Heckling is a fact of life for comedians. Some comedians are more effective at handling heckles than others. Some are also better at living with those heckles. Shawn Wickens is not one of those comedians. Originally from Ohio and based in New York City, Wickens is inviting fans, strangers and frenemies to heckle him online at www.shawnwickens.com/heckle instead of in person.
Visitors to his website are given the option of selecting some standard heckles Wickens routinely hears; many based on his physical appearance e.g. his age, his lack of hair, etc. For more creative hecklers, there is also the opportunity to type out their own unique, personalized heckle.
Wickens explains, “I’m not really a mean or angry comedian. ‘Roasting’ audience members is never my thing. I realize that heckling is heavily associated with stand-up comedy. But it’s still surprising or shocking or feels like it comes out of nowhere when it happens. I decided to open myself up to online heckles as a sort of exposure therapy. The more I get it, through this ‘safe space’, the more I hypothetically can get over it.” He adds, “Or we’ll see. Maybe it will break me for good.”
A self-described “late bloomer” to stand-up, a heckler at an open mic in his twenties kept him from the stage. “I had some mild success the first few times I tried stand-up. But the first time I bombed, I bombed hard. Someone shouted, “Don’t give up your day job!” which is a pretty innocuous heckle. But when I walked back to my seat I realized it was yelled by a former co-worker of mine. He was so giddy about my misery and that first taste of someone else feeling pleasure at my failure messed with my head. Even though I wanted to perform, I could not bring myself to touching a microphone.”
Years later, on a kind of self-imposed dare, Shawn and his friend Gavin Starr Kendall co-founded the ironically-titled Bad Theater Fest. “It was originally intended to be a joke,” admits Wickens. “We thought a ‘bad’ theater festival sounded fun, but we also figured calling it ‘Bad’ gave us the ability to freely walk away from it if it failed miserably. But people loved it. Turns out we stumbled on a formula that encouraged artists and playwrights to develop their own weird, bizarre and crazy ideas. It also had the benefit of lowering audiences expectations.” After years of cheerleading other creative types to chase those bad, raw, imperfect ideas, Wickens took his own advice and created a stand-up/game show hybrid (coming to 2018’s Rochester Fringe Festival) called Good Joke/Bad Joke Bingo.
Good Joke/Bad Joke Bingo is an interactive, comedy variety show. Random chance guides the evening as numbers drawn out of a bingo cage determine which joke, story, audience interaction or “stupid human trick” Shawn Wickens performs. Audience members can follow along on bingo cards and winners are given hilariously cheap “dollar store” prizes. “A lot of these jokes kill every time,” says Wickens. “Some of the jokes are new or just never really worked but I keep them in because the bad jokes are part of the fun “danger” of the show. All of the prizes, however, are bad. Sometimes people laugh harder at the prizes than the jokes.”
Since debuting Good Joke/Bad Joke Bingo at the Baltimore Charm City Comedy Festival, Wickens has taken the show to theaters and festivals around the country. He returns for his second year at the Rochester Fringe Festival on Friday, September 21 for three performances at 9 p.m., 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. inside the “glass cube” at the Central Library, Rundel Arts Room, 115 South Ave, Rochester. Tickets are $10 and available at the door or in advance at https://rochesterfringe.com/tickets-and-shows/good-joke-bad-joke-bingo.
Wickens reminds audiences that they can heckle him before the show (not during). He may even anonymously share some of his favorite ones and promises never to heckle anyone in return.
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