Ajaye speaks largely from his own experience, then presents his interviews with a diverse range of other stand-ups. This gives readers a chance to make their own conclusions, following the advice of those comedians whose style or approach is compatible with their own. Others who have written on comedy have made broad sweeping generalisations without even this much in the way of researched evidence.

In one section of his book Ajaye speaks of performance goals. When you first start out he has found it useful to hold non-laugh related skills development goals. For instance you might have as a goal to make sure you speak in a measured pace, stopping now and then to let the audience laugh, if they are doing so. After the show you can listen to the tape of yourself and judge how well you have achieved that goal and what things you can do next time to improve upon it.

With a short list of specific goals you are more likely to constructively dissect what happened on stage and to build upon your performance. With only a vague notion of what you are doing, you may either not think about what happened and not develop, or tear yourself to shreds. Neither of these are helpful.

Ajaye then suggests creating a broader and more ongoing list of goals. His own list includes: to have a command of the stage and feel comfortable, to add more power to his delivery, and to incorporate more visual and audio variety into his performance. After reading this I took on some of his goals and included a few of my own, for instance: to have fun while on stage and to project that energy to the audience, and to allow myself to be outrageous without fear of uncoolness.

So, your exercise for today, should you decide to accept, is to make a list of at least four personal performance goals.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

I have been concerned for some time that many of the comedy venues rely heavily on dark humour. Worse the audiences come specifically looking for a chance to snarl at the world through someone else’s put-downs. If they don’t get a burst of schadenfreude, the comedian faces stony silence.

Now this isn’t always the case. During comedy festival time many of the more light-hearted comedians come out with shows that do not rely on drugs, damaging violence, and a cynical outlook on life. Instead they focus on innocence, joy, the foibles of humanity, and the absurdity of life. Comedians such as Adam Hills, David O’Doherty, Josie Long, Lano and Woodley, etc who fall in this category attract sell-out audiences.

Where are these people between festivals? It seems many of them move onto television, film, and radio. So why haven’t the comedians and the organisers of comedy nights picked up on what seems to be an enjoyable and profitable career path? They may have caught themselves in a loop whereby they have attracted an audience who goes for dark humour and therefore think that’s what audiences want. Some do. I know some want more relaxing humour, but so far I haven’t found venues that specialise in it.

If such a venue continues to elude me, I may attempt to start one. Call it something like “Joyful Encounters”. Email me if you are in Melbourne and are interested in such a room.

My exercise for people this week is more of a challenge. If you found yourself accepting a gig at a hospital for children who are terminally ill, what sort of show would you write for them? WRITE IT and give it a try. You might surprise yourself.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

* Eat and drink only low GI foods before a show.

The last thing you want is a sugar crash or after meal drowsies part of the way through your performance. So either eat low GI or make sure to take a cookie with you on stage.

* Wear clothes that are comfortable.

This will keep you from unneccessarily expending energy on tugging at waistbands or having your mind drift off onto how your toes are being crushed by your pointy shoes.

* Allow yourself to be seen and heard.

I’ve seen far too many performers wanting you to laugh at their jokes, but hiding themselves by wearing dark clothes, shuffling back and forth, standing far back on the stage, looking away from the audience, etc. You diminish yourself and your performance this way by withholding your visible energy. The same is true of perfomers who mumble or speak in a low voice, they are withholding their auditory energy.

* Allow yourself to be uncool and vulnerable.

You are a comedian. Comedians are all about sending up the cool people of the world. Comedians are all about reminding people of their humanity. If you are afraid of looking like a dork, then you are in the wrong industry. Let your dorkiness hang out. Let people laugh when you make mistakes. Anxiety from misplaced self-consciousness and insecurity will rob you of your stage presence.

You need make no apologies for yourself. And that is cool.

* Be 100% committed to everything you do, even if it fails.

Only one real sin exists in entertainment and that’s being boring. Children and animals tend to upstage the adults because they are so completely intent on what they are doing that they draw everyone’s attention. They are not boring. The energy of a pure line of intention is mesmerising to people. They want to know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and what will become of your efforts. With intention alone you have already built an affective story.

* Get yourself psyched.

This is where you can hop from foot to foot. Just before going on stage jump, dance around, wriggle your body and chant, “It’s gonna be great, it’s gonna be great.” Anything that will start your energetic engine pumping.

