Worst Case Scenario

The Two Things That Will Destroy Every Artist.

Kevin James Doyle

May 17, 2023

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My new hour of stand up and storytelling open today at the SOHO PLAYHOUSE. MAY 17, 18, 19 and 20 only!

Tickets are available with a little discount here TICKETS

Lately, I have been writing on here a lot about creativity and in particular writing and performing stories. Well, I just want to say before I continue this piece, I hope that my perspectives and insights are more about the universal insecurities and anxieties we all have. Not just another comedian talking about comedy. Writer writing about writing. Now that I have gotten that insecurity out of the way, I want to talk about the two worst things that can happen in a writer / comedians life. These are enough to keep anyone up at night and paralysed from creativity. For if they come to pass…failure is not just at your doorstep, it has entered your household and set up shop. For me, the ultimate failures are linked to 2 things: Backstage Magazine and Chattanooga Tennessee.

The first is something well known to all, The Bad Review. That’s a rough one. You put all this work into pouring your soul into your book, your show, your album, your film. And then someone comes along, not just any someone, a professional opinion haver. Someone who’s job it is to take a look at what you have done and give their perspective on it’s value, a short essay all about what contribution you have made to the world. The assessment will surely be somewhere between save your money on this worthless pile of trash and newest entry into the Western Canon. They may even give it a grade or a score. You may be graded A-F. 1-10. In stars or thumbs but the assessment is coming.

Now everyone knows critics are subjective and many have been horribly wrong. The stories of critics getting it wrong are held near and dear to many artists heart, if this gets a bad review maybe I am Orson Welles and this is no different than one of those bad reviews of Citizen Kane, they just don’t understand…this is my Dylan going electric moment. Fuck the reviews. And actually reviewers have lost a lot of their power over the past 10-15 years with the rise of the internet and social media there is a populist energy within the assessment of art nowadays. THE PEOPLE CAN DECIDE. Which brings with it a new sign of failure, the people don’t show up (or nobody buys the book or album, etc etc.)

1. Bad review 2. No one shows up.

There is a bright side! One good thing about when no one shows up is that there will be no one to review you therefore you have avoided the first failure.

So there they are. The Worst Case Scenarios.

And if those happen…you have two options. The first is to end it all. And I don’t mean quit your career, I mean end it all. The less bloody the better, don’t want to leave a lot of clean up for whoever is going to find you. I would suggest leaving a note, it’s just good manners and gives your loved ones the proper context for why you made this decision. You want those you left behind to be able to properly mourn, they will be going through a lot of pain and a note could help as a salve for them in a difficult time. Unless of course you are a bad writer. I mean, if you are committing suicide because of the fact that you are a bad writer do you really want to put more bad writing into the world posthumously.

‘He was a wonderful person, kind and had a lovely a sense of humour. But his final work, his suicide note lacks the pathos found in the work of many of his contemporaries. Overly long and indulgent, the second page of the suicide note really started to drag down the pace of what started with a real emotional punch. 2/5 stars. May He Rest In Peace’

Which brings us to our second problem, funeral attendance. Live events need promotion. Maybe along with your note you should leave access to your social accounts and your email list. The best promotion is word of mouth of course but good word of mouth starts with a good campaign. So just hop on canva or photoshop to make a decent poster before you head over to Youtube to watch a few ‘How To Tie A Noose’ videos.

In 2013, now a decade ago, I was hired to write a show by a theatre producer. I was a few years into doing stand up and I was a licensed New York City tour guide and the producer wanted a 60 minute show called How To Be A New Yorker. She had produced a few other very successful off broadway plays and musicals and now she was entrusting me with her next hit show and / or masterpiece. My writing partner Margaret and I wrote sketch after sketch trying to touch on every aspect of New York City, how to walk in the city, how to hail a cab, how to ride the subway…it was a lot of transportation based material. And when the script was done we took it to Carolyn, our producer and she found the theatre on 45th and Broadway in the center of the theater district and we had an initial 8 week run. Oct 2013 was opening night. The theater was packed and I would be performing my first show I had ever written in the centre of the cultural capital of the world. We were informed by our director that reviewers would be in the audience but to not let that change the work we did and most importantly…have fun. We did the show. We took our bows. We got some drinks. The next morning I woke up with our first review in Backstage Magazine ‘How do I put this into a full review when their is so little to say about How To Be A New Yorker. D+.’

‘Kevin and Margaret seem like very nice people and I would gladly watch them in something with better writing. D+.’ -Backstage Magazine.

Is one of my proudest achievements as an artist. I mean, we have had a raging debate in recent years about whether we can separate the ART from the ARTIST. The list goes on and on and on Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby, R. Kelly…what do we do with bad people who make great art?

