September 26, 2023 • 35 mins
This week we welcome Philadelphia-based comedian Leah Renee. Leah Renee is a stand up comedian based out of Philadelphia and New York City. She is a high energy comedian and performs in independently produced, club, corporate and private comedy shows around primarily Philadelphia, New York City, New Jersey and the United Kingdom. She recently returned from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where she performed her first solo hour!
If you're planning on going to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then make sure to watch this video! Leah Renee shares her insights on the festival and gives you a preview of what to expect. She also gives some tips on how to make the most of your experience at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!
Her new special BUCKET, makes audiences laugh, cry, and cringe in her comedy show about the hidden cost of playing it safe and the unexpected delight in confronting what scares us.
Check them out at @leahreneecomedian on IG and YT
We now have an INSTAGRAM! Check it out @thecleancomedypodcast on Instagram and add @jdcrevistoncomedy on IG as well!
Turn your funny into money! Check out the official website here: http://comedypreneur.com
Pick up a copy of “How To Produce Comedy Shows For Fun & Profit” here.
Do you have a topic that you would like to hear discussed? Are you a clean comedian looking for an awesome podcast to be in? Do you have life-burning questions?
Reach out to us at HERE!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-clean-comedy-podcast-w-jd-creviston--4825680/support.
If you're planning on going to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, then make sure to watch this video! Leah Renee shares her insights on the festival and gives you a preview of what to expect. She also gives some tips on how to make the most of your experience at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!
Her new special BUCKET, makes audiences laugh, cry, and cringe in her comedy show about the hidden cost of playing it safe and the unexpected delight in confronting what scares us.
Check them out at @leahreneecomedian on IG and YT
We now have an INSTAGRAM! Check it out @thecleancomedypodcast on Instagram and add @jdcrevistoncomedy on IG as well!
Turn your funny into money! Check out the official website here: http://comedypreneur.com
Pick up a copy of “How To Produce Comedy Shows For Fun & Profit” here.
Do you have a topic that you would like to hear discussed? Are you a clean comedian looking for an awesome podcast to be in? Do you have life-burning questions?
Reach out to us at HERE!
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-clean-comedy-podcast-w-jd-creviston--4825680/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
You're listening to the Clean Comedy Podcastwith your host James Crevice. Did Hey,
everybody, welcome to Queen Comedy Podcast. This is the first time that
(00:30):
I'm using Riverside dot fm for recording. I use zoom forever. So if
this is weird or throws anybody off, I apologize. But this is one
of those things that we're gonna giveit a shot and see what happens.
Everyone keeps telling me, go here, go there. So we did episode
three fifty. Now we're doing episodesof Riverside and we're gonna see how it
goes. And today I have agreat guest. She did that at Edinburgh
(00:52):
Fringe Festival. I can never saythat properly because I suck it saying foreign
words. But she's super funny.She's in Philly. Shout outs to Philly
for that because I love Philly andone go birds. That's right. We
did just win on Sunday, that'scorrect. Beat the Patriots, by the
way. Suck at Patriot fans.Sorry if you're a Patriot fan, but
I'm gonna be honest you guys,But Puddise welcome. They're very funny.
(01:15):
The very talented Lea Rene welcome,thank you, thank you for having me.
So so tell us, tell usanyone doesn't know about you, tell
us a little bit about you,because I see you're so active in the
Philly community, like it's you're superactive. You're doing shows, you're running
shows, You're all over the place. And then you will go over to
where is the Edinburgh Frins Festival?You have to tell me that too.
(01:37):
It is. So it's in Scotland, and I like noting that it's in
Scotland. However, the crowds there, I would say, are just as
from Scotland as there from England.Like so there's some debate about you know,
Scotland being part of the UK orbeing its own country and you know
the depending on who you talk to. So it's a very UK proud but
(02:00):
it is located in Scotland and soso yeah, it's it's great. So
you prepared I think you we talkedabout this. You prepared a little bit
by you were running your own showsand doing stuff in the Philly warming up.
How much of this set before youwent over to the Scotland. Did
you run in Philly and try hereand work on Well? I did bits
(02:21):
and pieces, so I did anhour show and it was kind of like
Forbiglias style. People would say,like a one woman show, and I'm
not. There's not as much ofthe kind of acting and like the lights
dimming and like a set, andyou know, there wasn't really that.
So it was more Forbiglias style.And I so I started some new material
(02:44):
nights because that's what my UK comedyfriends said, that they do professional comedians
over there. I don't think doas many of the open mics, or
my friends sometimes maybe not so lovinglycalls them hobo mics. But those I
found that those were hard. Like, you know, I talked about things
like my parents divorced or something,and so it borders on storytelling, spoken
(03:10):
word kind of the moth and that'shard to do at a bar in Philly
at midnight. And so so Iwanted and I heard Moses Storms say the
same thing that he would do clubsets, and he, you know,
was talking about being raised in acult and you're trying to like talk about
that, you know, dumpster divingand eating from the garbage while people are
ordering buffalo wings. You know,it just it doesn't it doesn't mix.
(03:34):
So I did start some new materialnights, and that's where I encouraged comedians
that maybe wanted to try some differentkinds of stuff than they had before.
That It wasn't a traditional open mic, it was in kind of a more
alt kind of space, and peopledid longer sets, like ten minutes,
and so it was a chance forthem to try out longer form storytelling,
comedy kind of stuff. So Idid that to work out some of the
(03:58):
ideas, and then like, youknow, I have three kids, and
so I tell my birth story inthat and that's again it's you kind of
build it up, so I wouldI would test little pieces of it at
open mics, and then sometimes whenI had longer gigs that I could do
a fuller set. But it wasn'tuntil I did a preview show in Philly,
and that's when I did the fullthing. Most comedians before they go
(04:20):
to fringe will do their preview showseveral times, and there's actually lots of
little places where they're like, hey, try out your show before you take
it to fringe. So there's lotsof places that will let you do an
hour show or half an hour orwhatever. I only did it once before
I went and that was fine.I wasn't trying to win any awards.
I picked a very small room.I used the Free Festival, which it's
(04:45):
free in that you rent the space, but it's extremely reasonable. You can
go through a promoter, but there'sa lot of stress when you do that
because you can spend easily five toten thousand dollars four a room to have
that for the month, and thensometimes you'll also owe money on top of
that. So you pay five grandand that's with the expectation that you're going
(05:09):
to sell x amount of tickets,and if you don't, you might actually
have to pay another five grand atthe end. So there's so when you
get there, there's very aggressive flyering, like if you thought Jehovah's Witnesses with
the Watchtowers word like very forward.Like it's like, I don't think there
are any Jova's Witnesses or Mormons orpeople. Somebody said something like this is
(05:29):
a terrible time to lose your cat, because you could try to put up
a lost cat poster. It's likejust the whole town is covered in posters
and there's people just handing out flyerseverywhere you go, and it's very fun.
It's very exciting, but I didn'twant the stress of having to make
up for ticket sales, So myshows pay what you want, and the
particular venue that I was in didnot have pre ticket sales. There are
(05:50):
free festival venue spaces where you canbook a ticket. First it's pay what
you want, but it's like youpay five pounds, have have a ticket
to make sure you're there, oryou can just turn up and if they're
space you can go in, whichI like that model better, but my
particular space didn't have that option,so I'll bucket. So you had to
did you have to pay for thatspace or the space came out of what
(06:11):
you made of the pay what youwant kind of thing. Now you pay
a feet up front and it's verysmall. It's like probably like between one
hundred and two hundred dollars for it, but I mean it was it was
a small room. The bigger roomsyou're going to pay more. Mind sat
thirty people, okay, and soand I again, I wasn't trying to
win awards or pack out a house. This was my first hour and so
(06:33):
I just wanted to get it undermy belt. And so, yeah,
then you pay them that money andthen any money that you make from the
bucket you keep, you don't knowthem anything after that. So so yeah,
it was great, that's pretty awesome. And then so you were there
for thirty days or a whole monththere, and how many times did you
perform per night or per day orlike, how did you do that?
