Comedy “Tricks”

***WARNING: Very inside baseball comedy post that only comedians will wanna read***

There is no real “trick” to getting better at stand up, other than consistent stagetime and persistent writing. However, there are little things you pick up along that way that my friends and I refer to as tricks. Could be a writing exercise, or a technique that works, or a way to get on more shows…really anything. I figured I’d go ahead and share some comedy tricks that I have found or have heard about someone else doing. Not gonna share all of course, and some won’t apply to everyone, but whatever here goes…

- Playing joke Machine: “Joke Machine” is just a term my circle of friends uses to describe running premises by each other. I heard it called that while doing shows with Maria Bamford, and that’s what she called it (credit name to her). It isn’t the same as a “writing session” with a group of acquaintances. That never works for me because others don’t understand your humor well enough and everyone just tells you what they would say. I find that joke machine is best with just you and 2 other comics who you know well. Set a time to meet up every week and try to come with 5 or so premises you’ve jotted down. Take turns bringing up a premise and where you think it could go as well as what you think is so funny about it. Your friends should be able to think of angles you aren’t thinkin of, or maybe a way to restructure it. And make sure not to slack off hearing out their premises, because thinking about your friends’ bits helps your writing muscles. This little game has helped me immensely.

-Build a Rapport with Smaller Bar Shows: Granted, this mostly applies to big scenes like NY/LA/Chicago etc….anywhere open mics are all comics and time is limited. It’s not always productive to do 5 mics in a night just because ya can and it is guaranteed stage time. Sometimes it is more worth it to go hang at a bar show that your friend is on. People usually aren’t gonna book ya if they never meet you, so ya might as well get that outta the way. Also, there are frequent dropouts or cancellations at weekly bar shows, and there’s a chance you’ll get thrown up. If ya do get thrown up, try your best to bring the show up and not say “fuck it” if there’s a small crowd, or a dead crowd. That goes a really long way, and you’ll establish yourself as a comic who is reliable. You’ll end up doin that show much more often than most, and you’ll have more time in front of actual audience to work out newer stuff that would never work at an all-comic mic. I make sure to put the date and show next to my set lists so that i know what I did the last time I was there and avoid repeating it, if only for the booker’s sake.

-Driving Sets: If you are driving to a road gig and you want to kill time productively. Try your very hardest to do all of what you feel is your best material in a set while you are driving, and (here’s the hard part) you cannot stop or stammer or go back and repeat a line a different way, which you are prone to doing while you’re alone. Act as if you were on stage and have to roll with whatever happens. You flub a line, try and riff your way out of it, or reword on the fly. If you fuck up and get stuck: start over. it is harder than it sounds and it will make you reevaluate the importance of every line that comprises your A material, and the time will fly by.

-Switch Up Order & Forget About Segues: Make yourself not get attached to a certain order for too long. It’s easy to convince yourself that X HAS to follow Y when that’s not the case. Sometimes you weaken a good bit by thinkin it has to follow some weaker “set up bit.” Switching your order up frequently forces your jokes to stand on their own or reveal themselves as garbage. Also, you realize that segues are not needed if they are the least bit forced. You realize that you can make any order work without resorting to “speaking of *thing*,  here’s another *thing* that’s kinda related”…there are no segues in conversation. You don’t have to explain why you’ve moved onto another thing. If one joke makes sense after another, it will just naturally flow without explanation. And if it doesn’t flow, that’ good too. A break in material gives people a chance to take it in.

-Keep a Notebook in your Back pocket & a Pen in Your Front: I know this is not a “trick” really but people forget how useful it is. Write down every single possible premise you think of while you’re out and about, as well as any kind of rewording or funny phrase…seriously anything and everything. Countless times I have flipped back through my notebook and run across something I would have never remembered or thought of again. Physically WRITE everything. Don’t speak-to-text on your phone etc. When you have to write it down, you avoid fluff.

So that’s that fer what it’s worth. If you’ve read this far, I am impressed.