Watch Tom E. Morello perform his stand up comedy routine and you'll see a comedian who looks very polished, has a tremendous stage presence, and keeps his audience in stitches.
You would probably never guess that he is still a comic in the making.
It's been ten years since Morello first took to the stages of comedy clubs around Boston. You can usually find him in a hosting or featured role, opening for a number of Boston's headline acts. Like many other unknown comedians, Morello is chasing his dream, hoping that one day the stars will shine on him and someone will be waiting with the untold riches of television shows, movies, or headline gigs across the country.
For now, the 34-year old Morello toils in relative obscurity. Born and raised in Stoneham, he now lives with his mother in Everett because he could no longer afford a pricey apartment in Brighton. His role is usually one of the following: host, opener, or featured act.
The host is what it sounds like: Morello comes onstage to warm up the crowd at the start of a show. The opener may be the host, or follows the host, performing somewhere between five and ten minutes. As a featured act, Morello would be the middle performer with up to 25 minutes to strut his stuff. The point of all these roles is to get the crowd energized for the star of the show, the headliner. he takes all of these roles very seriously.
"When you're the host, you are the second most important person on the show. If the host is bad and has to keep coming up to introduce acts, it's just a painful transition. If the host is good and the audience likes you, you have a complete show," Morello said. "In a lot of markets, the weakest comic on the show will almost always host, which is a mistake. It's a very difficult thing because you have to be able to rattle off people's credits comfortably. Even if you don't know them, you have to talk about them like you do provide a good energy before they come onstage."
26-year old Steve Macone is taking a different track, regularly performing at colleges around New England as he hones his act before lively, young crowds. He performs regularly at The Comedy Studio, Mottleys and The Comedy Connection, and has been onstage at Denis Leary's "Comics Come Home."
Much like Morello, it's all about getting stage time for Macone. He's still fairly new to the business and knows what he neerds to work on to continue his growth.
"I'll grab stage time wherever it's available," Macone said. "It's such a hard business to really get a foothold in, but I feel like I'm committed to it. The hardest thing, and this sounds funny, is being on stage. There is just no substitute for experience."
At this level, a comic can expect to make between $25-50 per appearance, and often times less than that, if they get paid at all. Bob Mello is a man well known to the Boston comedy scene. Mello is a booking agent, and he is usually the one who provides opportunities for comedians like Morello and Macone.
A special education teacher currently battling cancer, Mello is a regular and familiar face on the Boston comedy circuit. He is not an agent, but he has relationships with more than 100 Boston-area comics. Mello is the man who puts the show together. He pitches an idea to any group that needs entertainment, and puts a group of comedians together that he thinks will best suit a particular audience.
In a way, Mello is probably the best friend a local comedian can have, because he is the one who often puts them onstage. Working out of his home office in Middleboro, Mello's study is cluttered with DVD's, promotional fliers, and promo packs for scores of comics, all of whom hope they can catch his attention long enough to put them on one of his shows.
"I've worked with hundreds of comedians since 1993," Mello said. "I try to get out see showcase events with 10-12 comedians doing 5-10 minutes. I get tapes and DVD's every week from all over the country, but most of the comedians I use are from New England. I try to figure out the audience demographics and what types of acts will go over because I don't want to put the comedians in a bad place."
More than a few previously unknown comics have gone onto stardom thanks to getting a start with Mello. Comedians such as Mike Dorval and Myq Kaplan used to open Mello's shows and are now making a living as headliners around the country. Andrea Henry is another comic who works with Mello regularly, and getting stage time through him has helped her blossom into one of Boston's up and coming stars.
"Bob has been great for my career, no question," Henry said. "He puts the comedians in the right spots. Bob would never book me somewhere that he didn't think I'd have a chance to go over. It's a great level of trust that we all have with him."
For Morello, it's been an interesting ten year ride thus far. He admits to basically wasting the first five years of his career, so crippled by stage fright that he regularly went onstage after polishing off one too many beers. Unfortunately for him, it showed in his performances.
"I'll never forget my first couple of gigs," Morello reminisced. "I packed the place with my friends and they hated my ass. I was terrible and they let me know, they wouldn't sugarcoat it. They told me I had to either quit drinking or quit comedy."
As an eight-year old, Morello got permission from his mother to watch "Bill Cosby: Himself" on Cinemax one night. He was awestruck by the veteran comedian's performance that he was instantly hooked on the idea of doing the same thing. Seeing live performances by Cosby and Jay Leno as a teenager helped reinforce that dream.
He got his start at the age of 24, and has been going after it ever since. While he may wish the first five years of his career never happened, he has definitely learned lessons from his bad experiences that helped define the current version of his standup that you can see today.
"If someone told me you need 10 years just to get good, and then after that, you're still going to be middling, I don't know if I would have been able to go on," Morello said. "It's a hard nut to take, but its been totally worth it. I love this business. I'd be just happy in front of 20 people or less than in front of big crowds."
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