(06:55):
And then how much if if youdon't mind me asking what it was the
total cost to do all this becauseit sounds kind of expensive. Honestly.
Yeah, there's a lot of controversyaround the French Festival because people are priced
out. It used to be thisvery kind of indie you know, like
James a Castor just turned up there. I mean this is you know,
years ago, probably twenty years agoor something. But his friends like,
(07:17):
yeah, you should try this out, and so I think he slept in
a tent in a field and wouldjust do open spots. So he used
to be like that, and I'msure there's still are people that do that,
but for the most part it isit is fairly expensive for a lot
of people. I went the previousyear and ran a showcase, but only
for a week long and then therest of the days I did open spots
(07:39):
and I saw shows, and Igot a feeling for because that was the
advice that I received was like,don't do a show your first time.
See it first. But that's alot too. I mean maybe if you're
just going to see it for aweek, but the lodging is expensive.
So I there was someone I foundon Airbnb last year that I had a
good deal from them last year.It isn't retired lady and a room in
(08:00):
her house. It was about aforty five minute walk into town, so
it was not super convenient, butfor the price it was great. Accommodation
is the thing that just eliminates mostpeople because it's so expensive, but mine
wasn't too bad. I use airmiles to get over there. We had,
you know, I have a familyof five, and so we just
saved that up so that, youknow, after I don't know, a
(08:24):
year and a half of saving uppoints, it was enough to fly over
there. And then there's like thecost of printing posters and flyers and things
like that. I'm trying to rememberthe other questions that you asked when,
oh how often? So I didmy show at eleven thirty in the morning
every day, but mondays I tookMondays off. Most comedians don't take a
(08:48):
day off. If they do,they take one or possibly two in the
middle. I think it's starting tochange. I did see more people saying
except Wednesdays or to you know,to take a day off, which I'm
glad I did because they didn't burnout even though I did seventy five shows
during the months. So yeah,So I did my own show every day,
and then I did open spots onother people shows, panel shows,
(09:11):
game shows. So yeah, it'sit. Like I don't want to sell
it too hard because I it's alreadytoo expensive and too crowded, Like like,
I know why people would be likethis is a great idea. Some
people do really well over there,and some people hate it. Like one
of my favorite things is seeing especiallyAmerican comedians that are that are quite well
(09:33):
known, have a really hard time. Like they're used to packing out rooms
easily at a club with five hundredpeople, selling out multiple shows, and
they get over there and people don'tknow who they are, and then all
of a sudden they're like, oh, I should just quit comedy, like
this is so far so so Ididn't I didn't expect that many people at
mind it was a thirty seater andI was like, if I have five
(09:54):
people, that's fine, Like I'mused to doing dive bars and stuff.
So what was your average What wasyour average amount that you had in the
show? Do you think, yeah, probably five? I mean the smallest
number I had was two people andthe most I think I probably had seventeen
people or something like that. Butit's there are so many factors that change
(10:16):
how your show goes. So airconditioning is not common there, and it's
August, so many of the showsget very hot. So even though eleven
thirty am is not an ideal timeto perform comedy because you know, people
most there's a lot of drinking inScotland and so most people aren't up by
then, up and out. However, my room was never hot, but
(10:41):
I've been to shows where people leavebecause it's so hot and because they packed
people in there. I've been toshows where, like I did a showcase
where somebody was like took a spraybottle and would spray the audience and there
was a fan. I mean itwas just this hot box. Wow.
So that's something to consider when you'relike, oh, yeah I have this,
it's like just I mean I sawal Porter. He was in a
(11:05):
full suit. I mean, helooked great. But and it was a
big you know, it's like abig room. You think it's not going
to be hot in there, likeit's hot small, No, it was.
It was he oh, it waslike a probably about the size of
a basketball court, honestly, anduh and it was so hot. And
eventually he took his jacket off andhe had a black button up shirt and
(11:28):
it was sticking to him every allthe whole shirt was drenched and as he
flung his arms around, you couldsee sweat flying. I mean, it's
like it's pretty intense. And youwalk a lot too. As another thing,
if if it is kind of ablesthonestly, like and I would like
a venue that is accessible, butit's such a small old city that there's
(11:50):
cobblestones everywhere and stares and and it'ssad because there are a lot of people
who want to go to shows butthey can't because they can't get like a
wheelchair up or down on these narrowstaircases. Is there any place in America
that does something similar to this,like some kind of friends This should be
this should be at something somebody doesthis sounds amazing, like a great place
for comedians that come set up inthe UK know about it, like it's
(12:13):
very It's it's par for the coursein the UK. It's not as well
known in America again, which I'mfine with because condition for resources. But
no, it uh during the month, there are about four thousand shows that
go on. Wow. So that'sanother thing. If you're kind of a
famous comedian and you're going up atseven thirty at night or eight thirty,
(12:35):
and you're like, oh, that'sa great time slot. Well, every
other kind of famous person or someonewho's pretty far in their career is also
going to be at that time.And so at that time slot, there
are three hundred other shows going onright and their circus shows, there's cabaret
or lesque, storytelling, children shows, magic shows, musical comedy plays,
(12:56):
spoken word, and then just kindof like bizarre row stuff too. Just
I mean, anything you can thinkof could be going on at the exact
same time. Wow. Okay,so you ran you ran your your hour
thirty times or what you know,uh minus four, Well it's twenty six
times. Started what it started Augustthird, and it ended on the twenty
(13:18):
seventh, so I think it waslike twenty four days or so, don't
check my mouth, it's not.It's not thirty days. It's not August
first to August thirty, it's fourthto twenty seven. So you still ran
it twenty plus times, basically rightabout twenty at least twenty times. Now,
what is did you record every singleversion of it? Did you what
was your process for that? Andthen did you find like it got better
(13:41):
as you went along or you youdrop things or cut things or change things,
like, what was your process forthat? Did it change? Yeah?
I definitely did tweak things. Youknow, you have an idea to
kind of go down another avenue,which is another reason why I liked having
a smaller room and kind of itfelt like I could play around more,
and because people weren't paying twenty bucksfor a ticket, I felt like it
(14:03):
could be more experimental. There area lot of comedians in the UK that
will take a work in progress show. So what many comedians will do over
there is they work on writing ourshow all year, they take it to
fringe, they tweak it, theyget it as good as it can be
at the end of a month,and then they tour the rest of the
UK with that show, and thenwhen September or when August rolls around the
(14:26):
next year, they have a newshow. And so it's very common in
the UK to write a new showevery year. So yeah, So for
me, some of the things thatyou just don't know what's going to be
interesting to people, and because youonly live your life your perspective, isn't
that funny? Isn't that weird?And people are like, no, that's
(14:48):
not but what is weird is this? And You're like, oh, I
didn't. So I loved it becauseevery show became like a Q and A
at the end, just because itwas small. And so I struggled with
scrupulosity, which is a religious formof OCD, and there was it just
goes to show like don't judge anybody. There was a guy he came into
the show a little bit late withanother guy who's this huge black guy with
(15:11):
a big leather jacket with like zippersand stuff like, and I was like,
Oh, he's not gonna like Itell like my childbirth story during like
is he gonna be like what isthis? I thought this was something to
you know that, and I totallyjudged him, and then at the end
of it he explained his experience thathe had like not unknowingly joined a cult
(15:35):
as a teenager because he was veryinto music and it was like this very
music thing and then he found himselfin the middle of it. And anyways,
it was just such an interesting conversationwith him about like OCD and kind
of obsessions and things like that,and I loved meeting the people afterwards.
So in terms of tweaking it,you know, you're always like trying to
(15:56):
figure out what the audience thinks,Like like I talked about hypno birth.
