How to Plan a Roast for a 50th Birthday Party
A roast is a gathering of people, usually at a banquet, who use different kinds of humor--such as tongue-in-cheek or sarcasm--to honor someone. Jokes are generally at the honoree's expense, but are meant to be taken in a friendly, playful manner. Celebrity roasts are often televised, covering everything from the old Dean Martin roasts to the more current celebrity Comedy Central Roasts of today. When planning a special event, such as someone's 50th birthday part, a roast can be a good way to celebrate if the honoree has a good sense of humor. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Notify guests well ahead of time that the birthday party is to be a roast. For best effect, this fact should be kept from the guest of honor, as a roast has more effect when it is a surprise. Ask the guests to come up with brief anecdotes from the birthday celebrant's life.
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Collect all of the anecdotes. Notes for each one should be written down, together with the name of the guest who came up with it. Use these for reference when selecting stories and presenters for the party.
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Choose someone to emcee the party. One of the guests who is outgoing and has a good sense of humor is a good choice. If there is no one willing to run the roast, hire a professional comedian to handle the task. Just be sure it is someone who is familiar with the concept of a roast.
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Decide which stories and jokes should be told at the roast. If you can, get together with the guests in advance to select the program as a group. Refer to the anecdotes that were written down ahead of time, or use this time to work together to come up with your ideas.
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Select menu options if the roast will include a meal. Although a banquet is a common setting for a roast, it is not necessary. You can be as formal or as informal as you like.
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Plan the seating so that there are tables scattered throughout the room, and one speaker's table up front. Seat the guest of honor to one side of the podium, and the emcee to the other. The main speakers should also be at this table.
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Rent or buy a microphone if the room where the party is to be held is large. Portable microphones---or you can use a karaoke machine---are readily available from anyplace that rents or sells electronic sound equipment.
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Tips & Warnings
If you want to keep things more spontaneous, have the guest of honor pick one person's name out of a bag. That person gets to emcee the roast and tell his story. He can also pick the names of other people out of the bag and invite each of them to share a moment as well.
Because humor at a roast is done at the expense of the guest of honor and sometimes has a bit of a sting to it, it is important to only roast someone who will find this sort of thing funny. Otherwise you run the risk of hurt feelings and ending up with a celebrant who didn't think his party was much fun.
References
- Photo Credit Microphone image by Towards Ithaca from Fotolia.com
