First stand up gig, what do I need to know?
May 26, 2011 4:46 AM Subscribe
I have my first stand up gig coming up (10 - 15 minutes) and wanted to know if anyone in the Green knew of any 'must read' articles, pages, books about the subject? I'm also interested in first hand experience stories.
After years of saying that I would love to try my hand at stand up I have made a friend already doing it and they have started the ball rolling properly.
I have a 10 - 15 minute spot at the end of next month at a local comedy showcase along with some other local talent. I'm really excited about this but also worried.
What are the chances that I will die horribly?
After years of saying that I would love to try my hand at stand up I have made a friend already doing it and they have started the ball rolling properly.
I have a 10 - 15 minute spot at the end of next month at a local comedy showcase along with some other local talent. I'm really excited about this but also worried.
What are the chances that I will die horribly?
What Meadowlark said. You should be doing a much, much shorter set for your first outing.
My advice is to practice, practice, practice. Know your set inside and out. Tape yourself using your webcam and review the footage. Some people cringe at the thought of asking their friends to watch them perform, but before I got on stage I had some people over for dinner and performed my whole set for them. It helped me work out the kinks, and also reassured me that I could actually be funny.
Don't think about dying. If you do comedy for any length of time, you *will* die on stage, it's just a fact. But you do need to work really hard to make sure you know your material, and that you've made that material as good as it can be. Audiences can tell when your set has direction and purpose; you'll lose them if you seem to flounder or get flustered or lost. Respect their time. Give them your best.
I think it's also useful to go to a TON of live comedy, as much as you possibly can. You'll get a feel for what a really good, confident comic looks like on stage, and what a crappy amateur looks like.
Good luck!
posted by nerdfish at 5:24 AM on May 26, 2011
My advice is to practice, practice, practice. Know your set inside and out. Tape yourself using your webcam and review the footage. Some people cringe at the thought of asking their friends to watch them perform, but before I got on stage I had some people over for dinner and performed my whole set for them. It helped me work out the kinks, and also reassured me that I could actually be funny.
Don't think about dying. If you do comedy for any length of time, you *will* die on stage, it's just a fact. But you do need to work really hard to make sure you know your material, and that you've made that material as good as it can be. Audiences can tell when your set has direction and purpose; you'll lose them if you seem to flounder or get flustered or lost. Respect their time. Give them your best.
I think it's also useful to go to a TON of live comedy, as much as you possibly can. You'll get a feel for what a really good, confident comic looks like on stage, and what a crappy amateur looks like.
Good luck!
posted by nerdfish at 5:24 AM on May 26, 2011
Watch the Jerry Seinfeld psuedo-documentary called "Comedian". A great look at the craft of stand-up comedy. It follows Jerry going from one small club in NY to the next trying to work up a new set after he left the Seinfeld show. Lots of sit-downs with other comedians. Really good stuff.
posted by joyride at 5:57 AM on May 26, 2011
posted by joyride at 5:57 AM on May 26, 2011
Seconding Comedian. And 10 - 15 is a long time, but it's also likley that what you think will fill 10 minutes will end up filling 2.
I'd also suggest checking out the forums at aspecialthing.com. There are many aspiring and veteran comics there who try to help each other other. Or shit on each other, depending on mood.
If you're serious about doing this long term, you might also see if a club will allow you to "host" or emcee. That takes the pressure off because you are there to introduce the other acts, but you can also work in a few short jokes or routines between acts and see how they go. Plus it will help you be comfortable on stage, with the knowledge that if your joke flops, you just throw to the next comic and get out of the way.
Good luck!
posted by The Deej at 6:18 AM on May 26, 2011
I'd also suggest checking out the forums at aspecialthing.com. There are many aspiring and veteran comics there who try to help each other other. Or shit on each other, depending on mood.
If you're serious about doing this long term, you might also see if a club will allow you to "host" or emcee. That takes the pressure off because you are there to introduce the other acts, but you can also work in a few short jokes or routines between acts and see how they go. Plus it will help you be comfortable on stage, with the knowledge that if your joke flops, you just throw to the next comic and get out of the way.
Good luck!
posted by The Deej at 6:18 AM on May 26, 2011
Yeah this is way too much. Do 5 and get the hell out of there.
