The first time I did stand-up was in front of Robin Williams
My first stand-up set was in 2002, in a tiny room next to The Marsh Theatre in the Mission. The room was no bigger than your average kitchen.
I was a new mom with a three-month-old, and I thought it would be fun to get out of the house and tell some jokes. I figured it couldn’t be that hard — I’d been doing improv for a while. So I wrote my “jokes” and walked down the hill from Noe Valley to the open mic.
The room was mostly other comedians waiting their turn. I did my set. It was just okay; at least I got through it. But while I was up there, in the back of the room, I saw Robin Williams. He had just dropped in to do a set.
After I got off stage, he went up and destroyed the room. People heard he was there and the place filled up to the rafters. He went on for over an hour. It was amazing.
At one point in his set he talked about being a parent and a comedian. He looked at me — my own set had been about being a new mom — and said, “Well, you know what it’s like.” I shook my head and mumbled I’m nowhere close to being a comedian.
“You ARE a comedian and you’re fucking awesome.” — Robin Williams, after my first stand-up set, 2002
I just about lost it.
Robin saw something earlier than I did. It took years to get good at stand-up — but that was a pretty memorable first time.
The next twelve years
For the twelve years that followed, I worked San Francisco rooms, festivals, and a few rooms that probably shouldn’t have been comedy rooms at all.
Producing comedy shows came out of doing comedy — first LIVE at the Purple Onion, then Not Your Normal New Year’s Eve, then eventually RushTix.