Step By Step to Stand-Up Comedy Chapter Ten

Peak Performance

There are always options for making people laugh if you’re willing to take the risks that go with searching for them. Many of the suggestions in this section are designed to give you those options. Some of them you can use right away, others you’ll have to practice. All of them will come into play at some point in your career as a professional comedian.

Comic Timing

Tape-record Every Show

The First Show
-Crash and burn
-Perfection

Prepare a Show List
-Use code words
-Write the show list on your hand

Supply and Introduction
-Never tell the M.C., “Just say anything.”
-Put your introduction on a 3 X 5 index card
-Spell your name phonetically
-Make it funny
-Use credits
-Incorporate your subject matter
-Design it to present your personality or attributes

Warm Up
-Physical exercise
-Get into a playful mood
-Be quiet and focus
-Run through your show
-Think up jokes

Get on Stage During the Applause

Avoid Cliche Greetings

Develop a Strong Opening Line

Acknowledge the Obvious

Avoid All Comics’ Cliches
-Physical cliches
-Verbal cliches

Don’t Ask a Question as a Segue

Watch Out for Motor-mouth Syndrome
-Fear of forgetting your material
-Trying to fit too much material into the allotted time

Perform the Setups With Equal Commitment

Never Make Fun of Someone’s Laugh

Treat the Audience as a Group of Individuals

What to Do When the Audience is Laughing
-Freeze
-Remain active and in the same state of mind you were in when the laugh began
-Allow the laughter to affect you
-Think about what you’re going to talk about next

About Club Employees
-MCs
-Waitpersons
-Bartenders

Always Do Your Best

SAMPLE

ACKNOWLEDGE THE OBVIOUS
If there’s something about you the audience might fixate on, you must address it so they’ll let it go and you can get on with your show. The kind of things I’m alluding to are usually physical, but they can also be personality traits. For instance, if you are very obese, have one crossed eye, your national origin is unclear, you have a physical tic or a missing or deformed limb, these things need to be addressed so the audience can relax and enjoy your comedy instead of wondering about these anomalies.
It’s not always a physical attribute that needs to be acknowledged; sometimes it’s a personality trait. An example of this is my student Sharky. He’s a very nice man, but there’s something a little edgy about his manner that sometimes makes the audience uncomfortable. I suggested he broach this with a joke. He did:

“If you don’t like me but you like my jokes, do what you do at home—close your eyes and pretend I’m someone else.”

This next example is also about one of my students, Jeff Pines. He came to my class a bit shy because he has a speech impediment. When he speaks you can understand him, but he has an obvious lisp and I felt it needed to be addressed. Preferably with a joke. I wasn’t sure how Jeff would take my advice, but in class the following week Jeff began his show with this:

“Greg says I have a speech impediment. Maybe it’s just that your ears are screwed up.”

This was very funny because not only did he reverse the situation, he got to bag on the teacher. Well, Jeff went on to the advanced workshop where he continued to make up jokes about his lisp. Then on the joke writing night of the workshop, I mentioned that he could turn his lisp into a character. From this Speech Impediment Man was born. Every week the Speech Impediment Man routine got funnier and funnier with jokes like:

“Wherever there’s a drunk who needs me to translate for him, I’ll be there.”

Then, during his routine on showcase night, Jeff surprised everyone by tearing open his shirt to reveal a T-shirt sporting a Superman logo with an extra “I” in the middle of it to signify Speech Impediment Man. The audience roared; I think I even heard a couple of foreheads hit a table. This is an excellent example of turning a problem into an asset through a willingness to have a sense of humor about it.

AVOID ALL COMICS’ CLICHES
Notice the phrases and idiosyncrasies that all the hack comics are using, and avoid them like unsafe sex. I’m not discussing societal clich�s, which are fodder for material, but those stock things that will quickly transform you from a unique individual to a stereotype.

PHYSICAL CLICHES
These are all those recurring habits that comics pick up from other comics. Real people don’t act like this. Here are a few:

(Leaning with one hand on the mike stand.)
(Pacing back and forth looking down at the floor.)
(Leaning forward into the audience to deliver a line.)
(Clapping your hands together between jokes.)
(Picking up and smacking down the mike stand to indicate a punch.)
(Nodding “yes” when the audience is laughing at a joke.)

These aren’t all of them. Each generation seems to add a few more to the ever-growing ranks of the overused and tired.

VERBAL CLICHES
I know I’ve discussed verbal comics’ clichïes in the Improving the Material section, but it’s worth a second visit just to make sure you get my point.

“Have you ever noticed. . . ?”
“But seriously. . .”
“I don’t want to say. . .”
“What else? What else?”
“What’s that all about?”

Especially, get rid of the verbs “love” and “hate.” Why use something so pat when there are so many alternative words for how you feel about a subject that are so much more interesting? Refer to a Thesaurus.