When I say that in Philly,like it doesn't get a laugh, it
doesn't get a clap. People aredefinitely looking at me. But I'm like,
what are they thinking? And Iwant to know because I want to
make a joke about it. I'mlike, are you and I try different
angles on it. I'm like,oh, you didn't look like someone that
believed in voodoo, and then it'slike that doesn't make it. Oh,
(16:17):
well, like what do you whenI say hypno birth? What do you
guys even think? And they're kindof like, we don't know, and
I'm like I don't know. Oh, like it's so in doing it over
there, I can just ask themat the end of the show, like
did this make sense into this,So it's a great place for feedback and
just like growing a show and didit make sense? And then they inevitably
would always ask me all these additionalquestions at the end, which was great
(16:40):
because I'm like, oh, theyhad that question, I can include that,
I need to write more of that. Oh I can take that part
out that that's too wordy or whatever. So yeah, it's a constant editing
process, which I because you justdid it the day before. You don't
have to wait a week between showsor even longer if you're doing kind of
weirdy stuff that you can't do itlike open mics and clubs and stuff.
So so yeah, it's it's anincredible place for creativity. That's so cool.
(17:04):
I think there's there's gotta be away to do something like this in
America. There's got to be aplace that everybody can go. I'm thinking
some place in the Midwest because it'skind of like central Everybody can kind of
fly to someplace a big city orlike a medium sized city outside of a
major city that could just do somethinglike this. I mean south By Southwest
is that, but not for comedy. But south By was like music first
(17:30):
and now there is comedy. Sothat's the closest thing that I can see
to it being a It has tobe a town that can handle be like
the population of Edinburgh is half amillion people, okay, and so during
that month, I think the populationof the city I've been told at quadruples.
I've never done the search myself onit. And so you can tell
(17:52):
the people that live there because they'relike cursing on their phone because they're like,
ah, like the lines for thebus and trying to get around.
So a lot of them, it'slike the Olympics, like a lot of
them will leave and then rent outtheir space for exorbitant amounts of money.
But like salt Lake, for example, Salt Lake is a city that could
handle that because they have they haveokay public transportation for the middle of the
(18:15):
city, like because they set upsome infrastructure things. I know this because
I worked the Salt Lake Olympics thattake us in two when prompics and so
like they had the Olympic village,Like you kind of you need a university
that's empty so that you can housepeople there and so people can get like
there's certain elements and it definitely couldit definitely could happen. What universities in
(18:36):
Salt Lake that could house that manypeople? University of Utah? Okay you
are you? Okay? Yeah?If if you did it, if you
did it during the if you didduring the summer, what Yeah, that's
you know what, This might bea good thing. This might be a
thing to pitch man because that wouldbe awesome. It would bring bring in
tourism, money, you would bringcomedy up there. It would bring in
(18:56):
a lot of stuff. But isit gonna be Yeah, I was.
I was like looking at like Minnesotaor Cleveland or something like that, like
somewhere or more Midwest or like morepeople could kind of honestly, well,
I want to say, like Ithink just for laughs could be that if
they opened it. But it's justso invite only. So the Fringe Festival
started because there was it's been goingfor like seventy five years. So when
(19:21):
it started, it was a cohortof special hand chosen I think it was
music maybe music or theater, andthey had like five different people or groups
that they invited, and then there'sanother group that's like, hey, what
about us, So they made afringe group that was adjacent to it.
So I think the best bet wouldbe if I don't know how Montreal would
(19:42):
feel about this, but if therewas a Montreal fringe that went on at
the same time as the Just forLaughs festival, because or like South Buy
is kind of like that. Nowthere's more comedy shows, so it could
gain that. The other thing Ithink it so Salt Lake would be okay.
The alcohol would be a problem becausethey have different alcohol laws there and
(20:06):
I remember people complaining about that allthe time during the Olympics of how they'd
like drive over to Wyoming because theywanted better alcohol or hire a proof for
something like that. And I'm notsure if people would appreciate the drunkenness in
the street, Like I think somewherelike Boston, I think an older city
that was built before cars, Yeahmake it. I mean honestly, Philly
(20:27):
has a fringe festival. It's goingon right now. Yeah, yeah,
Philly would be a great spot forit. It's very walkable, there's plenty
of spaces, but yeah, it'sthere. Really is not anything like it,
and I've looked at doing some ofthe other festivals in the UK,
and in talking with my comedian friendswere like, yeah, there's nothing that's
like even if you did like BrightonFringe or Lesser Comedy Festival, you're going
(20:49):
to get up like once a day, not like I mean. My friend
Titsiano is a shout out to TitianoLabella. He's an Italian comedian. On
the last day he had eleven spotsin one day and he's that's not even
the record. There's a I callhim. I call him open Spot.
(21:10):
Kyle Legacy, Legacy James. Heholds the record for doing the most gigs
at Fringe. I can't remember howmany he did in a twenty four hours.
I need to look it up.I'll send you a link to Aiden
Jones made a documentary. I wantto It's not this is us. I
think I'm I'm confusing Alex Edelman SpecialYou had to Be There. I think
(21:36):
it's called he Had to Be Thereand it's a documentary about Enver Fringe.
I will send you that and anybodythat's interested in Aiden Jones. He's a
great comedian from Australia. He madea documentary last year about the Fringe,
and that like completely captures what it'slike to be there. You know.
It shows the you know, gloomyweather that persists because you think, oh
(21:56):
it's the summer, it's you know, this rainy and it's a lot colder
in scott and then most of theplaces in America that you're going to be
coming from, and so but yeah, it's it's great and they're really there's
nothing else like it. I mighthave to just go there to like watch
and check it out. What side. That sounds pretty awesome. I've never
never even thought about it. Iknow we talked about it briefly before you
went, but I was like,I want to know the whole thing afterwards.
(22:18):
And it sounds like you were ableto do a lot of growth in
a short amount of time because youhad the opportunity to just every day go
and grind. And that's that's that'sgreat. Thing is like comedians in America
like if we all had could getan hour every single day to go up
and do stuff, that'd be great. But we're lucky if we get five,
ten, fifteen minutes, you know, every couple of days or whatever
(22:41):
it is. And so it's it'skind of rough there. What would be
your biggest takeaway from the fringe?What would be the thing that you maybe
would change next time if you go, or the thing that you would that
you wish you would have done ordidn't do, And then we'll go from
there. I I'm considering staying closerto the city center because getting home to
(23:07):
take a nap got harder and harderat certain points. In terms of monetizing
fringe, like, I almost feellike I would do one show that was
like my Banker, because here's thething. It's it's quite difficult to It's
(23:29):
it's difficult to get people into ashow to watch one person over and over,
sorry for an hour, and theycall it fringe roulette. Fringe roulette
is where you maybe just saw aflyer, you don't know anything going into
it, and you're like, oh, we'll just give this one a shot,
and it really is. Sometimes it'sthe greatest thing. You're like,
oh my gosh, how come thisperson isn't more famous, Like they're so
(23:51):
great, they're so funny. Andother times you're like, oh, like
so showcases do very well. That'swhy I did a showcase when I was
first there, but they're a painin the butt because you're booking people.
They say, oh, I'm gonnabe late, can I move it?
That I had someone. I alsoran a showcase at Fringe just for two
days, and the guy who wenton last ignored the light four times.
(24:15):
We lit him four times and hewas the last one to go, and
then we ran over our time andthe person coming in behind. You know.