I heard an interview with an old comic recently who said in his first set he only wanted to get ONE laugh. That was his only goal. I think that's a decent idea. Start with one and work your way up to more.
Also go ahead and mention up top that this is your first time onstage. The crowd will usually just be supportive then (unless it's a super unruly bunch who might be tempted to heckle you).
To be honest the first time is almost always amazing (unless you try to do 10 minutes...yikes that is way too long). It's the 17th-25th time where you really start to doubt everything and feel like everyone hates you. Good luck!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:21 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
I heard an interview with an old comic recently who said in his first set he only wanted to get ONE laugh. That was his only goal. I think that's a decent idea. Start with one and work your way up to more.
Also go ahead and mention up top that this is your first time onstage. The crowd will usually just be supportive then (unless it's a super unruly bunch who might be tempted to heckle you).
To be honest the first time is almost always amazing (unless you try to do 10 minutes...yikes that is way too long). It's the 17th-25th time where you really start to doubt everything and feel like everyone hates you. Good luck!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:21 AM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
Check out Kevin Pollak's Chat Show and watch some of the episodes with comedians. A lot started with standup and Kevin and the guest talk at length about their experiences and how they prepare(d). You should see a lot of recognizable names, but he also talks to a lot of life-long standup comedians that offer great advice.
posted by svdodge at 7:03 AM on May 26, 2011
posted by svdodge at 7:03 AM on May 26, 2011
Like other people are saying, 10-15 minutes is a lot.
See if there are open mics that you can go to to, so you can test your jokes. Not everything I think is funny is something audiences think is funny.
Cut ruthlessly, you probably don't need as much setup as you think you do to get to your punchline.
There's an HBO special, Talking Funny which is worth a watch.
Matt Ruby's blog: Sandpaper Suit
Joel Buxton's blog: Premise, Punch, Tag
posted by Comrade_robot at 8:08 AM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]
See if there are open mics that you can go to to, so you can test your jokes. Not everything I think is funny is something audiences think is funny.
Cut ruthlessly, you probably don't need as much setup as you think you do to get to your punchline.
There's an HBO special, Talking Funny which is worth a watch.
Matt Ruby's blog: Sandpaper Suit
Joel Buxton's blog: Premise, Punch, Tag
posted by Comrade_robot at 8:08 AM on May 26, 2011 [2 favorites]
Danny O'Brien wrote a nice piece about doing the Comedy College workshop in SF.
His mate Stew Lee's How I Escaped My Certain Fate has annotated transcripts of his shows, talking about how he hones and works his material.
posted by holgate at 8:43 AM on May 26, 2011
His mate Stew Lee's How I Escaped My Certain Fate has annotated transcripts of his shows, talking about how he hones and works his material.
posted by holgate at 8:43 AM on May 26, 2011
I just did my first routine back in late March, through this class. What an experience! I'm looking forward to seeing what other information is provided with your post. Have fun! Stick with 5 minutes (like others have suggested)! It's a blast!
posted by littleredwagon at 8:52 AM on May 26, 2011
posted by littleredwagon at 8:52 AM on May 26, 2011
All great advice here so far, I agree with everyone. Take a class if it makes you feel comfortable but in my experience the best teacher is the stage.
Do a 5 minute set and pace yourself so that you are not rushing through your material. Breathe before you say anything. Try to get on the stage beforehand to feel a little more comfortable up there. Practice holding the mic and/or taking it out of the mic stand. Breathe. Don't rush your setup and make sure to give your punchlines the weight they deserve. Give the audience room and time to laugh.
Read up on AST and about comedians you like. Watch videos but try not to consume too much of one comic. Think about how they pace themselves and structure their jokes. Think about what kind of comic you want to be and what types of jokes you like. Make yourself laugh and you're halfway there.
Don't worry about bombing; most audiences will be pretty nice and your set will breeze by you in a rush, especially if you're not used to being onstage.
If you love it, you won't care if you do badly, you'll just want to get out there and try again. Make a list of open mics and try to do them as much as you can. Good luck, have a blast!
posted by SassHat at 11:16 AM on May 26, 2011
Do a 5 minute set and pace yourself so that you are not rushing through your material. Breathe before you say anything. Try to get on the stage beforehand to feel a little more comfortable up there. Practice holding the mic and/or taking it out of the mic stand. Breathe. Don't rush your setup and make sure to give your punchlines the weight they deserve. Give the audience room and time to laugh.