* Ground your energy and stay focussed.

With the engine pumping it’s now time to drive the energy forward in a single pure line where it will have the most impact, right toward your audience. Set your feet solidly on the ground shoulder width apart, take a deep breath, smile, then get going.

* Believe your audience is basically friendly.

I know I’m repeating myself with a number of these, but they are important. Have faith in your audience. See them as a bunch of friends and family at Uncle George’s barbeque, people you are so comfortable with that you don’t mind behaving like a bit of a loon. Who ever cared if you farted at one of those events? Imagine yourself in the same situation.

* Have fun with what you are doing.

If you are having a good time, your energy will be bright, infectious, and your audience will love it. Otherwise, what are you doing in comedy?

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

As a comedian you are going to be potentially facing four types of performance spaces: proscenium theatre, theatre in the round (arena), thrust (platform or open stage), and a space in the corner of a pub. Each of these have unique advantages and disadvantages. If you start touring, you may be surprised with any one of these four and need to be prepared.

Proscenium Theatre

This is the most standard theatre type. You have a large frame, much like a picture frame, or “arch” through which the audience observes the action beyond. The frame is the area across which the curtains are drawn. Frequently, you will also have an “apron”, a short area in front of the frame. The stage is usually raised above the height of the first row of seats and may have an orchestra pit between stage and audience. The audience are seated in rows facing the stage.

Even without the traditional architectural arrangements, if a performance space is divided in two with performers on one side of the room and audience in facing rows on the other side, then that is also considered proscenium.

The whole point of proscenium theatres is that they provide the illusion of a fourth wall through which you are secretly observing events in people’s lives. This means they also create a  psychic distance that comedians who are creating a rapport with their audience must surmount. You will see many comedians stand as far forward as possible, often on the apron, while delivering their lines. Others will even jump off the stage and start walking down aisles in order to speak more directly with their fans.

Having nearly fallen into the orchestra pit myself during a performance, I warn comedians to mark a spot on the stage beyond which they will not step. It’s acceptable to put a piece of tape on the floor to remind yourself where the line is.

The advantages of proscenium come to fore when you start having more than one comedian sharing the space. People are very willing to suspend their disbelief with this sort of theatre and allow you to create other worlds no matter how silly or absurd. You can also play around with perceptions of time, distance, emotional weight, etc.

Theatre in the Round (Arena)

Theatre in the round is when the performance is held in the centre of a space with the audience surrounding all sides. I know of a few funky bar venues that use this style of staging, particularly if they’re using a converted dance floor. More frequently your hugely popular comedians have to face this performance arrangement in order to accommodate the size of their audience, and end up at a sports arena or the like.

So, the obvious advantage is the sheer volume of people to whom you can give a clear view of the comedian. The disadvantage is that the comedian will always have their back turned to at least half their audience. Certainly, screens broadcasting a face front view of the comedian at all times helps, but if the comedian doesn’t turn and look directly into each section of the audience, those who did not see the comedian’s eyes will feel they haven’t received their money’s worth.

I would only recommend using this form of theatre if you have dynamic material which lends itself to broad frequent movements. I have seen this done successfully by the likes of Ross Noble and Robin Williams, but they project very high energy personas.

Thrust

Most people are familiar with thrust theatres through the fashion industry. The catwalk can in fact be a form of thrust. You will note that the performance space often begins in a proscenium, then a narrow raised platform continues out into the audience space with people surrounding the performance from three sides.

Thrust can work very well for comic performances. If you’re a bit nervous, you can stand at the beginning of the thrust and do your routine proscenium style. You can also use that thrust to get more dramatic with your stories, or more personal with your audience, by walking up and down the space. I would recommend doing this, since with such an arrangement the audience will expect it. Just remember that the further forward you walk on that stage, the more people will be seeing the back of your head.

The Corner of a Pub

This is the least ideal staging. You will probably have a mic and a basic sound system. You may or may not be on a raised platform of some sort. You will be lucky to get a spotlight.

To work this space you will need to learn a lot about vocal projection and charisma. Anything less and you will get lost in the background once people start talking to one another over a beer. Foot movement should probably be cut out all together. You may have the space to only walk a few steps, and short staccato movements generally weaken a performance by distracting the audience from what you are saying. Hand and facial movement are now crucial, since they will help you to convey meaning over poor acoustics.