So it's running a showcase. Itcan pay quite well, but if
you're paying your people and you're keepingtrack of it, you know, so
more people will show up to seelots of comedians on one bill, but
then there's the management of it.So what I would do differently, I'm
(24:37):
because I'm considering trying like a kidshow because kids. People don't do comedy
for kids and they're hilarious. LikeI did a couple of shows called PG
Hits shout out to our GB Monsterand Ali Horne and his people. They
run a great they run a greatshow, but there were a lot of
kids, so I clean material wasnot necessarily for kids. Like I have
(25:00):
jokes about kind of autocorrect or youknow AI you know wrote and I'm like
our kids, like, for example, filling out an email form. It's
like, that's not dirty, it'sjust not relatable to a kid. And
it really stretched me because I gotit. I did this show three times,
and the first time I did it, I was like, Wow,
there's a bunch of kids here.I'm like, do you even to like
jokes about animals or something like?And so I think it would really stretch
(25:22):
me to do like kid because it'sComedians are used to doing crowd work with
adults. Oh where are you from? Are you too? A couple?
But like with a kid. Ihave this joke about like proof you're not
a robot? And I'm like,I'm tired of proving I'm not a robot?
And I said have you have youall had that? And I was
like, yeah, well what doyou what do you have to do to
prove you're not a robot? Andthis kid raised his head. He was
(25:45):
like, you could show a pictureof yourself and your mom's tummy, you
know, which was like, whichis like it's so clever and funny and
it's like imagining that is like youridentification. It's like sound like it's just
it was key and it was funny, and I think I think a lot
of comedians that you know, theylike being up late and drinking and partying,
and you know, just the ideaof doing gigs at elementary schools in
(26:08):
the middle of the day. ButI don't know. It's my feeling.
And one of the reasons I cameinto comedy was to fight the epidemic of
seriousness and to kind of democratize comedyto a wider audience than just people that
go to clubs. It's very likealcohol centric community is very late at night,
and I think old people want tolaugh at three o'clock in the afternoon.
(26:30):
I think kids want to laugh atlunchtime, like it's just a good
thing. And so I've considered doinga kids show that would probably pay better.
I like doing my show in themorning because then I could do open
spots the rest of the day sothat I wouldn't change. But the going
back and forth, I mean Iroutinely had fifteen miles on my sad predometer.
(26:52):
That's old bit. Yeah, Imean I like walking, but it's
like it I was like, man, I could do more shows if I
could just pop home. And Iwas going to say take a kip a
nap, just quick little nap quickback out. So yeah, maybe stay
closer to city center or old town. I have no regrets about the pay
(27:18):
model that I used. Good Like, I don't know how. I mean
people will do go fund means andkickstarters and stuff to fund their Edinburgh show
because it's it is, it's Imean you you Basically, I'm like,
including, okay, so your venue, your airfare, you're lodging, and
(27:40):
then like slightly more money for foodand drink than if you're at home.
I would say easily fifteen grand,especially depending on where you're flying from.
Food meals, food meals, venue, and lodging. Wow, it's mine,
wasn't I mean my lodgings twelve hundreddollars for the months. Yeah,
(28:03):
so I mean, I'll be transparentabout it. So the flight was free
because I had miles, and thenI made I made about fifteen hundred and
in my shows, so that coveredmy lodging and then I had to eat
anyway and food over there's not thatexpensive. Drinks are, but if you
don't drink, you know, likeyou just they're like, how do you
(28:26):
do it so cheaply? Well,you cannot buy alcohol. That cuts the
cost down a lot. But formost people that's like you could not breathe.
You know, some people that justseems like it's too big of an
ask. But yeah, So ifyou had to go back and give yourself
advice at the beginning of this andwhen you were going to start stand up
(28:48):
or you're going to start this journeyto try to go to to the fringe
of vestival, what piece of advicewould you give yourself. What's the one
thing you would do differently or sayor prepare yourself for mentally for this kind
of journey. Oh that's hard becauseI like I have an unfair advantage.
I'm not like an exceptional person.But I one of the things that part
(29:12):
of my OCD is a deep fearof regret, and so I obsessively investigate
things before I do them so thatI don't make mistakes other people made.
So I listened to every episode ofStuart Goldsmith's Comedian's Comedian podcast, and that's
(29:32):
where they talked a lot about thefringe, and so I avoided most of
those early mistakes. It's really hardto say, because I feel like I
did a good job of having lowexpectations going into it so that I and
you know, I'm a mom ofthree, and it's just so it was
(29:52):
so great to have like that alonetime to just create. And so I
don't know what I would have donedifferently. Yeah, maybe just because like
I did. It's it sounds sowanky, but I did everything I wanted
to do, Like I tried newbits, I signed up for just the
right amount of gigs where I wasn'tLike, I guess maybe I would have
(30:15):
seen more shows, I think,and that's everybody has that. Everyone is
like, oh, like, thereare definitely some friends that I made there
that I feel badly that I didn'tmake it to their show. So yeah,
I think I could have been abit But then had I done that,
i'd be like I think I sawto my shows. I was so
bored, doubting, you know,like it's it's hard. I think I'm
(30:38):
just I've kind of been more likekind to myself and radically acceptance. So
maybe I'm in denial that there's thingsthat I could have done better. But
it's like and like you're always goingto wish you did it differently, and
so I kind of I guess givemyself a pass. But but I would
say if I'm giving advice to someoneelse that hasn't listened to ten thousand hours
of comedy podcast as prior to doingthis, I would say, like tow
(31:03):
in you know, to like,uh, yeah, I think it is
good to visit it first, unlessI mean, if you're ten years into
your career, ten twenty, youknow, then you're probably fine just going.
But yeah, maybe flying. Ithink I wish I had had more
posters. I wasn't super aggressive aboutflying. Yeah, I could have made
(31:30):
yeah, I'm just in denial.I could have been like if I if
I ran my method by someone else, you'd be like, what, you
only had five people in your show? Why weren't you flying? Or right?
I was like, I don't know, because I know people that do
flyer and they're out there all daylosing their voice, handing out flyers and
then two people show up and thenthey're deflated. If two people show to
me, I'm like, yay,how did you even know about this?
Like I wasn't even hitting those streets. Let's be positive though. That's positive.
(31:53):
That's good, that's a great thing. Delusional is probably a more accurate
description, but whatever I would,I would say positive, Well, where
can people find you are you goingto ever post any of those shows or
sets or clips in those sets anywherethat people could watch or what's your plan
to do with that? Yes.So I have a new Instagram account that
(32:15):
I just opened last week, andso I've been putting up clips on there.
My previous account that algorithms kind ofmessed up, so a social media
person said it's it's best to startwith a clean slate. So that's where
those are. Leah Renee Comedian ismy handle on Instagram and most other platforms.
(32:35):
I don't post a whole lot frommy actual show because the lighting wasn't
great. Oh okay, this iswhat I would I think I would have
hired a person to help me likeeither exit or entrance. I did have
a group that's something different. Thereis a group from a university that sends
students over as a study abroad.So they helped me for the first two
(32:55):
and a half weeks. So whenthey left, I would have hired someone
to help me with exit and entranceand just to have an So. Yeah,
so did I tape it? Yes? Are most of the tape's bad?
Yes? Because I was setting upthis and setting up that, and
I put up the camera. SoI go back and a lot of the
footage from my hour long show isnot very usable, but the clips from
(33:19):
my open spots are okay. Soso yes, I will be I post
something every day, post a clipevery day on my Instagram. And uh,
I can't think what else you askedme, But oh, you already
said where people can find you onyour new on your new social media.
So we'll put that in the inthe show notes. And I mean,
it's you have everything right. There'sYouTube, there's well leah rena dot co
(33:44):
is the website. It's kind ofme, it's it is what it is.
I used to care more about it, but but bookers don't care about
your website. They don't care aboutyour content on socials and stuff. So
so yeah, I have I hateTikTok, but I have the desktop account,
which I don't think they show anybodymy stuff because I haven't gotten the
app. So they're like, Nope, we're not gonna put anything. We're
(34:06):
not gonna let people see your contentunless you get this trojan horse of an
app. It three the app.But I have, you know, TikTok,
Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest. I put my stuff on Pinterests
because I have I had like fourteenthousand followers because I used to do design,
so I have them from that,and I just switched the account and
(34:28):
made it comedy. So I'll probablylose a lot of people. They're like,
wait, what how came We're notposting stuff about fonts and color theory.
