Here are my thoughts about our past open-mic nights at Three Creeks.  We've had several, and each one has been different, depending on the teens' interest.  Sometimes it's been more poetry (complete with snapping!), sometimes music, sometimes improv, sometimes a little of everything...  You'll get 'naturals' and you'll get the ones who would rather eat their socks than get up in front of people.  

Sometimes they have embraced the event and run with it, sometimes they need a lot of adult prompting to keep it going.  I've had kids get up and read some very private soul-searching thoughts to a silent audience, I've heard some anger, and seen some tears, I've heard religious diatribes and political outrage... and of course lots of nervous giggles. It always starts slow, but before you know it, they're jumping up as soon as someone is done.

Some practical tips:

• Schedule your event for 'after hours'.  Teens love to be in the library when 'normal' people are not allowed.

• Designate an MC.  A confident teen is great for this job, but if you don't have someone in mind, do it yourself.  Let the teens know that they can say whatever they want, as long as they keep it PG-13 and are not picking on any specific person in their local peer group.  Usually this is not a problem, but it's always good to let them know ahead of time.

• Have kids sign up for the mic when they arrive.  Once you get through the 'brave kids', more will want a turn. You can set a time-limit, but we've never done that, and 2 hours has been enough time for everyone to have a turn that wants one.  It's ok to have more than 1 person at the mic at once, especially for the more timid ones.

• Have potential resources around: poetry anthologies with 'teen appeal', joke books, monologue books etc.  Let them go online to print out lyrics or other poems if they want.  You can also have some controversial issues in mind to jump start the opinions.  "Who's got any thoughts about ...?" kind of a thing.  Let your YAAB group help you come up with ideas for that; they'll know what hot issues make your teens jumpy.  I'm always surprised myself...

• Comedy nights are the hardest; unless you have some real class clowns, don't expect true stand-up. We've had more success with Improv nights.  Have props (we used a bunch of our storytime supplies) and specific games in mind (a la "Who's Line is it Anyways?".  We found quite a lot of simple fun games online googling "Improv games".  Have a 'mini-improv' session at a YAAB meeting so they can experience it before the event, which helps with the jitters. Keep a general schedule in mind for the order of the games, and make sure that you have all the parts you need ahead of time.  The teens liked being able to make suggestions like the audience does on Improv tv shows.

• Contact the schools, and try to connect with English and 'CWP' (Contemporary World Problems) teachers, and with debate and drama clubs. The media specialists should be able to give you names of the appropriate people. Try to get the teachers to offer extra credit to kids who attend and bring back a flyer signed by you.

Expect the unexpected, roll with the punches, have lots of snacks around and have fun!