Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Conner.
Hi Ryan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started writing teleplays when I was in college at George Mason University. I assume they were all terrible. I’ve loved stand-up since I first saw it when I was around 5. But I never thought it was something I would be able to do because I was always very shy. In college, I took several theater classes in an attempt to rid myself of that social fear. It helped but didn’t extinguish it. About a year after graduation, I told my best friend that I wanted to do stand-up and showed him some material I had written. He insisted that I get on stage ASAP. Thankfully he accepted that ASAP would be months later after he and I had watched about 50 open mics together.
I finally got on stage on August 1, 2003, and fell in love with performing immediately. I’m thankful that I still have that same passion for stand-up, which I think is the key to doing standup and being happy at the same time. I began doing stand-up full-time in March of 2006, and since then have been lucky enough to make a living off of writing funny things, aside from one year when I had a temp job in New York.
I moved to LA in October 2012 and have been writing and producing TV shows and doing stand-up. I’ve also written a novel which I’ve yet to publish. Any publishers reading this?
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Who wants a smooth road? And who has a smooth one? Sounds like a life for a prince or something. Not a real person. I guess uneven would be the best descriptor. There have been starts and stops. Some are just cyclical things and some have been my fault. The challenges are what make the wins feel good though.
The self-inflicted challenges were me turning down TV shows and a film in my early years of doing stand-up. I wish I’d known that was idiotic at the time, but I was too young to realize you have to take the opportunities that come to you, instead of waiting for something that you think is perfect. But I’m glad I learned that lesson early on.
The cyclical things I’m talking about are pitching a show, getting a deal, then the production company folds or the network changes its programming strategy, or the network’s budget was spent last week, etc… These things can frustrate you when you first encounter them. But eventually, you learn to shrug and move on to the next thing.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
You have to take risks. You can’t be creative and risk-averse. Anytime I’ve been creatively frustrated, I realize it’s because I’m not trusting myself enough. I’ve fallen into a pattern or something, and I need to break it. When I get back to the creative recklessness that got my career going, I have a lot more fun and success.
Contact Info:
- Website: ryanconnercomedy.com
- Instagram: ryanconner1
Image Credits
Cassandra Isbell