Read up on AST and about comedians you like. Watch videos but try not to consume too much of one comic. Think about how they pace themselves and structure their jokes. Think about what kind of comic you want to be and what types of jokes you like. Make yourself laugh and you're halfway there.
Don't worry about bombing; most audiences will be pretty nice and your set will breeze by you in a rush, especially if you're not used to being onstage.
If you love it, you won't care if you do badly, you'll just want to get out there and try again. Make a list of open mics and try to do them as much as you can. Good luck, have a blast!
posted by SassHat at 11:16 AM on May 26, 2011
Also, don't torment yourself over the crafting of jokes (...yet). You will likely hate the material you do the first time in 6-12 months because you will have grown beyond it. So many people put off the telling of jokes for the writing of jokes, but it's really just procrastination (ask me how I know!). It's great that you have a deadline, this way you know you need to get a jump on.
posted by SassHat at 11:18 AM on May 26, 2011
posted by SassHat at 11:18 AM on May 26, 2011
Best answer: Nthing the sentiment that 10-15 minutes is a MASSIVE amount of time onstage for your first go. Now, the good news is that you have a hell of a lot of lead time between now and when you go up - I would strongly advise you to fix it so that this ISN'T your first go. Get yourself to an open mic (one in a comedy club, preferably - general purpose mics are weird for comedy. It's tough to get the vibe back from music or someone's depressing poems) The only way to get used to being on stage and handling the mic is to get on a stage and handle a mic a bunch of times. It took me something like twenty sets before I figured out exactly how to even hold the mic in a way that both the audience and I were comfortable with.
Get your head right about bombing - do standup often enough and it is an absolute certainty that at some point, you will bomb. Which is fine, really - bombing is good for the soul. Personally, every time I've bombed, it has driven me to tighten my shit up with a kind of relentlessness that coming off a show where I killed just doesn't provide. Some of my very best shows have come right on the heels of shows where I bombed, honest. This is another reason to start hitting open mics immediately - get your first bombing out of your system, realize that you don't actually die, see other comics bomb and see that THEY don't actually die and that it happens to everyone. It's a weird thing - the more afraid you are of bombing, the more likely it is to happen. Audiences can smell fear. And the best way to stop fearing bombing is to bomb horribly and then figure out why it happened. As fun as it is to run your jokes by your friends, that's just not nearly as valuable an experience as running them by an audience that knows nothing about you outside of your material.
Tape yourself. Time yourself. Listen to your own material and dissect it as if it's someone else's. This will help you get your rhythm and pacing down in a way you just can't accomplish on paper.
That said, there are steps you can take to avoid bombing, and you take most of them with your opening jokes - keep your first few jokes short and tight and relatable. The goal is to win the audience over, make them like you and want to laugh with you. A mistake I see so many new comics make (a mistake I made myself when I started) is to get up there and try to be Doug Stanhope or Bill Hicks right off the bat and lead with super edgy, potentially alienating material. (and btw, if you listen to a Stanhope or Hicks show, relative to the material in the latter parts of their act, even they lead with the gentler stuff) You gotta get the crowd on your side before you start in on the uncomfortable stuff. A quick barrage of self-deprecating one-liners up front generally does the trick for me. Last time I forgot this truth, I tried to open with a cancer joke and then proceeded to grind through my set in a very quiet room. Oof.
If you can't make it to any open mics before this show, you really would be best served by chopping your stage time down to the five minutes many here have suggested. I'd like to congratulate you on taking this plunge! Have fun with it - I gotta tell you, even though my first few sets were mad rocky, doing standup is such a thrill that I wish I would have started ten years earlier. Most folks don't have the stones to even consider stepping up to the mic, so remember that you're already a champion for even contemplating this. Hit every open mic you can. Practice hard. Trim every single unnecessary syllable out of your routine. If something you say makes people start to clap, shut up for a second and let them applaud you. Watch Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian and an amazing documentary presently on Netflix streaming called I Am Comic - Listen to a NYC comedy podcast called Keith and the Girl - particularly this very helpful episode. And again, have fun! Comedy is fun.
