Assuming you accept my apology, my latest post appears below:
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I recently saw a newer comic start off a set with inside comedy jokes; jokes to comedians, for comedians, about the inner workings of comedy.
I'm not giving details because I have no interest in having anyone think they know who I'm talking about. I'm not trying to bad mouth the comedian; this is for comics, in general.
A little bit after that, I was talking to the booker of a pretty nice room about an upcoming date, and we ended up having a half-hour conversation about comedy and comedians, also in general. The booker's main issue was that newer comics today all seem to be playing TO comedians; their jokes are aimed at their group, peers, open mic cliques, etc.
From my perspective, I have to agree with him.
I don't know any numbers; I can't say it's all, or most newer comics...but, I do see a lot of it.
In my previous posts, Are you screwing up your open mic? and 6 Tips for a Great Open Mic, one of the things I focus on is cliques, and the inside jokes that come from them, and how they are detrimental to a comic's career.
As I started writing this post, I became aware of a very cool article by Joe Deez, The 3 Best Things to Know in Open Mic Comedy, that I highly recommend you also read. You'll notice he hits on the clique issue, as well.
When you're on the stage at an open mic, you usually have a very short amount of time...usually three to five minutes. Why then, would you waste even a second on inside jokes that won't play to general audiences?
Worse, yet, is when you don't know the difference, like the comic I referenced above. Your clique members all laugh, and no one knows, or tells you, that when you play a real gig those jokes are going to be met with crickets (crickets, for the uninitiated, is the imagined sound you would hear due to the dead silence of the non-laughing audience...it's not good).
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| Ka-boom! |
One time, I was closing a show out of state, and while I was watching the other comics, the thought that this audience wouldn't like me crept into my head. During my set, almost right out of the chute, I defensively said something that wasn't insulting, by any means, but that distinctly pointed out that I wasn't a native.
As soon as I said it, I knew it was bad news. I could literally feel the audience's mood shift. It took a little bit of an effort to get them back on my side.
Lesson learned. If you're going to say something that separates the audience from you geographically, especially if you're from a neighboring (see: rival) state, you should get them on your side first!
A little after Superstorm Sandy hit the east coast, I was asked to play The Borgata with Uncle Floyd for a weekend to fill in because they had to reschedule Jay Mohr's shows.
On the first night, in the middle of his set, Floyd threw out a couple of one liners that fell flat. It didn't phase him one bit. He just strummed on his infamous acoustic guitar and said something along the lines of, "Okay, you're not coming with me. All right, I'll find you. I got a million of 'em. I'll find where you are. You'll laugh at something."
Just saying that caused the audience to laugh and loosen up.
Floyd showed vulnerability, which equals likability. More importantly, he made it about himself and not about the audience. He didn't fight them, he didn't get upset with them for not laughing at jokes he's probably killed with thousands of times over forty plus years.
Too many comics blame the audience, and you can't. You have to know your audience, or find them.
Yes, there are nights when it really is the audience. Shitty comics before you, weird happenstances, odd occurrences, whatever. Sometimes, just the fact that the audience is small can make it difficult.
But you can't function as if any of that's true. You have to get to their level. They don't know anything about this industry. They paid for a ticket to a comedy show. They don't know that because the comic before you bombed they're now going to be a tougher laugh.
It's your job to make them laugh.
There are comics who don't like to follow great acts, there are comics that don't like to follow shitty acts.
There are gamblers who believe you screwed up their hand when you came into the middle of their blackjack game. How do they know? How do they know that if you didn't play your hand just then, they wouldn't have lost anyway?
My point is, it shouldn't matter.
If the comic before you bombed, start off with some crowd work, or hit them with one of your best jokes in your set.
If the comic before you killed, start off with some crowd work, or hit them with one of your best jokes in your set.
Yeah, I wrote the same thing for both instances. That's the point.
Crowd work can loosen up a tight audience and tighten up a loose audience. By loose audience, I mean an audience that has been laughing hard and long at the previous act. They might appear more talkative, they might feel free to get up, they might just be laughing so much that your normal first three minutes might get lost on them.
Read the audience, adjust to the audience based on how the show is going, and make sure your material is relatable...to people who aren't just comics.
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Tomorrow night, great show in Somers Point, NJ with The LoveMaster, Craig Shoemaker!
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