Yes, this is the low end of comic performance spaces. However, this is where many people get their start. Places like this for honing your skills are invaluable. Also, if you can get people to laugh in a crowded noisy environment, you can get them to laugh anywhere.

Blocking

Performance spaces are generally divided into a grid of nine sections for blocking, five in the case of a thrust theatre.

At one time stages were set at an angle, since the audience might be seated on a level surface. In this way they could see what was going on at the back of the stage as well as the front. More common these days is raised seating, but even so many stages are still at a slight angle. Therefore, we refer to the portion of the stage furthest from the audience as “upstage” and the portion of the stage closest to the audience as “downstage”. And of course between those sections is “centre stage”. In addition to “up” and “down” you also have “stage right” or “house left” and “stage left” or “house right”. Stage left or right is from the actor’s perspective looking out toward the audience. House left or right is from the audience’s perspective.

Proscenium stage grid.

For theatre in the round you have the same grid, but you will be speaking of the space in terms of north, south, east, west, northwest, northeast, southwest, southeast, and centre.

Theatre in the round (arena) grid.

With thrust you lose four sections of the grid.

Thrust theatre grid.

As a single comedian, you are likely to be using almost exclusively the downstage area and/or centre stage areas. Should you be part of a comedy team involving two or more comic actors, then it’s worth making use of the whole space. When you are crossing the stage be sure to always go toward the middle centre of the stage, pivot toward the next part of the stage you wish to inhabit, then move out. This gives your performance a point of focus for the audience.

You should be aware of some subconsciously understood conventions. Moving from house left (stage right) to house right (stage left) is experienced by the audience as a move from the past into the future. I assume this is from our experience of reading. I’ve asked whether in Asia, where some languages are read right to left, if they have the same convention, and haven’t had an answer from anyone yet. Upstage to downstage is seen as moving from past to present. Moving from house right to house left is generally felt to be a more difficult task by the audience. This would be the direction to go if you mime walking against the wind.

Directly facing the audience is the most powerful postion you can take. The next most powerful is facing directly away from the audience, but should be used sparingly for dramatic effect. Profiles are sometimes made stronger by the performers actually speaking to one another while looking toward the audience in a quarter profile stance. A three-quarters profile looking upstage is your weakest stance.

Some of the big comedians have directors who think about these things for them. You will attract such a director more quickly when you start thinking about yourself within a performance space and how to use it to your best advantage now.

For your Friday exercise find a friend and a square space you can run around in. Have your friend shout out “stage left, up”, “stage right, centre”, “down stage”, etc. You are to run to those parts of the stage via middle centre until you readily understand the directions and get a feel for stage movement.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Overall it was a great night of fun. I did have one niggle. A number of the comedians were wandering all over the stage higgledy-piggledy, forcing cameras this way and that and making me feel motion sick. I’m currently reading Franklin Ajaye’s Comic Insights, a very fine book. He strongly recommends the use of stage movement. I don’t disagree with him, but I would say that budding comedians should follow a few guidelines in this regard.

Certainly standing motionless like a mortified rabbit in gunsight during rabbit season (duck season) often won’t endear you to an audience. But the problem isn’t the standing still. Elliott Goblet, Australia’s answer to Steven Wright, uses very little physical movement and his performances are well loved. The problem is, how much fear are you communicating?

Swaying from foot to foot, nervously scuttling all over the stage, or standing stock still are all ways that indicate you aren’t comfortable in the limelight. You have cast the audience as a pack of evil minions who are about to eat you alive, and they can read that from your body language. Who likes to be cast as an evil minion? This is why the audience becomes uncomfortable and eventually can turn on a comedian.

I have seen comedians fumble lines, trip over mic cables, and the like and still keep the audience on side. This is because they have engaged with the audience and shown that they believe in the audience’s goodwill. When someone thinks well of you, most people want to live up to that image. The same is true in the comedian/audience relationship.

