Performance Critique 26: Feb 10

This was the most packed I’ve ever seen this mic. I was 18th out of 18 comics and the crowd went from 20 people to 6 very tired people who wanted to go home. I tried to do my best but they didn’t really want to hear more comedy that night (not everyone was good). So I resorted to doing as much crowd work as possible to keep them engaged. 

 

0m38s I love that the camera is right by someone closing out their bar tab. 

0m53s Two girls were whispering to each other. That’s 1/3 of the audience, so I had to talk about it. 

1m29s I screwed up my second and third punch lines in the facebook joke. 

1m58s New rule: Don’t ask a second question until you make fun of their answer for the first question. 

3m26s I love how “laugh it up” when nobody is laughing causes big laughs. 

6m01s I messed up the placement of the line “I don’t mean to give the game away.” 

6m26s My head shouldn’t be tilted to such a low angle. I can get my eyes up into my head without that much downward tilt. It looks try hard. 

6m30s Pause two more seconds after “fan base” even if I’m running my time. 

Overall: I thought I did worse than I did before I watched this video. I got some laughs, and they didn’t completely zone out. And I practiced some crowd work. Lesson in all of this, don’t show up so late to a sign up.

What Do You Do When Nobody Laughs?

Reader and aspriing comedian Andrew asks:

How do you react when people don’t laugh? Do you just go straight onto the next bit and pretend that there weren’t supposed to be laughs at that specific point?

Hey Andrew,

My answer to this still evolving.

At first, my natural tendency was to 1) die a little inside if the crowd didn’t laugh at something I thought was funny and then 2) speed up my delivery so people don’t notice that was a failed punch line.

My current method is to stop talking after what I think is a punch line, stare straight into the audience and wait 2 to 3 seconds. If you’re confident enough and the punch line is somewhat funny, you’ll usually get a laugh. If it doesn’t happen, you still die inside, but you need to move on without speeding up.

Keep in mind, not talking for one second when nobody is laughing will feel like ten minutes. During a show I’ll think I paused for 10 seconds, but on tape it’s really only 2 or 3 seconds.

Other times, I’ll also just admit that joke failed, and I get a laugh from that. “Wow, I’m never doing that one again,” “God, I hope the next comic is better than this” or “You’re right, that wasn’t funny.”

If a joke doesn’t work with a few different audiences, it’s time to cut or rework the joke. The larger an audience is, the more useful their response. It’s a lot harder to get 3 people to laugh (especially if they’re comics) than it is to get 30 or 300 people to laugh. Laughter is contagious.

I’ve also been playing a little bit with forcing out the laugh even if they don’t want to laugh by just waiting and waiting, after a 5 or 6 seconds, the tension usually gets awkward and they laugh (watch some of my recent videos for examples –I’ve been working on just staring at them until they laugh).

One last method I’ve been playing with is saving half a joke until people don’t laugh. I have a bit about “When someone doesn’t laugh at a joke, I just assume they’re deaf.” I’m now saving the second part of that, “Turn up your hearing aid” for if/when a joke fails.

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? Consider taking my NYC Comedy Class or booking a private one-on-one comedy coaching session (in person or via Zoom)

More Stand-Up Comedy Tips:

My Comedy Mindset

I try to approach every time on stage as a learning experience and a step towards improving as a comedian.

I have two metaphors that I try to keep in mind, especially after a bad show. I thought I’d share them as maybe they’ll help someone else get through a tough patch in comedy or any other passion (or job) they have:

  1. Every performance is a brick in the wall of what will eventually become an amazing castle.
  2. I’m in the middle of a dense forest and can’t see around me. I have an axe, and instead of worrying about my situation, I need to just put my head down, get to work, and keep chopping. If I chop for long enough, I’ll get out of the woods. (I’m a huge Rutgers Football fan and I borrowed this metaphor from Coach Schiano.)

