year I’m making a million dollars doing standup. Maybe it’s I’m making a tenth of that. You know, what’s the next thing that I can keep enjoying. How can I keep having fun and not pretending to be someone else, to be more or less successful or happy or anything that I really am.
Able: It sounds like you practice a fair amount of gratitude, like to just try to.
Alicia: I try.
Able: For what you have in the present and not think so far into the future.
Alicia: I mean, it’s a trap. It’s taken me down in the past and kept me from moving forward. You know when I was doing comedy 10 years ago, there were definitely parts of me that was frustrated and bitter and it got in the way of me getting anywhere really. So, I’ve only found that things go well when I’m good with where I’m at and I’m moving forward both at the same time.
Able: Yeah, so are you a full-time artist and performer.
Alicia: Yeah. So I do comedy. I do standup. I’m putting my show on at the marsh right now. I’m working on a new standup show which I hope will become a special. I’m working on getting that produced. I’m working on in the little distant future, I’m working on a tv show idea. I do gigs here and there and then I teach comedy workshops and I do one on one coaching with people and I help people both I perform and then I help people perform. To me that’s like the totality of being a creative person is the giving back.
Able: Do you teach as someone that’s self-employed or do you teach at a school?
Alicia: Oh yeah, I totally self-employed. I make my workshops, I fill my workshops. I invent them. I design them. I get people to come to them. It’s more than a full time job.
Stay tuned for part seven…
Alicia!
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