So the trick to stage movement is that it must always be purposeful. If you move from left to right of the stage, then you must have a reason for that movement. If you wave your arm up and down, you must have a reason for that. If you scrunch your face up in a moue, that too requires a reason. These are the sorts of reasons you must have:

• You are imitating the movements of some person during an event (eg a paramedic running to a victim who has fallen because they were stepped on by Godzilla).
• You are generally illustrating movement through time or space (eg you have a joke about rockets being shot from the Earth to the Moon).
• You are building tension as you gradually lead up to a punchline (eg you enumerate the things that are going wrong for the father of the bride at a weddding, ending with the bride running away with the best man).
• You are punctuating important points in your story (eg you emphasise with body and voice the word “luck”, so when your next line is supposed to end with a rhyme but is completed with the word “fudge”, everyone knows what you mean and laughs).

I find it absolutely invaluable to plant my feet shoulder width apart, take a deep breath, smile, and look into the audience’s eyes before I begin a performance, and often again after I complete a performance. Planting my feet and breathing grounds all that nervous energy, so I can direct it into a confident performance. Any time I don’t know what to do with myself, being self-assured enough to plant my feet again until it becomes clear where and when the next movement is needed will continue to keep my performance strong. Extraneous movement is just going to heighten nervous energy and wastefully send it in all directions. Energy must flow in a single cycle of power. You must clearly and directly send energy to your audience and graciously receive it back from them, using their energy to help you propel more their direction.

You must be one hundred percent committed to what you are saying, to the world you are creating with your stories and persona, and to the movements you make. Take a tip from actors who ask, “What is my motivation here?” Why am I making this movement here and now? Would some other movement or no movement be better? Be aware of where you are coming from: what are the thoughts, experiences, and feelings that are propelling you. Be also aware of where you are going to: what change is this movement creating within yourself and within the story.

Your Friday exercise is to take a short routine and 1) perform it a few times while keeping your feet planted on a single spot, see if you can get yourself comfortable with the power of that sort of stability, then 2) purposefully choreograph all the movements you feel will add to your words and keep yourself to those movements without a single added gesture.

Movement can certainly add dynamism to a performance, but so can a simple powerful presence.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

I have done my best to keep up with the blog and pack at the same time. However, this is the last week before M-Day and I’m doing my best to neither explode and leave a greasy brown mess on the boxes, nor implode and disappear into an alternative universe.

I would suggest for last week’s missing Friday exercise, and this week’s inevitably missing Friday exercise, to send jokes to keep me cheered up. The sillier the better. I’ll post my favourites.

Thanks everyone for your patience.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

The problem with an English degree is that you go into the subject because of a love of reading. However once it’s your degree, it becomes a chore since you are always reading with a pen in your hand ready to write that graded essay. So what do you do to relax? I was in the position where I was reading and enjoying the high-minded stuff for my degree, and reading pulp fiction to relax.

A famous piece of advice for writers is to read broadly and read deeply. I have learned to become a lover of culture: high, fringe, and mainstream. This has served me well. The artistic works taught me refined language skills, how to evoke emotional depth, and how to broach difficult subjects. The pulp works taught me how to plot, how to generate drama, and how to be accessible to a broad audience.

For comedians I would say we should follow similar advice: take time to watch other comedians and watch a broad diversity of other comedians, not just those doing things similar to your own humour. I am a great fan of Garrison Keillor style humour. He tells stories about farmers and members of small town communities. Yet, we don’t hear many bogan jokes from him. Most of my audience are city folk. I need to be able to reach them, even if I bring in the odd (very odd) cow joke. Also, I can’t be another Garrison Keillor, I can only ever be a Katherine Phelps. So, in order to reach my audience and find my particular voice, I enjoy the boganish humour of Big Al and Claire Hooper. I also watch the charming city humour of Adam Hills. Catherine Deveny’s sharp political humour is worth a look in, though I would drown in sorrow trying to do that stuff myself.

Further I would say that comedians do best when we broadly experience life. You can’t really live the life of a hermit and expect to have enough material to make others laugh. At least dip your toe in some of the current successes/manias even if you will ultimately take them apart with your jokes. I love Harry Potter. It’s very easy for me to tell jokes based on the world of Harry Potter. The DaVinci Code seemed silly to me from the outset. I waited to buy the book when I knew it would start turning up in the two dollar bin at the used bookstore. Fortunately, I was saved from paying any money by a friendly neighbour. The writing was absolutely turgid and the concept ridiculous. But so many people have read it or seen the movie that I now have a point of contact with them through my jokes about that work.