Now there jokes about giving birth,So there you go. Well,
thank you so much for being on. Thank you everybody for checking out the
podcast. Please like, subscribe,go check out this on YouTube if you
have it. And also there areshorts from all of the episodes. I'm
(34:50):
clipping it up and putting up shortsfrom all the episodes, back episodes on
the podcast, so those shorts aregoing on there. I had one that
hit like sixteen hundred views and stuff. Nothing's really blown up. I'm still
trying to figure out the the YouTubealgorithm game and whatever and whatever. But
you guys still make me top inon podcasts, so I can't be upset
about that, and it makes mehappy that number one rated queen comedy podcast.
(35:15):
That's that to me is it's bigenough to be like, all right,
I'm happy with that. So thankyou everyone, Thank you so much
Leah, thank you everyone, havea good one and we'll talk to you
soon. Thanks
You're listening to the Clean Comedy Podcastwith your host James Crevice. Did Hey,
everybody, welcome to Queen Comedy Podcast. This is the first time that
(00:30):
I'm using Riverside dot fm for recording. I use zoom forever. So if
this is weird or throws anybody off, I apologize. But this is one
of those things that we're gonna giveit a shot and see what happens.
Everyone keeps telling me, go here, go there. So we did episode
three fifty. Now we're doing episodesof Riverside and we're gonna see how it
goes. And today I have agreat guest. She did that at Edinburgh
(00:52):
Fringe Festival. I can never saythat properly because I suck it saying foreign
words. But she's super funny.She's in Philly. Shout outs to Philly
for that because I love Philly andone go birds. That's right. We
did just win on Sunday, that'scorrect. Beat the Patriots, by the
way. Suck at Patriot fans.Sorry if you're a Patriot fan, but
I'm gonna be honest you guys,But Puddise welcome. They're very funny.
(01:15):
The very talented Lea Rene welcome,thank you, thank you for having me.
So so tell us, tell usanyone doesn't know about you, tell
us a little bit about you,because I see you're so active in the
Philly community, like it's you're superactive. You're doing shows, you're running
shows, You're all over the place. And then you will go over to
where is the Edinburgh Frins Festival?You have to tell me that too.
(01:37):
It is. So it's in Scotland, and I like noting that it's in
Scotland. However, the crowds there, I would say, are just as
from Scotland as there from England.Like so there's some debate about you know,
Scotland being part of the UK orbeing its own country and you know
the depending on who you talk to. So it's a very UK proud but
(02:00):
it is located in Scotland and soso yeah, it's it's great. So
you prepared I think you we talkedabout this. You prepared a little bit
by you were running your own showsand doing stuff in the Philly warming up.
How much of this set before youwent over to the Scotland. Did
you run in Philly and try hereand work on Well? I did bits
(02:21):
and pieces, so I did anhour show and it was kind of like
Forbiglias style. People would say,like a one woman show, and I'm
not. There's not as much ofthe kind of acting and like the lights
dimming and like a set, andyou know, there wasn't really that.
So it was more Forbiglias style.And I so I started some new material
(02:44):
nights because that's what my UK comedyfriends said, that they do professional comedians
over there. I don't think doas many of the open mics, or
my friends sometimes maybe not so lovinglycalls them hobo mics. But those I
found that those were hard. Like, you know, I talked about things
like my parents divorced or something,and so it borders on storytelling, spoken
(03:10):
word kind of the moth and that'shard to do at a bar in Philly
at midnight. And so so Iwanted and I heard Moses Storms say the
same thing that he would do clubsets, and he, you know,
was talking about being raised in acult and you're trying to like talk about
that, you know, dumpster divingand eating from the garbage while people are
ordering buffalo wings. You know,it just it doesn't it doesn't mix.
(03:34):
So I did start some new materialnights, and that's where I encouraged comedians
that maybe wanted to try some differentkinds of stuff than they had before.
That It wasn't a traditional open mic, it was in kind of a more
alt kind of space, and peopledid longer sets, like ten minutes,
and so it was a chance forthem to try out longer form storytelling,
comedy kind of stuff. So Idid that to work out some of the
(03:58):
ideas, and then like, youknow, I have three kids, and
so I tell my birth story inthat and that's again it's you kind of
build it up, so I wouldI would test little pieces of it at
open mics, and then sometimes whenI had longer gigs that I could do
a fuller set. But it wasn'tuntil I did a preview show in Philly,
and that's when I did the fullthing. Most comedians before they go
(04:20):
to fringe will do their preview showseveral times, and there's actually lots of
little places where they're like, hey, try out your show before you take
it to fringe. So there's lotsof places that will let you do an
hour show or half an hour orwhatever. I only did it once before
I went and that was fine.I wasn't trying to win any awards.
I picked a very small room.I used the Free Festival, which it's
(04:45):
free in that you rent the space, but it's extremely reasonable. You can
go through a promoter, but there'sa lot of stress when you do that
because you can spend easily five toten thousand dollars four a room to have
that for the month, and thensometimes you'll also owe money on top of
that. So you pay five grandand that's with the expectation that you're going
(05:09):
to sell x amount of tickets,and if you don't, you might actually
have to pay another five grand atthe end. So there's so when you
get there, there's very aggressive flyering, like if you thought Jehovah's Witnesses with
the Watchtowers word like very forward.Like it's like, I don't think there
are any Jova's Witnesses or Mormons orpeople. Somebody said something like this is
(05:29):
a terrible time to lose your cat, because you could try to put up
a lost cat poster. It's likejust the whole town is covered in posters
and there's people just handing out flyerseverywhere you go, and it's very fun.
It's very exciting, but I didn'twant the stress of having to make
up for ticket sales, So myshows pay what you want, and the
particular venue that I was in didnot have pre ticket sales. There are
(05:50):
free festival venue spaces where you canbook a ticket. First it's pay what
you want, but it's like youpay five pounds, have have a ticket
to make sure you're there, oryou can just turn up and if they're
space you can go in, whichI like that model better, but my
particular space didn't have that option,so I'll bucket. So you had to
did you have to pay for thatspace or the space came out of what
(06:11):
you made of the pay what youwant kind of thing. Now you pay
a feet up front and it's verysmall. It's like probably like between one
hundred and two hundred dollars for it, but I mean it was it was
a small room. The bigger roomsyou're going to pay more. Mind sat
thirty people, okay, and soand I again, I wasn't trying to
win awards or pack out a house. This was my first hour and so
(06:33):
I just wanted to get it undermy belt. And so, yeah,
then you pay them that money andthen any money that you make from the
bucket you keep, you don't knowthem anything after that. So so yeah,
it was great, that's pretty awesome. And then so you were there
for thirty days or a whole monththere, and how many times did you
perform per night or per day orlike, how did you do that?
(06:55):
And then how much if if youdon't mind me asking what it was the
total cost to do all this becauseit sounds kind of expensive. Honestly.
Yeah, there's a lot of controversyaround the French Festival because people are priced
out. It used to be thisvery kind of indie you know, like
James a Castor just turned up there. I mean this is you know,
years ago, probably twenty years agoor something. But his friends like,
(07:17):
yeah, you should try this out, and so I think he slept in
a tent in a field and wouldjust do open spots. So he used
to be like that, and I'msure there's still are people that do that,
but for the most part it isit is fairly expensive for a lot
of people. I went the previousyear and ran a showcase, but only
for a week long and then therest of the days I did open spots
(07:39):
and I saw shows, and Igot a feeling for because that was the
advice that I received was like,don't do a show your first time.
See it first. But that's alot too. I mean maybe if you're
just going to see it for aweek, but the lodging is expensive.
