Hi Friends,
It’s me — Michael Misko, your friendly neighborhood magic director.
While we all like to think we bleed for our art, until recently, I didn’t take that figure of speech literally. Welp…
I cut my finger during The Blades. Badly. Like probably-should-have-gotten-stitches-but-I’m-too-stubborn kind of badly. The first two thoughts went to my finger and the severity of the cut. The third thought was back in the show: “what do I have left?”
Fortunately for me, I had no dexterity-heavy material remaining, so I didn’t have to panic or think too hard about how to adjust any routines.
So, I immediately addressed the elephant in the room and told the crowd I had cut my finger, so they didn’t have to discover this fact as my hand slowly started to turn red. I finished the routine to an unusually raucous round of applause (everyone loves an adversity story), and moved into the next part of the show: stand-up.
While I would’ve ordinarily walked the stage, mic in hand, to make the bit feel more like a stand-up comic, I stayed put at the mic stand, safely within my Power Triangle. (I write about this in my microphone essay, This Will Be Mic…So There’s No Confusion.) That is where I cleaned and bandaged the cut.
Acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavski, calls this a familiar task. When you’re living a life on stage, you don’t just stand there with your hands at your sides; you move around, engage, interact – you remain physically active and engaged.
Watch your favorite actors in their scenes.
The next time you see a piece of theatre or take in a movie, watch your favorite actors in their scenes. Are they just sitting there talking? Or are they performing a task while delivering their lines? This could be anything: driving, washing the dishes, eating, bowling, delivering a baby…whatever. But the act of doing this task while speaking their lines helps ground the performer in reality and elevates the believability of the performance.
My cleaning the cut while telling the jokes wasn’t elevated “art,” believe you me! But because I know my show inside and out, I didn’t have to think about two things at once. I could let my mind go on autopilot to clean the cut, something I’ve done several times before, while staying engaged with the crowd and delivering the jokes, something I’ve done several times before!
If I didn’t have a script to follow, ie my roadmap, I would have been painfully lost at this point…with a bloody finger, no less.
WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW!
Try this:
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Pick a “familiar task” and run your script while doing it (i don’t recommend delivering a baby)
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If you lose your place, figure out where and then dissect why.
Once you figure out how to stop the bleeding, you’re well on your way to a built-in safety net.
If you’d like to pack the wound sooner, I can be your bandage! Let me use my years in the theatre and on stage to help you solve problems before they become problems. The best time to go to the doctor is before you know you’re sick!
If you’re serious about taking your magic to the next level, set up a consult call! Check out the details at my coaching site:
Best,
Michael
PS – If you wanted to order a copy of my book, Comedy, Character & Control, recently reviewed by Genii Magazine, click HERE.
PPS – If you wanted a copy of my essay, This Will Be Mic, So There’s No Confusion, nearly 30 pages on using a handheld mic for the stand-up entertainer, you can get that by clicking HERE.