I’m not asking you to force yourself onto experiences you find unpleasant, just be open and free of judgement enough to give a broad variety of things a try. And they don’t all have to be mainstream things. Do something outrageous like take yourself out to an Andean restaurant or an Italian opera. Your impressions of that experience may form the basis of a very funny routine. I remember watching Irish Comedian Ed Byrne doing that by describing the plot to Cosi Fan Tutti while going on about the trials and tribulations of dating. This was laugh until you cry humour.

Your exercise for today is to:

1. Rent a DVD of some comedian or comic film that you wouldn’t normally go to and watch it.
2. Take yourself out to a restaurant or event totally out of the norm for you. For example—go to a knitting fair, eat at an Eastern European cafe, go see a film at the Chinese cinema based on the look of a poster.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

The four points you need to remember concerning healthy and effective use of your voice are:

1. Good posture
2. Proper breathing
3. Projection
4. Enunciation

Gentle warm-ups are a way to prepare your body to get the most benefit and least damage out of these points. Running is a good aerobic activity, but if you start running without warming up, you may damage your muscles and negate any benefits from the exercise. The same is true for your voice.

Posture warm-ups

Good posture, particularly good neck and shoulder posture, ensure that you are not forcing your voice. Air has a good clear passage in and out of your body and the muscles around your vocal cords will be less strained. The most popular piece of advice to assist with good posture is to imagine a string at the top of your head pulling you up. This helps to a degree, but without good body awareness, some misalignments may continue to be over-looked.

Stand with your back against the wall. Feel the places where your body connects to the wall.

Pull your shoulders back, so you can feel the entirety of your shoulder blades against the wall. Breathe in and slowly lift your shoulders toward your ears such that you can feel your shoulder blades sliding up. Breathe out and lightly drop your shoulders. Do this three times. Feel your shoulders relax into this position.

People who work at a computer are particularly prone to holding their heads forward and pushing their chins out in order to see the screen. While standing against the wall pull your chin in forming a turkey neck or double chins. The back of your neck will lengthen and move closer to the wall (not touching). Let this position go and sense where the most comfortable posture for your neck is now. Does your neck seem to be rising straight up from your spine? Do the turkey neck three times.

Place a hand between the small of your back and the wall. Sense how large the open space is there. Remove your hand. Now flex your hips forward so that the small of your back is flat against the wall. Release the flex. You should still have a space between the small of your back and the wall, but it may be a smaller space. Do three hip flexes.

Once you have adjusted your posture with these exercises take a step away from the wall holding your posture. Take three deep breaths and the observe what this posture feels like. I find if I have begun to slouch, all I need do is take a deep breath and allow my expanding chest to move my head and shoulders to the correct places.

Breath and projection warm-ups

Key to both proper breathing and strong projection is the diaphragm. Your diaphragm is a system of muscles just below the rib cage and above the abdominal cavity. A good way to find these muscles and to strengthen them is to place your hand just beneath your ribs and say “HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH…”. Feel the muscles bouncing up and down. Try deepening the tone of your voice, so you can really feel the trampoline effect forcing small breaths out of your body.

Adjust your body to the correct posture, slightly bend your knees, and hold your arms loose so they are hanging at the side of your body a little way from it. Close your eyes and slowly breathe in through your nose to a count of five while expanding your stomach. Feel the air lifting the lower part of your rib cage and then the upper part. Make sure your shoulders remain relaxed and do not move up and down.  As you breathe out through your mouth, do so slowly and lightly while still holding the muscles of your diaphragm gently taut and only fully releasing them at the end of a breath. Do this at least three times before going on stage in order to ground yourself. It’s also worthwhile taking up breath meditation or singing lessons to really learn how to control your breathing.

You will not be using your diaphragm to force breath and sound, but rather support strong projection. Another exercise to help with breath and voice is to just yawn loudly several times. Make sure to open your mouth and jaw wide and go “Aaahh!” Notice how little breath is required to make a big sound?

Enunciation and vocal cord warmups

For your jokes to be understood you will need to use good enunciation. I’m not talking about speaking like some toffy-nosed Henry Higgins, just speaking clearly. Part of that will be about warming up the muscles in your face and vocal cords so that they respond quickly and accurately each time you wish to form a word. A good start is to just open and close your mouth while massaging the muscles in your cheeks.

