SHOW STEALERS

Professionals are naturally competitive with each other. There’s nearly always someone in the audience who feels challenged because he sees you basking in all of that attention and he wants some of it for himself. And there is the natural class clown who’s been misbehaving in front of perceived authority figures his or her whole life. I find that it is best to briefly indulge these people and then ignore them.

I let them perform once and have a laugh along with everyone else. I acknowledge them for being funny or brilliant or whatever. Then I ignore them. Often, once they see that you are not going to keep indulging their need for attention, they will start to behave themselves. Ignoring may mean talking over them so that it becomes clear that you are going to drown them out and you have the podium while they don’t. Or you may need to stop and say something like, “I really need to move forward here.”