So I there was someone I foundon Airbnb last year that I had a
good deal from them last year.It isn't retired lady and a room in
(08:00):
her house. It was about aforty five minute walk into town, so
it was not super convenient, butfor the price it was great. Accommodation
is the thing that just eliminates mostpeople because it's so expensive, but mine
wasn't too bad. I use airmiles to get over there. We had,
you know, I have a familyof five, and so we just
saved that up so that, youknow, after I don't know, a
(08:24):
year and a half of saving uppoints, it was enough to fly over
there. And then there's like thecost of printing posters and flyers and things
like that. I'm trying to rememberthe other questions that you asked when,
oh how often? So I didmy show at eleven thirty in the morning
every day, but mondays I tookMondays off. Most comedians don't take a
(08:48):
day off. If they do,they take one or possibly two in the
middle. I think it's starting tochange. I did see more people saying
except Wednesdays or to you know,to take a day off, which I'm
glad I did because they didn't burnout even though I did seventy five shows
during the months. So yeah,So I did my own show every day,
and then I did open spots onother people shows, panel shows,
(09:11):
game shows. So yeah, it'sit. Like I don't want to sell
it too hard because I it's alreadytoo expensive and too crowded, Like like,
I know why people would be likethis is a great idea. Some
people do really well over there,and some people hate it. Like one
of my favorite things is seeing especiallyAmerican comedians that are that are quite well
(09:33):
known, have a really hard time. Like they're used to packing out rooms
easily at a club with five hundredpeople, selling out multiple shows, and
they get over there and people don'tknow who they are, and then all
of a sudden they're like, oh, I should just quit comedy, like
this is so far so so Ididn't I didn't expect that many people at
mind it was a thirty seater andI was like, if I have five
(09:54):
people, that's fine, Like I'mused to doing dive bars and stuff.
So what was your average What wasyour average amount that you had in the
show? Do you think, yeah, probably five? I mean the smallest
number I had was two people andthe most I think I probably had seventeen
people or something like that. Butit's there are so many factors that change
(10:16):
how your show goes. So airconditioning is not common there, and it's
August, so many of the showsget very hot. So even though eleven
thirty am is not an ideal timeto perform comedy because you know, people
most there's a lot of drinking inScotland and so most people aren't up by
then, up and out. However, my room was never hot, but
(10:41):
I've been to shows where people leavebecause it's so hot and because they packed
people in there. I've been toshows where, like I did a showcase
where somebody was like took a spraybottle and would spray the audience and there
was a fan. I mean itwas just this hot box. Wow.
So that's something to consider when you'relike, oh, yeah I have this,
it's like just I mean I sawal Porter. He was in a
(11:05):
full suit. I mean, helooked great. But and it was a
big you know, it's like abig room. You think it's not going
to be hot in there, likeit's hot small, No, it was.
It was he oh, it waslike a probably about the size of
a basketball court, honestly, anduh and it was so hot. And
eventually he took his jacket off andhe had a black button up shirt and
(11:28):
it was sticking to him every allthe whole shirt was drenched and as he
flung his arms around, you couldsee sweat flying. I mean, it's
like it's pretty intense. And youwalk a lot too. As another thing,
if if it is kind of ablesthonestly, like and I would like
a venue that is accessible, butit's such a small old city that there's
(11:50):
cobblestones everywhere and stares and and it'ssad because there are a lot of people
who want to go to shows butthey can't because they can't get like a
wheelchair up or down on these narrowstaircases. Is there any place in America
that does something similar to this,like some kind of friends This should be
this should be at something somebody doesthis sounds amazing, like a great place
for comedians that come set up inthe UK know about it, like it's
(12:13):
very It's it's par for the coursein the UK. It's not as well
known in America again, which I'mfine with because condition for resources. But
no, it uh during the month, there are about four thousand shows that
go on. Wow. So that'sanother thing. If you're kind of a
famous comedian and you're going up atseven thirty at night or eight thirty,
(12:35):
and you're like, oh, that'sa great time slot. Well, every
other kind of famous person or someonewho's pretty far in their career is also
going to be at that time.And so at that time slot, there
are three hundred other shows going onright and their circus shows, there's cabaret
or lesque, storytelling, children shows, magic shows, musical comedy plays,
(12:56):
spoken word, and then just kindof like bizarre row stuff too. Just
I mean, anything you can thinkof could be going on at the exact
same time. Wow. Okay,so you ran you ran your your hour
thirty times or what you know,uh minus four, Well it's twenty six
times. Started what it started Augustthird, and it ended on the twenty
(13:18):
seventh, so I think it waslike twenty four days or so, don't
check my mouth, it's not.It's not thirty days. It's not August
first to August thirty, it's fourthto twenty seven. So you still ran
it twenty plus times, basically rightabout twenty at least twenty times. Now,
what is did you record every singleversion of it? Did you what
was your process for that? Andthen did you find like it got better
(13:41):
as you went along or you youdrop things or cut things or change things,
like, what was your process forthat? Did it change? Yeah?
I definitely did tweak things. Youknow, you have an idea to
kind of go down another avenue,which is another reason why I liked having
a smaller room and kind of itfelt like I could play around more,
and because people weren't paying twenty bucksfor a ticket, I felt like it
(14:03):
could be more experimental. There area lot of comedians in the UK that
will take a work in progress show. So what many comedians will do over
there is they work on writing ourshow all year, they take it to
fringe, they tweak it, theyget it as good as it can be
at the end of a month,and then they tour the rest of the
UK with that show, and thenwhen September or when August rolls around the
(14:26):
next year, they have a newshow. And so it's very common in
the UK to write a new showevery year. So yeah, So for
me, some of the things thatyou just don't know what's going to be
interesting to people, and because youonly live your life your perspective, isn't
that funny? Isn't that weird?And people are like, no, that's
(14:48):
not but what is weird is this? And You're like, oh, I
didn't. So I loved it becauseevery show became like a Q and A
at the end, just because itwas small. And so I struggled with
scrupulosity, which is a religious formof OCD, and there was it just
goes to show like don't judge anybody. There was a guy he came into
the show a little bit late withanother guy who's this huge black guy with
(15:11):
a big leather jacket with like zippersand stuff like, and I was like,
Oh, he's not gonna like Itell like my childbirth story during like
is he gonna be like what isthis? I thought this was something to
you know that, and I totallyjudged him, and then at the end
of it he explained his experience thathe had like not unknowingly joined a cult
(15:35):
as a teenager because he was veryinto music and it was like this very
music thing and then he found himselfin the middle of it. And anyways,
it was just such an interesting conversationwith him about like OCD and kind
of obsessions and things like that,and I loved meeting the people afterwards.
So in terms of tweaking it,you know, you're always like trying to
(15:56):
figure out what the audience thinks,Like like I talked about hypno birth.
When I say that in Philly,like it doesn't get a laugh, it
doesn't get a clap. People aredefinitely looking at me. But I'm like,
what are they thinking? And Iwant to know because I want to
make a joke about it. I'mlike, are you and I try different
angles on it. I'm like,oh, you didn't look like someone that
believed in voodoo, and then it'slike that doesn't make it. Oh,
(16:17):
well, like what do you whenI say hypno birth? What do you
guys even think? And they're kindof like, we don't know, and
I'm like I don't know. Oh, like it's so in doing it over
there, I can just ask themat the end of the show, like
did this make sense into this,So it's a great place for feedback and
just like growing a show and didit make sense? And then they inevitably
would always ask me all these additionalquestions at the end, which was great
(16:40):
because I'm like, oh, theyhad that question, I can include that,
I need to write more of that. Oh I can take that part
out that that's too wordy or whatever. So yeah, it's a constant editing
process, which I because you justdid it the day before. You don't
have to wait a week between showsor even longer if you're doing kind of
weirdy stuff that you can't do itlike open mics and clubs and stuff.