But what about the question posed by this reviewer and my life. What do we do with Nice People that make Bad Art? It’s a compelling question and one that we as a society have to reckon with.

I was thrilled. Passing grade. If I would have gotten an F I would be in the unfortunate position to have to kill myself. But thankfully I could live to see another day with my D+.

A few years after my off broadway debut I was booked for a gig in Chattanooga Tennessee to perform my AWARD WINNING, CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED solo show called Diary of a Bald Kid. Yes, yes, I did in fact win Best Solo Comedy at the New York City Frigid Festival for this piece and then I took it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it received multiple 4 star reviews. Terms like ‘masterfully weaves’ and ‘hilarious YET heartfelt’ were bandied about in these write ups. Not a word about my positive character traits from my personal life, no mention of whether I seemed ‘nice’ or not. All the praise focused on the work and the craft. Naturally Chattanooga wanted in on the action, I mean how could they resist after the Edinburgh Cultural Society called my show ‘compelling’.

I built a little tour around this Chattanooga gig with stops in Raleigh, Nashville, Pittsburgh and Columbus, a few of the other cultural capitals of the United States.

When I arrived in Chattanooga I dropped my stuff off in the green room of the Palace Theater which was an independent movie theater that also did live events it seated about 100 people and was perfect venue for the type of intimate comedy (see above ‘hilarious and heartfelt’) that I create.

I met with the manager of the venue and she informed me that the band Vertical Horizon was playing a free show across the street. A band like VH bringing their hit songs like You’re A God, Everything You Want and I’m Still Here was great news for the artistic fabric of Chattanooga, Tennessee but that meant less good news for Kevin James Doyle’s ticket sales. It turned out that I sold 2 tickets in a 100 seat venue. Listen, I get it, the entertainment consumers of Chattanooga were right, hell, I wanted to be over there rocking to those pre-millennium hits as well!

The manager offered me an opportunity to cancel the show because she was fairly sure there would be no walk ups. I asked for a cigarette and took five minutes to decide what to do.

When I was outside smoking a father and son of about 13 walked up to the venue. They asked if this was where the comedy show would be tonight. I informed them I was figuring out right now whether there would in fact be a comedy show that night. It turned out they were not walk ups, they were the only two people that had purchased tickets. The dad had driven 2 hours from Georgia with his son because he had just gotten into comedy and it was the only venue that allowed anyone under 21.

When I went back inside the manager apologised profusely again and said she would be happy to cancel or do the show. It was up to me. I warned her to keep an eye on Sugar Ray and Tonic and Dishwalla’s tour schedule in the future, but I would do the show.

The show began a few hours later and there were 3 opening comedians who had brought their significant others. The manager of the venue decided to join us and the sound person, me and the father and his son. That made 11 people in a room. That is double digits. That is a show right there.

Afterward the kid came up to me and said his favourite comedian was John Mulaney. He had just watched all of his specials on Netflix and now I was his OTHER favourite because I was his first ever comedy show. Now, if he told me that before the show I would have immediately cancelled the show, walked across the street and got black out drunk singing Vertical Horizon at the top of my lungs. Because that right there is the other worst case scenario…

Driving 11 hours to a gig to find out that only 2 people bought tickets and the only metric the attendee has for comparison is John Mulaney. If that happens…you might just have to end it all.

But he said it after the show. After 11 of us made the most of the night, laughed our asses off, in a mostly empty echoey room. So when we he asked me for a picture and informed me of his 2 favourite comedians I just told him

‘Well, thank you. You have good taste and I am in good company.’

There are real consequences to a bad review and to an empty gig. A film or a book or broadway show suffer greatly from bad reviews. And trust me, I lost a few hundred dollars on gas and a hotel for that gig. Playing for a duo is not the soundest economic model for a touring comedian. But if you can pick up a few extra shifts and make the lost money back and give your bruised ego a little time to heal you can ask this question. Why are you doing what you are doing and for whom?

Once you experience the worst case scenarios then you realise how little the matter in the way you thought they did. Big deal a guy doesn’t like the thing you made? That’s fine I don’t like a lot of things that people make, but if they stopped doing it because of that I would grab them by the shoulders look deep into their eyes and say ‘I am not a fan of your work. But I swear to God almighty if you quit I will be so fucking pissed. So don’t even think about it.’

What if 100 people walk past your venue across the street to see the band playing for free the parking lot and only two people show up.

Only two god damn people.

One of the two people is a dad who spent hours on google searching for anywhere within a 100 mile radius that would allow him to bring the other of the two people, his son, who had just been clicking around Netflix and happened to get really into stand up comedy and was begging his dad to see a show live.

Well, if that is the worst case scenario you will be just fine.