As much as I want to kill it at every show, this isn’t realistically possible at this stage of my career (although that’s still my goal every time). Therefore I view each show as a step towards the next one. One bad show won’t make or break my career  — although some shows are much more important than others in this respect.

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? I teach a Comedy Class in New York City. I also do private one-on-one comedy coaching (in-person or via Zoom).

More Stand-Up Comedy Tips:

Performance Critique 25: Feb 08

This was an open mic and I decided to work on a character that I created long before I started doing stand up. 

“Boris” or “Rasputin” was born in October of 2003 when I decided to dress as a Russian Hockey player for Halloween. I speak fluent Russian, so I started going up to girls and speaking Russian, they’d be confused, and then my friend would come by in a minute, “translate” that I say “hi” and that I’m a foreign exchange student and then I’d break into broken English. 

 

0m35s I was trying to make it ambiguous between “blonde people” and “blind people” but put too much emphasis on it. 

0m54s Any words you don’t understand are Russian. I usually just continue saying the same line I’d usually say, but in Russian instead of English. 

1m03s I can’t have an “or” between my first and second example, as that messes up the flow for the third example. 

1m29s Say “L – U – V” with pauses between letters. 

1m38s I looked down after the punch line, I hate when I do this. 

2m24s Dance dirtier and for longer. 

2m52s I started trying to do a little improv work based on what I thought the character would say. 

3m04s Translated that means “I don’t know what I wanna talk about.” 

3m24s I shouldn’t have laughed there as that screwed up the laughter momentum. 

3m41s I came up with the VCR instruction manual on the spot. 

3m48s I wish I came up with some follow up jokes about that. 

Overall: I did a much better job of staying in character this time than the last time I tried doing a character here. I also had a couple of good improvised lines. That was actually my best joke in the set.

9 Tips for Your First Stand Up Comedy Performance

You love comedy. You watch all the great (and some not so great) comics and lots of comedy tv shows. You’ve probably written a few jokes and you’ve toyed with the idea of performing. Here are some tips to motivate yourself to get on stage and what to do when you’re there.

  1. Get on stage as soon as humanely possible. You don’t want to over think it, start making excuses and end up never getting on stage.
  2. Don’t get on stage without first running the jokes by your friends and seeing if they laugh. If your friends don’t laugh at any of your material, you either have terrible friends or terrible jokes. You decide.
  3. Keep a note card in your pocket. No matter how much you practice, your mind can go blank the first time. My mind would go blank at least once a set my first ten or twelve times on stage.
  4. Slow down. You’ll almost certainly be nervous and start to rush through your punch lines if there isn’t instantaneous laughter. It takes a long time to get comfortable with silence, but for now, just talk slower. Think you’re talking too slow? Slow down more anyway.
  5. Videotape it. Or if you can’t afford a camera (most still digital cameras have a video mode), get a $20 voice recorder or download VoiceNotes for your iPhone (if you have one).
  6. When you see a light, that means you have one minute to wrap it up. Don’t run your time. Chances are you’re not gonna be that funny your first. You don’t want to piss off the host and club manager as well.
  7. Don’t stop until you finish all your jokes or time runs out, no matter how quiet the crowd is and how much you feel like dying. Embrace the feeling of wanting to kill yourself, if you get hooked on this stuff, you’ll feel it many more times, even when you start getting paid to perform.
  8. Being nervous is normal. You’re stepping outside your comfort zone so you may feel some nerves or adrenaline before hand. That’s fine and natural. Know you’ll be fine once you’re up there and talking. If you’re up there and feel nervous for more than the first minute, you can say it aloud, the truth of the situation will probably get a laugh.
  9. Try to have fun. You’re not gonna get a half hour special or a sitcom deal from your first time ever on stage (this isn’t the 80’s!). So just try to enjoy it as much as you can.

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? Consider taking my NYC Comedy Class or booking a private one-on-one comedy coaching session (in person or via Zoom)

More Stand-Up Comedy Tips:

Verified by ExactMetrics