So so yeah, it's it's anincredible place for creativity. That's so cool.
(17:04):
I think there's there's gotta be away to do something like this in
America. There's got to be aplace that everybody can go. I'm thinking
some place in the Midwest because it'skind of like central Everybody can kind of
fly to someplace a big city orlike a medium sized city outside of a
major city that could just do somethinglike this. I mean south By Southwest
is that, but not for comedy. But south By was like music first
(17:30):
and now there is comedy. Sothat's the closest thing that I can see
to it being a It has tobe a town that can handle be like
the population of Edinburgh is half amillion people, okay, and so during
that month, I think the populationof the city I've been told at quadruples.
I've never done the search myself onit. And so you can tell
(17:52):
the people that live there because they'relike cursing on their phone because they're like,
ah, like the lines for thebus and trying to get around.
So a lot of them, it'slike the Olympics, like a lot of
them will leave and then rent outtheir space for exorbitant amounts of money.
But like salt Lake, for example, Salt Lake is a city that could
handle that because they have they haveokay public transportation for the middle of the
(18:15):
city, like because they set upsome infrastructure things. I know this because
I worked the Salt Lake Olympics thattake us in two when prompics and so
like they had the Olympic village,Like you kind of you need a university
that's empty so that you can housepeople there and so people can get like
there's certain elements and it definitely couldit definitely could happen. What universities in
(18:36):
Salt Lake that could house that manypeople? University of Utah? Okay you
are you? Okay? Yeah?If if you did it, if you
did it during the if you didduring the summer, what Yeah, that's
you know what, This might bea good thing. This might be a
thing to pitch man because that wouldbe awesome. It would bring bring in
tourism, money, you would bringcomedy up there. It would bring in
(18:56):
a lot of stuff. But isit gonna be Yeah, I was.
I was like looking at like Minnesotaor Cleveland or something like that, like
somewhere or more Midwest or like morepeople could kind of honestly, well,
I want to say, like Ithink just for laughs could be that if
they opened it. But it's justso invite only. So the Fringe Festival
started because there was it's been goingfor like seventy five years. So when
(19:21):
it started, it was a cohortof special hand chosen I think it was
music maybe music or theater, andthey had like five different people or groups
that they invited, and then there'sanother group that's like, hey, what
about us, So they made afringe group that was adjacent to it.
So I think the best bet wouldbe if I don't know how Montreal would
(19:42):
feel about this, but if therewas a Montreal fringe that went on at
the same time as the Just forLaughs festival, because or like South Buy
is kind of like that. Nowthere's more comedy shows, so it could
gain that. The other thing Ithink it so Salt Lake would be okay.
The alcohol would be a problem becausethey have different alcohol laws there and
(20:06):
I remember people complaining about that allthe time during the Olympics of how they'd
like drive over to Wyoming because theywanted better alcohol or hire a proof for
something like that. And I'm notsure if people would appreciate the drunkenness in
the street, Like I think somewherelike Boston, I think an older city
that was built before cars, Yeahmake it. I mean honestly, Philly
(20:27):
has a fringe festival. It's goingon right now. Yeah, yeah,
Philly would be a great spot forit. It's very walkable, there's plenty
of spaces, but yeah, it'sthere. Really is not anything like it,
and I've looked at doing some ofthe other festivals in the UK,
and in talking with my comedian friendswere like, yeah, there's nothing that's
like even if you did like BrightonFringe or Lesser Comedy Festival, you're going
(20:49):
to get up like once a day, not like I mean. My friend
Titsiano is a shout out to TitianoLabella. He's an Italian comedian. On
the last day he had eleven spotsin one day and he's that's not even
the record. There's a I callhim. I call him open Spot.
(21:10):
Kyle Legacy, Legacy James. Heholds the record for doing the most gigs
at Fringe. I can't remember howmany he did in a twenty four hours.
I need to look it up.I'll send you a link to Aiden
Jones made a documentary. I wantto It's not this is us. I
think I'm I'm confusing Alex Edelman SpecialYou had to Be There. I think
(21:36):
it's called he Had to Be Thereand it's a documentary about Enver Fringe.
I will send you that and anybodythat's interested in Aiden Jones. He's a
great comedian from Australia. He madea documentary last year about the Fringe,
and that like completely captures what it'slike to be there. You know.
It shows the you know, gloomyweather that persists because you think, oh
(21:56):
it's the summer, it's you know, this rainy and it's a lot colder
in scott and then most of theplaces in America that you're going to be
coming from, and so but yeah, it's it's great and they're really there's
nothing else like it. I mighthave to just go there to like watch
and check it out. What side. That sounds pretty awesome. I've never
never even thought about it. Iknow we talked about it briefly before you
went, but I was like,I want to know the whole thing afterwards.
(22:18):
And it sounds like you were ableto do a lot of growth in
a short amount of time because youhad the opportunity to just every day go
and grind. And that's that's that'sgreat. Thing is like comedians in America
like if we all had could getan hour every single day to go up
and do stuff, that'd be great. But we're lucky if we get five,
ten, fifteen minutes, you know, every couple of days or whatever
(22:41):
it is. And so it's it'skind of rough there. What would be
your biggest takeaway from the fringe?What would be the thing that you maybe
would change next time if you go, or the thing that you would that
you wish you would have done ordidn't do, And then we'll go from
there. I I'm considering staying closerto the city center because getting home to
(23:07):
take a nap got harder and harderat certain points. In terms of monetizing
fringe, like, I almost feellike I would do one show that was
like my Banker, because here's thething. It's it's quite difficult to It's
(23:29):
it's difficult to get people into ashow to watch one person over and over,
sorry for an hour, and theycall it fringe roulette. Fringe roulette
is where you maybe just saw aflyer, you don't know anything going into
it, and you're like, oh, we'll just give this one a shot,
and it really is. Sometimes it'sthe greatest thing. You're like,
oh my gosh, how come thisperson isn't more famous, Like they're so
(23:51):
great, they're so funny. Andother times you're like, oh, like
so showcases do very well. That'swhy I did a showcase when I was
first there, but they're a painin the butt because you're booking people.
They say, oh, I'm gonnabe late, can I move it?
That I had someone. I alsoran a showcase at Fringe just for two
days, and the guy who wenton last ignored the light four times.
(24:15):
We lit him four times and hewas the last one to go, and
then we ran over our time andthe person coming in behind. You know.
So it's running a showcase. Itcan pay quite well, but if
you're paying your people and you're keepingtrack of it, you know, so
more people will show up to seelots of comedians on one bill, but
then there's the management of it.So what I would do differently, I'm
(24:37):
because I'm considering trying like a kidshow because kids. People don't do comedy
for kids and they're hilarious. LikeI did a couple of shows called PG
Hits shout out to our GB Monsterand Ali Horne and his people. They
run a great they run a greatshow, but there were a lot of
kids, so I clean material wasnot necessarily for kids. Like I have
(25:00):
jokes about kind of autocorrect or youknow AI you know wrote and I'm like
our kids, like, for example, filling out an email form. It's
like, that's not dirty, it'sjust not relatable to a kid. And
it really stretched me because I gotit. I did this show three times,
and the first time I did it, I was like, Wow,
there's a bunch of kids here.I'm like, do you even to like
jokes about animals or something like?And so I think it would really stretch
(25:22):
me to do like kid because it'sComedians are used to doing crowd work with
adults. Oh where are you from? Are you too? A couple?
But like with a kid. Ihave this joke about like proof you're not
a robot? And I'm like,I'm tired of proving I'm not a robot?
And I said have you have youall had that? And I was
like, yeah, well what doyou what do you have to do to
prove you're not a robot? Andthis kid raised his head. He was
(25:45):
like, you could show a pictureof yourself and your mom's tummy, you
know, which was like, whichis like it's so clever and funny and
it's like imagining that is like youridentification. It's like sound like it's just
it was key and it was funny, and I think I think a lot
of comedians that you know, theylike being up late and drinking and partying,
and you know, just the ideaof doing gigs at elementary schools in
(26:08):
the middle of the day. ButI don't know. It's my feeling.
