I am launching a career as an actor at 68 years old

The Metro North train to New York got stuck due to torrential rain, causing me to miss one of the few “Ladies Night” open mics of the week. I usually travel three hours round trip, then pay $5 to get five minutes of stage time. That night I had traveled five hours to miss five minutes on stage. I did, however, get a delicious cup of coffee at Grand Central Terminal for that five dollars.

At 68, I am embarking on a career as an actor.

I have spent the last 42 years working in information technology; no one outside my industry knows exactly what I do. My parents went to their graves wondering. I paid the bills, got married, bought a house, and had kids. In my free time, I wrote humorous essays and performed comedies in obscurity, with little or no compensation.

While friends my age play pickleball, tour Portugal, or play golf, I hang out with a motley group of high schoolers, ex-lawyers, college dropouts, Wall Street bros, housewives, and older folks, in the back rooms of seedy bars, telling jokes and embarking on a long slog to perfect my craft.

I feel like my life is just beginning.

I was the family jester

I chased away laughter even when I was a child. The middle of five children, I was the family jester and only chubby one, and humor was a way for me to attract attention in a crowded group of bright, talented, average-sized siblings. My family laughed at my jokes and loved seeing me on stage, even though that stage was the multipurpose hall of the local YMCA.

I wrote parody songs on the side while pursuing dark endeavors, embarking on a career as a technical writer/promotional editor/quality assurance analyst/business systems analyst/project manager.

People often ask me, “Why didn’t you pursue a career in acting sooner?” The answer is simple: It’s because I like spending money — I like shopping at Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma, and I favor a regular diet of restaurant food (in order to keep the Williams Sonoma sauté pan pristine). Luckily, I’ve discovered that I also enjoy the predictable grind of office work.

I used humor at work

But even in the office, my humor is expressed. At my first professional job, I worked in a glass cubicle in a psychologically toxic environment, and my sarcastic asides entertained my cubicle mate so much that he recorded them in a notebook we called the “quote journal.” I ended up marrying this coworker, we’re still married, and we still have the notebook.

I have jokes in newspapers and newspapers all over my house. My whole life I’ve lived in fear of forgetting a good sentence, so I always write things down. I don’t remember where the notes are hidden, but they randomly surface while I’m searching for my phone charger or missing tax receipts.

I know it’s hard to be good

So why now? With menopause in the rearview mirror, relief at having survived the pandemic, and my financial planner’s analysis that I can live to be 96 with my current spending level (which I previously lied about), I’m finally ready to ditch the office.

I’m not one of those annoying seniors who starts a new vocation and says, “I’m here! It’s easy! What is TikTok? How do I download the app?” I am humbly aware that becoming a comedian is a long road: it is extremely difficult to be good, almost impossible to be great, and all too common to be horrible.

You’ve put in hours, years, and decades of hard work, building a set word for word, weeding out dozens of failed jokes until only a few precious comedic gems remain. Even then, there are some DIY and additional discounts. Every word is spoken intentionally, even if it seems like the comedian is just riffing. But you also have to be so present on stage to be able to catch a spontaneous comic response when something funny happens. Comedy is more poetry than prose.

There are others like me

Most people give up or just laugh. But I want to get better and better, and that’s why I drag my plantar fasciitis feet and arthritic hips to open mics. In fact, my pain fuels my performance, just like my age, my height, and my cranky husband.

What’s most surprising about my new passion is that sometimes I’m not the oldest comedian on a show. There is a community of retirees and second or third actors who are chasing this crazy dream. Finding comedic gold means hitting something that is both unique and universal – a nugget of truth about our shared existence with a twist that hits the audience inside out and elicits a huge laugh.

I’m glad I joined the gold rush.

Ivy Eisenberg is a writer living in White Plains, New York. She is working on a memoir about her childhood in the groovy and turbulent 1960s in Queens, a borough of New York.