How to get a job as a dancing monkey or HOW TO GET A JOB AS A WARM UP ACT.

How and where can I find these jobs?

Read the trade papers i.e., The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Backstage, The Ross Reports and FutonCritic.com. These are great resources for finding out what shows are being produced by the networks. If you see that there is going to be a new show with a live audience taping find out who the production company is contact them and ask who is booking the warm up act for the show, if they don’t know ask who the producer or director of the show is get the mailing address and send them your stuff. Go to see the shows. Introduce yourself to the warm up act. Express your interest to them. Offer to take them for lunch in exchange for a brain picking session. Offer to be their back up person if they need a day off. Give them your business card or contact info so they can reach you.

Investigate who is warming up the current shows taping in town. Find out who is representing them. One-way is to sign up for IMBDpro or you could just ask the warm up comic directly. Then mail your materials to those agents and managers.

Once you know the contact – here is what you should send them: Your package should include, a five to ten Minute DVD, a headshot and resume, a cover letter and your comedy bio. Because warm up is predominantly crowd work it would be ideal if you have a tape where you are hosting and being hilarious talking to the audience.

So you got the audition. Now What?

They received your hilarious tape and professional looking materials and have invited you to audition for the job as the warm up act. Which means you are scheduled for an actually taping of a show and will warm up the crowd.

What to Wear

Even Homeless people wear a little concealer and powder on TV: This is TV Baby so you’ve got to go through hair, makeup and wardrobe like every other starlet. The catch is you have to do all of this for yourself. The goal here is to look good but more importantly you want to look fun. Wear loose fitting brightly colored clothes. Remember you are going to be running around like a Rodeo Clown so dress in something that allows you to move. Ladies keep you hair out of your face. Pull you hair back in whatever fun, fabulous style you like, just get it off you face so you don’t look like “Cousin IT” by the end of the first ten minutes. Performing is a visual art. You want to look good i.e. you want to look like you belong on Television. On TV even homeless people wear concealer and powder.

Your act is NOT enough.

Learn to Dance: If you think you can just walk into an audience warm-up gig and do your act, think again. These folks are from WAY out of town. A LOT of the time they will have kids with them. So, your stuff needs to be family friendly. But, the main point is – you may get through 5 mins of your act, the rest will be flying by the seat of your pants. So, PREPARE. Bring a CD that you can do some killer dance moves to and incorporate the audience into a ‘dance off’. Learn some Improv games that involve participation.

Swag is your god: When you’re an audience warm-up, free shit is king. Set up some trivia questions and then give away show prizes to your audience. People love free things and the audience will go wild. Maybe even bring in your own – as long as the higher ups approve – free lotto tickets or the like, to get the audience participating and happy, happy, happy – since that’s your main job as a warm-up – happy looking, engaged, psyched to be there looking, out of towners.

It’s not about you: You have two responsibilities as a warm up act. Number one, when the cameras start rolling you want the audience to look like they are fully engaged in the show they are watching and not picking their noses. And number two make sure the audience doesn’t leave. Remind them this isn’t The Lion King, you can’t leave during intermission.

Ask for what you want and you will get what you need:

Let the audience know what an important part of the show they are. Tell them that when the cameras are rolling you need them sitting up straight, watching the action that is taking place on stage, reacting in an appropriate manner, if the show is humorous tell them to laugh. Tell them about the show, what they can expect, including the theme of the show, commercial breaks, possible technical difficulties, etc. Make them feel like they are an important part of the show, because they are part of the show, not just observers, they must participate and if you tell them what you need from them you are more likely to get it.

What if all hell breaks loose?

Be prepared for anything sometimes you will have to go out and do more time even after you spent 45 minutes warming them up before the show, have gone out eight times during commercial breaks, and then another 45 minutes waiting for a makeover to be complete, now they are having technical problems and you have to go out and do another 20 minutes.

Good night and Good luck!

Courtesy of Coffee and Showbiz