And one of the reasons I cameinto comedy was to fight the epidemic of
seriousness and to kind of democratize comedyto a wider audience than just people that
go to clubs. It's very likealcohol centric community is very late at night,
and I think old people want tolaugh at three o'clock in the afternoon.
(26:30):
I think kids want to laugh atlunchtime, like it's just a good
thing. And so I've considered doinga kids show that would probably pay better.
I like doing my show in themorning because then I could do open
spots the rest of the day sothat I wouldn't change. But the going
back and forth, I mean Iroutinely had fifteen miles on my sad predometer.
(26:52):
That's old bit. Yeah, Imean I like walking, but it's
like it I was like, man, I could do more shows if I
could just pop home. And Iwas going to say take a kip a
nap, just quick little nap quickback out. So yeah, maybe stay
closer to city center or old town. I have no regrets about the pay
(27:18):
model that I used. Good Like, I don't know how. I mean
people will do go fund means andkickstarters and stuff to fund their Edinburgh show
because it's it is, it's Imean you you Basically, I'm like,
including, okay, so your venue, your airfare, you're lodging, and
(27:40):
then like slightly more money for foodand drink than if you're at home.
I would say easily fifteen grand,especially depending on where you're flying from.
Food meals, food meals, venue, and lodging. Wow, it's mine,
wasn't I mean my lodgings twelve hundreddollars for the months. Yeah,
(28:03):
so I mean, I'll be transparentabout it. So the flight was free
because I had miles, and thenI made I made about fifteen hundred and
in my shows, so that coveredmy lodging and then I had to eat
anyway and food over there's not thatexpensive. Drinks are, but if you
don't drink, you know, likeyou just they're like, how do you
(28:26):
do it so cheaply? Well,you cannot buy alcohol. That cuts the
cost down a lot. But formost people that's like you could not breathe.
You know, some people that justseems like it's too big of an
ask. But yeah, So ifyou had to go back and give yourself
advice at the beginning of this andwhen you were going to start stand up
(28:48):
or you're going to start this journeyto try to go to to the fringe
of vestival, what piece of advicewould you give yourself. What's the one
thing you would do differently or sayor prepare yourself for mentally for this kind
of journey. Oh that's hard becauseI like I have an unfair advantage.
I'm not like an exceptional person.But I one of the things that part
(29:12):
of my OCD is a deep fearof regret, and so I obsessively investigate
things before I do them so thatI don't make mistakes other people made.
So I listened to every episode ofStuart Goldsmith's Comedian's Comedian podcast, and that's
(29:32):
where they talked a lot about thefringe, and so I avoided most of
those early mistakes. It's really hardto say, because I feel like I
did a good job of having lowexpectations going into it so that I and
you know, I'm a mom ofthree, and it's just so it was
(29:52):
so great to have like that alonetime to just create. And so I
don't know what I would have donedifferently. Yeah, maybe just because like
I did. It's it sounds sowanky, but I did everything I wanted
to do, Like I tried newbits, I signed up for just the
right amount of gigs where I wasn'tLike, I guess maybe I would have
(30:15):
seen more shows, I think,and that's everybody has that. Everyone is
like, oh, like, thereare definitely some friends that I made there
that I feel badly that I didn'tmake it to their show. So yeah,
I think I could have been abit But then had I done that,
i'd be like I think I sawto my shows. I was so
bored, doubting, you know,like it's it's hard. I think I'm
(30:38):
just I've kind of been more likekind to myself and radically acceptance. So
maybe I'm in denial that there's thingsthat I could have done better. But
it's like and like you're always goingto wish you did it differently, and
so I kind of I guess givemyself a pass. But but I would
say if I'm giving advice to someoneelse that hasn't listened to ten thousand hours
of comedy podcast as prior to doingthis, I would say, like tow
(31:03):
in you know, to like,uh, yeah, I think it is
good to visit it first, unlessI mean, if you're ten years into
your career, ten twenty, youknow, then you're probably fine just going.
But yeah, maybe flying. Ithink I wish I had had more
posters. I wasn't super aggressive aboutflying. Yeah, I could have made
(31:30):
yeah, I'm just in denial.I could have been like if I if
I ran my method by someone else, you'd be like, what, you
only had five people in your show? Why weren't you flying? Or right?
I was like, I don't know, because I know people that do
flyer and they're out there all daylosing their voice, handing out flyers and
then two people show up and thenthey're deflated. If two people show to
me, I'm like, yay,how did you even know about this?
Like I wasn't even hitting those streets. Let's be positive though. That's positive.
(31:53):
That's good, that's a great thing. Delusional is probably a more accurate
description, but whatever I would,I would say positive, Well, where
can people find you are you goingto ever post any of those shows or
sets or clips in those sets anywherethat people could watch or what's your plan
to do with that? Yes.So I have a new Instagram account that
(32:15):
I just opened last week, andso I've been putting up clips on there.
My previous account that algorithms kind ofmessed up, so a social media
person said it's it's best to startwith a clean slate. So that's where
those are. Leah Renee Comedian ismy handle on Instagram and most other platforms.
(32:35):
I don't post a whole lot frommy actual show because the lighting wasn't
great. Oh okay, this iswhat I would I think I would have
hired a person to help me likeeither exit or entrance. I did have
a group that's something different. Thereis a group from a university that sends
students over as a study abroad.So they helped me for the first two
(32:55):
and a half weeks. So whenthey left, I would have hired someone
to help me with exit and entranceand just to have an So. Yeah,
so did I tape it? Yes? Are most of the tape's bad?
Yes? Because I was setting upthis and setting up that, and
I put up the camera. SoI go back and a lot of the
footage from my hour long show isnot very usable, but the clips from
(33:19):
my open spots are okay. Soso yes, I will be I post
something every day, post a clipevery day on my Instagram. And uh,
I can't think what else you askedme, But oh, you already
said where people can find you onyour new on your new social media.
So we'll put that in the inthe show notes. And I mean,
it's you have everything right. There'sYouTube, there's well leah rena dot co
(33:44):
is the website. It's kind ofme, it's it is what it is.
I used to care more about it, but but bookers don't care about
your website. They don't care aboutyour content on socials and stuff. So
so yeah, I have I hateTikTok, but I have the desktop account,
which I don't think they show anybodymy stuff because I haven't gotten the
app. So they're like, Nope, we're not gonna put anything. We're
(34:06):
not gonna let people see your contentunless you get this trojan horse of an
app. It three the app.But I have, you know, TikTok,
Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest. I put my stuff on Pinterests
because I have I had like fourteenthousand followers because I used to do design,
so I have them from that,and I just switched the account and
(34:28):
made it comedy. So I'll probablylose a lot of people. They're like,
wait, what how came We're notposting stuff about fonts and color theory.
Now there jokes about giving birth,So there you go. Well,
thank you so much for being on. Thank you everybody for checking out the
podcast. Please like, subscribe,go check out this on YouTube if you
have it. And also there areshorts from all of the episodes. I'm
(34:50):
clipping it up and putting up shortsfrom all the episodes, back episodes on
the podcast, so those shorts aregoing on there. I had one that
hit like sixteen hundred views and stuff. Nothing's really blown up. I'm still
trying to figure out the the YouTubealgorithm game and whatever and whatever. But
you guys still make me top inon podcasts, so I can't be upset
about that, and it makes mehappy that number one rated queen comedy podcast.
(35:15):
That's that to me is it's bigenough to be like, all right,
I'm happy with that. So thankyou everyone, Thank you so much
Leah, thank you everyone, havea good one and we'll talk to you
soon. Thanks
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