Meet\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n
Veronica McNamara, a stand-up comedian and Psychology major at Sinclair Community College.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why she\u2019s interesting\u2026<\/b> McNamara has been doing stand-up comedy for about one year and goes to open mic nights in Dayton and Columbus.<\/p>\n
The bonding experience of making people laugh is one of the main reasons for doing stand-up according to McNamara.<\/p>\n
McNamara said she has been doing stand-up comedy for a little over a year now and she has been watching stand-up for a long time. More recently, she has been listening to various comedians\u2019 podcasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always admired the ability of people who make other people laugh,\u201d McNamara said. \u201cTo be able to relate really hard things about life, but in a funny and kind of light-hearted way, is such an amazing thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNamara said she was searching for an avenue to connect with a lot of people, because she was an awkward person growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of crazy experiences, a lot of funny awkward moments \u2026 my jokes usually relate to stories from my own life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said she started making voice recordings of herself telling stories, which was how she began practicing before getting up in front of an audience.<\/p>\n
\u201cLanguage is such a subtle thing,\u201d McNamara said. \u201cIt\u2019s really easy, especially when you\u2019re telling stories, to start rambling.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNamara said she would review the recordings and make adjustments until she had a short, humorous account of her story, then she would start making videos of herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I would record myself like a crazy person,\u201d McNamara said. \u201cI would sit in my apartment performing for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with the recordings, she said she would secretly share bits of her act with unwitting friends to gage their reactions.<\/p>\n
McNamara said you can do all these things to prepare, but being onstage is still frightening to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes down to the night before \u2026 [being onstage is] still the most terrifying thing you can imagine,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause you\u2019re going up there and asking all these people to not only think you\u2019re funny, but to accept who you are as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNamara said the hardest part of telling a joke is honing in on the parts of an experience that are relatable across gender, age and educational backgrounds.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The] thing that makes a good joke is making people feel like they could have [written] it themselves,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McNamara encourages anyone with an interest in being a comedian to just do it.<\/p>\n
She said she has had two experiences where she really \u201ckilled it\u201d and it felt awesome.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce you get that high from, \u2018oh my God these people think I\u2019m funny\u2014 yes! I have totally succeeded!\u2019 It\u2019s like \u2014 I\u2019ve got to do it again,\u201d McNamara said.<\/p>\n
McNamara said the experience of stand-up is more cathartic than anything else.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like \u2026 reading your diary out loud to people \u2026 it helps you learn who you are,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think comedy really does play on peoples\u2019 expectations about what it means to be alive,\u201d McNamara said. \u201cYou can go into tragic stories and laugh about them \u2026 it takes you away from [the fact that] you don\u2019t have any power as a person. We always want to feel like we have some sort of control \u2026 but we don\u2019t and that\u2019s funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNamara will be performing new material she\u2019s been working on for stand-up night on Dec. 8 at Wiley\u2019s Comedy Club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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