I arrived at The Comic Strip in a fit of nerves on the night of my first ever stand-up performance. In the beginning of the class, D. F. Sweedler had told us not to worry about the performance because it wasn’t worth spending time on. Well now, I was fitting in all of my worrying in one hour long period and my insides were absolutely churning with anticipation. I had rehearsed all week, but the more I practiced my jokes, the more I began to stumble over the words and want to change them.

Everyone I knew wanted to hear my jokes in the week leading up to the show.

“Practice on us! You’ll be less nervous!” They urged.

I laughed them off and avoided any sort of rehearsal performances. I was terrified to do any of my material for anyone outside of my class because I knew if I did and the audience reaction wasn’t what I wanted, I would be even more tempted to try to change my material at the last minute which was a huge, glaring no no.

By the time all of our class had assembled inside, we were pretty much frozen with anticipation. We talked and socialized, but as soon as we saw waiters setting up the room for the performance and arranging the tables, we quieted down and began rifling through our notes. I took out an envelope and began to write out all of my jokes, murmuring under my breath as I worked through each bit.

One of my classmates noticed me doing this. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

I looked at him and gave a worried sigh. “Marking down each joke and all the key parts in order so that I can be sure I cover the key points in each one.”

He looked concerned. “You’re making me more nervous.”

We laughed and each went back to our preparation as the people filed into the theater and began ordering their drinks. My room mate arrived and popped over to say hello.

“Oh my god! How are you feeling? Are you ready?”

I blinked and swallowed. “Not really a choice there!”

“You’ll be fine! I’ll laugh!”

I was so desperate for any sort of comfort, that her words warmed me. I was so glad to have her support. She was the only person I had invited who had been available to come. The upside of this, I thought, was that if people laughed at my jokes, they would be laughing because they were actually funny and not because they knew me.

My worst nightmare still nagged at me: Getting on stage to be met with dead silence for five minutes. Then again, it was only five minutes. I knew I was strong enough to bomb for five minutes if that was the case. Before we knew it the lights went down and the show had begun.

We didn’t know the order in which we would perform, so at any moment, the host would come and get one of us and send him or her back stage to be “on deck.” At a point, I realized I had to put all my notes and nerves aside and simply wait my turn. In my experience as a performer, obsessing over details right before going on stage is never good. It prohibits you from really being able to live in the moment while you’re up there. This is not to say that acting in a play or a film is the same as stand-up, but I knew if my mind was racing while I did my jokes, that I would be a mess. Instead, I tried to get as close to a Zen state as possible. What would be, would be.

Just when I’d decided this, the host, motioned for me to head back stage. All of my classmates gave me reassuring smiles and thumbs up signals. While I made my way backstage, I could feel my knees knocking and the adrenaline coursing through me. As I stood in the tiny hallway behind the ominous black door that opened to the stage, D. F. came over and we listened to one of my classmates’ performances through the door. He complimented her and analyzed her as he had done in class, but in this more private moment, I was able to see how much he really wanted her to succeed. He was with her every joke, every moment of her routine. When you’re in class with a professor in a room full of students, it’s sometimes hard to see how they relate to each individual, but it was sort of touching to see how much he had invested in our individual growths as writers and comedians.

He patted me on the back. “Are you ready?”

People had asked me that over and over. “I have to be.” I shrugged and we both laughed.

He nodded. “Take deep breath and don’t go too fast. Slooooow down.” He smiled and gave me a reassuring look.

“Ok!” As he left I did a few jumping jacks and tried everything I could to keep my body from feeling dead. Somehow I felt like a solid block, not a whole person with functioning limbs connected by joints.

From outside of the door I heard the host. “Continuing the theme of female comics, give it up for Anne Richmond.”

Oh dear God. That is my name. I opened the door and made my way through the crowd, taking a deep breath as I stepped up onto the stage where I’d been performing on for 8 weeks. Instead of being a large platform in a small room, suddenly it had become a tiny pedestal in a sea of people. Here we go. I began.

“I once went on a date with this guy who, I swear, was trying to see what kinda gal I was by my choice of cuisine…”

I beamed as I stepped down from the stage and made my way out the back door of the theater. I had done it… and what’s more, people had laughed.

D. F. was waiting for me all smiles. “That went well! I liked some of the small changes you made.”

I was still flustered and stumbled over some of my words. “I know. Yeah. I worked on a few things during the week.”

He nodded. “Do you feel good?”

I thought about it a moment. “You know. I do. It really was not as terrible as I thought it would be.”

And it hadn’t been. Certainly, I was filled with nerves, but I had been relatively calm in my delivery. It wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t the funniest thing I’d ever heard, but it was mine. Every joke I had told had been based on an experience or an emotion that I felt close to in some way and in eight weeks, I had turned my neurosis and my intense self awareness into something positive for a room full of people. I think at the heart of it, that’s the best part of stand-up comedy; the shared positive experience.

I may never do stand-up comedy again, but I learned a lot about myself as a person and as a performer in the eight weeks I spent at The Comic Strip. I learned a whole new style of writing, transforming my verbose, tangental stories into short, direct punch lines. I learned that I can stand in front of a room of people and stand in the pressure of the spotlight without wilting like a tulip under a heat lamp. Most of all, I learned that if you embrace yourself for all of your flaws and your quirks, people will embrace you no matter how odd you think you are.

Anne Richmond is an actress, singer, and writer living in New York City. Armed with a BFA in Theater from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she trained at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School and The Experimental Theater Wing, she continues to work in the theater and the burgeoning field of new media. She is a founding member of Box Full of Wasps Theater Collective and one of the creators of the upcoming webseries, O-Cast ©, a show which she also produces, costume designs, and performs in. (http://www.annerichmond.com, http://www.o-cast.com)