One of the most common “syndromes” among comedians that I see is lack of consistency with their “A-List” material.

In a perfect world, we would like our stand-up comedy material to kill the audience 100% of the time. But this is not a perfect world and every comedian, no matter how consistent or effective can have an off day (kind of sounds like working a day job, huh?)

But there are factors that a comedian can be aware of that absolutely affect their performance, some of which are within the control of the comedian themselves.

Before I jump into the meat of this article, let me say that your ability to entertain an audience at the highest level of your ability depends on the fact that you have an audience in the first place (not 3 people) and that they are paying attention to what you are saying. Read the rest of this entry

For more information about Steve Roye, author of this blog and the Killer Stand-up Online Course, click here.

One big problem that many new comedians have is called “running over laughs”. What this means is that the comedian starts into their next bit before the audience has finished laughing at the last bit.

There are a number of reasons for this—nervousness or desperation to taste or sustain laughter momentum comes to mind first.

Another reason is that comedians who have 7 minutes of stand-up comedy material and are given a 5 minute performing spot can’t seem to figure out that they need to leave some of their comedy material out of the 5 minute set.

So they just talk faster and rush through their act, trying to squeeze the entire 7 minutes in and ultimately running over laughs in the process. Read the rest of this entry

For more information about Steve Roye, author of this blog and the Killer Stand-up Online Course, click here.