On May 14, ChadO performed a full 12 minute set at Tank’s Pizza in San Antonio, and for him, it marked something bigger than another comedy spot.
Writing and performing sets has always been the goal, but it’s easy to get caught up in the open mic chase.
“I feel like I achieved a new milestone and can let go of some of the open mics, and leave the drama behind,” Chad said.
This show felt like an achievement for him. He wrote the material, rehearsed it live at open mics, and performed it in front of an entertainment-seeking crowd.
Chad decided to perform 12 minutes entirely about pizza.
The full set had to stay inside one idea.
That meant he had to write differently.
For about a month leading up to the show, Chad worked the material by hand and developed 15 minutes of material. His yellow legal pad went with him everywhere. He took it to lunch. He took it to work. He kept it around the house. One night after late comedy, he came home with pizza and started writing notes with a slice in one hand and a pen in the other.
That is where the set really started. Not on stage, but in the scribbles of his chicken scratch under the television glare. Pizza in one hand. Pen in the another.
Chad is often known for material that fits a late night bar crowd, the kind that can handle something dirty, uncomfortable, or designed to make a drunken dirty six’r clutch his pearls. But for this show, he stepped away from that, and focused on developing material on a single subject.
Pizza for a whole 12 minutes.
That sounds silly, because it is. But it made it almost like a writing exercise. A narrow topic forces structure. It forces tags. It forces turns. It forces a comic to find angles instead of leaning on shock or instinct.
Over the month, he wrote jokes he knew might never work. He kept them anyway until he could see what belonged. He cut material. He added new pieces. He tested parts of the set in other rooms. He started shaping segments instead of stacking random punchlines. He performed the material at places like Anderson Mill, Cap City and others.
By the time we were driving to San Antonio, he was organizing segments in his head. I could tell he was moving pieces around, almost like there was an invisible writing board in front of the windshield.
That is the writing process people do not always see in stand up. They see the microphone, the laugh, the pause, the bomb, the punchline. They do not see the month of notes, the bad ideas that lead to good ones, or the way a comic has to live with a premise long enough to know what it can become. Even if it is something as simple as pizza.
Tank’s Pizza turned out to be an interesting experience. From the outside, I kept my expectations low, respectfully. We were driving more than an hour for a pizza show in San Antonio. In Texas, that could mean anything. But host Ryan Herrera put together a strong show with a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere and a crowd that was actually ready to watch comedy.
It was a nice relaxed evening show where people were sipping mimosas, eating pizza, and actually paying attention to comedy.
Chad’s favorite part of his set was around four minutes in, he broke the fourth wall:
“Yes, this whole set is about pizza.”
He trusted the writing and the development.
This was not just a 15 minute set at a pizza place. It was a month of writing, testing, cutting, shaping, and committing to a concept. It was proof that the work is growing beyond the usual open mic grind and into something more intentional.
Submitted by April O.
