Worked out plenty of new jokes at Luke's Show in Harlem last night. The turnout was decent, with every audience member engaged and ready to laugh. The venue is a coffee shop which makes it hard to deal with people that DON'T want to watch a show. "Oh you go on and do your comedy thing. I'm just going to talk loudly on my cell phone. Marsha? HI! A comedy show just started inches in front of me! Is it funny? I don't know! Let me check! (pause) No, no one's saying anything! It's really quiet in here actually!"
Perhaps I worked out too many new ones, because there were those long gaps of silence that no amount of playful ad-libbing could save. The only remedy would have been stock material. Afterwards, Luke, Nick Cobb and I rode the train home, dissecting which bits need work. Luke said, "If you had asked me before the show how much new stuff you should do, I would say, 20-30% new material, and 80-70% stuff that you know works." Well I DIDN'T ASK YOU. At least I got one quiet lady to quietly laugh at a new bit about babysitting.
Society Comedy
Mondays at 8:00PM
2104 Frederick Douglas Blvd (at 114th)
New York, NY 10026
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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2 comments:
I'd say the key would be 30% new material, 40% riffing on people's clothes/jobs, 20% talking about "hey, small room tonight/man y'all are low energy/hey these are new jokes so sorry if they suck"/getting angry at the audience in general, and a last 20% doing funny dances, impressions and silly voices. Oh, and another 15% trying to figure out how to make those numbers add up to 100%.
OR...100% silly dances. Agreed!
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