Quietly begin humming, take a breath, and continue to hum for two more breaths. Turn the hum into the sound of “mum-mum-mum-mum…” Go back to humming and hum like a siren: starting low and quiet, getting higher and louder, then lower and quieter again.

You should be familiar with the musical scale sung as “do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do”. Instead of singing the scale, speak “do-re-me, etc” with the same tone as the note, then go up and down the scale.

Finally and most fun, go through a number of tongue twisters to get your mouth and tongue in good working order. Here are a few samples.

• Red leather yellow leather.
• Eleven benevolent elephants.
• Peggy Babcock.
• While one slick seal slid up the slide, the other slick seal slid down.
• While one purple porpose popped up the pole, the other purple porpoise popped down.
• A critical cricket critic.

Tips

Before going on stage you will need your vocal cords to be moist and supple. Do not drink anything with caffeine in it nor alcohol, both of these will dehydrate you and the vocal folds. Lots of water before and during will be the biggest help. After a session warm water or a spoon full of honey will soothe the throat.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Other unlikely combinations will also cause humour. Many comedy duos like to present a couple of characters who are distinct in ways that makes it improbable they would team up. The most common duo is the “Odd Couple”, where one character is clean and meticulous and the other is slobby and lackadaisical. This was made famous by Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple, but we also see it in Lano and Woodley, Lister and Rimmer in Red Dwarf, and a number of sitcoms dealing with married life.

These combinations are not automatically people who are “opposites”, but rather people who have characteristics that are likely to cause differences to arise. A ballet dancer is not the “opposite” of a police officer, neither is a hippy, a
conspiracy theorist, nor a grandmotherly community activist, but you can easily imagine humorous scenarios arising from a clash in world outlooks between these combinations. In fact by not being “opposites” the audience is likely to be intrigued and perhaps touched by those times where the gap between these people is bridged, and they find they can cooperate, even if for only a few moments.

Other unlikely combinations may be a threat and what is required to overcome it: zombies succumb to plastic forks. Or the password to a gangsters lair: teddy bears. Or what pleases a potential partner: a particularly dainty young woman who swoons at being given power tools, or a butch young man joyfully accepting the latest issue of Tea Cosies and You. The list goes on. Most of these examples are playing around with cultural expectations and stereotypes. This is why they seem unlikely. More and more women are getting into DIY home renovation, so the humour in a woman happily receiving an electric drill is almost gone.  However, give that same woman a jack hammer and you will probably still get a laugh.

As a late Friday exercise (sorry, I’m moving house ) write:

1. an unlikely duo
2. facing an unlikely threat
3. with an unlikely weapon.

For example: a barmaid and a pixie are forced to rid their land of a dragon and all they have is a brightly coloured ostrich feather.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Elements of Comedy Introduction

A comedian can either have a set of these to pull out whenever a rough patch occurs, or write specific saving lines for specific jokes.

A general saving line:

• I think this audience is too short, you keep missing the punchlines.

Specific saving lines:

Joke—How many mice does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Two, but they have to be very little and very horny.

• Saving line—The Origin Energy guy thought that joke was a hoot, as did the exterminator.
• Saving line—What? You don’t think screwing is funny? Be married as long as I have and you’ll find it hilarious.

A number of television comedians are exceptionally well known for their saving lines. They often have several tailored saving lines in a row ready to go, each one meant to cap the previous one.

Saving lines also come in several flavours:

• The one that puts down the joke.
• The one that puts down your own abilities.
• The one that teases the audience for not getting it.

Be very careful with making fun of the audience. They can go from disappointed, because they didn’t get a laugh, to hostile because you aren’t respecting the fact that they have invested time and money by coming to your show. You will need to gauge if they are up for a bit of light ribbing—because sometimes they will be.

The advantage of saving lines is that you can turn a situation where people become uncomfortable and potentially embarrassed for you, to one where you are embracing your fallibility and cajoling an audience into laughing over
your shortcomings. People will come to love your humanity and show patience because they know they will be getting more laughs than not. You become one of them, not some figure of perfection.

Exercise: Take one of your jokes and write three savings lines for it. You might try making the first saving line one that puts down the joke, the next one puts down yourself, and the final one teases the audience.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine