Overcoming Challenges as a New Comedian
Let’s assume for a moment that you are a new comedian with a small number of performances under your belt.
But you already know that trying to get the laughs you want has been, or is going to be, a bit more challenging than you ever thought it would be.
In this article, I am going to identify some of the major issues that you may want to examine in order to take the action needed to turn your situation around as quickly as possible.
Issue #1: Are You “Writing Jokes” or Just Words?
Are you “writing jokes” the way you were taught to “write” any sort of correspondence that is actually designed for a reader and not for delivering to a live audience?
This issue is huge because you effectively decrease your actual comedy talent, delivery, personality, voice characteristics, etc. — all the things that make you a funny person in everyday life — to just mere words alone. And because you are using only words with “conventional” writing methodologies, you need 3-4 times as many words “writing” as you would when talking and expressing yourself naturally.
Related Article: This Is A Potential Game Changer For New Comedians
Every comedian gets the same number of seconds each performing minute (60) to generate 4-6 solid laughs each minute.
If you take away the 18+ seconds of laughter you need to generate each performing minute in order to move forward as a comedian, that doesn’t leave time for an abundance of words to generate the laughs needed.
Issue #2: Are You Fully Prepared to Generate Laughs?
Are you fully prepared to generate 4-6+ solid audience laughs per minute when you step on stage?
You will find that the vast majority of new comedians that step on stage are poorly prepared (if prepared at all) to generate the audience laughs needed to garner them the opportunities to move forward in stand-up comedy.
Here are a few specific items to consider:
- Stand-up comedy material is not structured to have 4-6+ punchlines per minute.
- Knowledge about what constitutes a punchline, particularly on an individual basis, is largely unknown.
- Knowledge on how to tighten stand-up comedy material is absent.
- There was no rehearsal of any kind in advance or knowledge on how to do it most effectively.
- Using notes on stage.
Nothing screams “I am absolutely not ready to make you laugh” more than using notes on stage.
Issue #3: What Performance Improvement Activities Are You Using?
What sort of performance improvement activities are you implementing to tighten your material and increase the laughter frequency/intensity?
In almost all cases, the answer is none or nothing. If you are unwilling or unable to get an audio/video recording of each performance and review each recording for performance improvement, then you just have to wander around aimlessly, not knowing what you could do to shave weeks or even months off the time it takes to cause an audience to roar with laughter.
Taking Action
While the issues I have presented may appear to be somewhat overwhelming in scope, here’s what you need to know first:
You do not have to possess or acquire ANY type of literary “writing” skill in order to be able to produce high-quality stand-up comedy material. You don’t have to have any sort of special skill in order to prepare to deliver your act professionally.
And you don’t need any sort of special skill in order to evaluate your act for immediate improvement.
But you do need some proven knowledge and specific direction to know how to quickly:
- Use and apply the comedy talent that you already have in the most effective way possible.
- Develop stand-up comedy material that is structured from the beginning to get 4-6+ laughs each performing minute.
- Professionally prepare to deliver your stand-up comedy material.
- Evaluate, edit, and adjust your stand-up comedy material quickly and effectively for bigger laughs.
And let me also say this:
It’s also pretty darn easy to do if you have a proven system that shows you how every step of the way.
There’s a hard way and a much, much easier way to develop stand-up comedy material that works well on stage — provided you actually have comedy talent to begin with, and I strongly suspect that you do.
Conclusion
There is certainly no reason any new comedian reading this should continue to flounder week after week or month after month when they could literally change their entire position in the world of stand-up comedy by simply having 2-3 solid stand-up comedy performances in a row.
If you study the information provided on this blog, you will be able to accurately pinpoint issues and problems that are keeping you from getting the laughs you want when you step on the stand-up comedy stage.
What you decide to do from this point forward is up to you.