You have a ton of time to prepare for this show. This is excellent news. Take advantage of it and you're very likely to kick that audience's ass. Feel free to MeMail me if you've got any more questions or you'd like to run a joke or two by me - I love talking about this shit. Best of luck, regardless, and congratulations for taking such a bold creative risk!
posted by EatTheWeek at 1:08 PM on May 26, 2011
Get your head right about bombing - do standup often enough and it is an absolute certainty that at some point, you will bomb. Which is fine, really - bombing is good for the soul. Personally, every time I've bombed, it has driven me to tighten my shit up with a kind of relentlessness that coming off a show where I killed just doesn't provide. Some of my very best shows have come right on the heels of shows where I bombed, honest. This is another reason to start hitting open mics immediately - get your first bombing out of your system, realize that you don't actually die, see other comics bomb and see that THEY don't actually die and that it happens to everyone. It's a weird thing - the more afraid you are of bombing, the more likely it is to happen. Audiences can smell fear. And the best way to stop fearing bombing is to bomb horribly and then figure out why it happened. As fun as it is to run your jokes by your friends, that's just not nearly as valuable an experience as running them by an audience that knows nothing about you outside of your material.
Tape yourself. Time yourself. Listen to your own material and dissect it as if it's someone else's. This will help you get your rhythm and pacing down in a way you just can't accomplish on paper.
That said, there are steps you can take to avoid bombing, and you take most of them with your opening jokes - keep your first few jokes short and tight and relatable. The goal is to win the audience over, make them like you and want to laugh with you. A mistake I see so many new comics make (a mistake I made myself when I started) is to get up there and try to be Doug Stanhope or Bill Hicks right off the bat and lead with super edgy, potentially alienating material. (and btw, if you listen to a Stanhope or Hicks show, relative to the material in the latter parts of their act, even they lead with the gentler stuff) You gotta get the crowd on your side before you start in on the uncomfortable stuff. A quick barrage of self-deprecating one-liners up front generally does the trick for me. Last time I forgot this truth, I tried to open with a cancer joke and then proceeded to grind through my set in a very quiet room. Oof.
If you can't make it to any open mics before this show, you really would be best served by chopping your stage time down to the five minutes many here have suggested. I'd like to congratulate you on taking this plunge! Have fun with it - I gotta tell you, even though my first few sets were mad rocky, doing standup is such a thrill that I wish I would have started ten years earlier. Most folks don't have the stones to even consider stepping up to the mic, so remember that you're already a champion for even contemplating this. Hit every open mic you can. Practice hard. Trim every single unnecessary syllable out of your routine. If something you say makes people start to clap, shut up for a second and let them applaud you. Watch Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian and an amazing documentary presently on Netflix streaming called I Am Comic - Listen to a NYC comedy podcast called Keith and the Girl - particularly this very helpful episode. And again, have fun! Comedy is fun.
You have a ton of time to prepare for this show. This is excellent news. Take advantage of it and you're very likely to kick that audience's ass. Feel free to MeMail me if you've got any more questions or you'd like to run a joke or two by me - I love talking about this shit. Best of luck, regardless, and congratulations for taking such a bold creative risk!
posted by EatTheWeek at 1:08 PM on May 26, 2011
I'm Dying Up Here is a wondeful book on stand-up comedians trying to get paid in the 70s. Probably not exactly what you're looking for but it's well worth your time.
posted by jabes at 3:52 PM on May 26, 2011
posted by jabes at 3:52 PM on May 26, 2011
Definitely Nthing the advice to do a much shorter set.
This is Amy Poehler's commencement speech at Harvard. It's 15 minutes long, and she's one of the funniest comedians out there - and she sort of started to lose me at the five minute mark.
posted by Sara C. at 4:23 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
This is Amy Poehler's commencement speech at Harvard. It's 15 minutes long, and she's one of the funniest comedians out there - and she sort of started to lose me at the five minute mark.
posted by Sara C. at 4:23 PM on May 26, 2011 [1 favorite]
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I advise doing only 3 - 5 minutes on your first outing. It's hard to die the less time you spend on stage.
posted by meadowlark lime at 5:02 AM on May 26, 2011 [4 favorites]