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  1. I started doing stand up 3 months ago, at the St Louis Funnybone and every bar/club comedy open mic, seven days a week, sometimes two a night. I managed to get a few guest spots in other local comics rooms and even did a 5 minute guest spot at the Funnybone for a touring comic but I worry that I’m going to”get in a rut” using the same material. How long should you use the same jokes? Is the mastery of stage presence more important than your material?

    • I have seen comedians use the same stand-up comedy material for decades. But the reality is that once you know how to develop stand-up comedy that incorporates all the elements that make you a funny person and you can structure for the punchline frequency you need to kill on stage, you will find that you will usually have much more material than you will ever get stage time for.

      But to answer the question, you use your material until you tire of it. Mastery of stage presence is very important and will be a big factor in the amount of laughter you can generate with your stand-up comedy material.

      • Steve, because I live in a very small place (about 4,000 people), most of the time I get a change to perform (which can be a least once a month) a very large percentage of the audience will have seen me perform the last time I did a comedy routine. You said use your material until you tire of it. If I try to keep improving the same material, won’t the audience tune out on me? I keep coming up with new material each time. But the downside is I don’t get to fine tune anything I ever perform.

      • You are in a unique situation. And a joke twice told is not funny because folks already know the “surprise”.

        You may have to bring back your material farther down the road before you get to tweak it. Stage time is still stage time, even if you are somewhat forced to do new material each time.

        And if it doesn’t kill you, it should make you stronger. 🙂

    • I would guess your using it too long if the audience laughs get shorter, and hecklers increase. I’ve heard hecklers shout out the punchline on comics. If you experience that, conside expanding your venues. Try a city 50 miles away or, like my plan, im arranging temporary residences with family and friends in other cities so i can expand my visibility nationwide.

  2. Yes Steve..Thanks for all your input.I got a question..As a comic tryin’ to break in.I’ve done my share of bringers,& it ain’t easy..Is there a way I can dance around this “challenge”?? Would $ be a way of compensat”g??

    • Yes, there is a way if you you have an act that is clean (and funny) and that is to start with sampler shows outside the open mic scene — which can lead into paid work relatively quickly if you have a solid 30-45 minutes of material. The details are provided in the Corporate Comedy Secrets module in my course if you have access.

      The only other way that I know of to bypass the open mic scene is to promote your own shows.