Below is a list of Melbourne venues with my comments. I will continue to maintain this list, if people keep me informed as to the different rooms that are presenting comedy. Please correct me, if any of the details are wrong.

Bad Ass Open Mic Comedy
Station 59
59 Church St, Richmond
Wednesdays 8-11pm

Black Frames
Willow Bar
222 High St, Northcote
4th Thursday of the month 8pm

Outstanding alternative comedy. They emphasize wit. They need to get to know you before giving you a five minute spot. So visit the venue a couple times.

“Blah Blah” Comedy Club
690-692 Mt Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds
Wednesdays 8:30pm

Brew HaHa Comedy
Gertrude’s Brown Couch
30 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
1st Thursday of every month

This doesn’t appear to be open mic, but may be open to requests to try out material.

The Butterfly Club
204 Bank St, South Melbourne

If your comedy is of a musical/theatrical/cabaret nature, you need to audition a full hour act to secure a booking. They may be drawing primarily from the Cabaret Festival and the cabaret course these days. Call and ask.

Checkpoint Charlie Comedy
Eurotrash
18 Corrs Lane, Melbourne
Wednesdays 8pm

Comed-oke
Melbourne International Backpackers
450 Elizabeth St (cnr Franklin St), Melbourne
Tuesdays 9pm

Speak to Jamie about getting a five minute spot.

Dave O’Neil’s Comedy Funhouse
The Grandview Hotel
Cnr Heidelberg Rd & Station St, Fairfield
Wednesdays 8pm

He says he’s interested in supporting new talent.

Comedy at Spleen Bar
Spleen Bar
41 Bourke St, Melbourne
Mondays 8:30pm

This place caters to a broad sense of humour. They need to get to know you before giving you a five minute spot.

Comedy at Syn
Syn Bar
Level 1/163 Russell St, Melbourne
Tuesdays 8pm

These guys largely draw from the Workshop at the Comic’s Lounge for the newbies.

Comic’s Lounge
26 Errol St, North Melbourne
Sun-Sat 8:30pm
Comic Workshop Tuesday 6-8pm
Young Guns Comedy Tuesday 8-10pm

Turn up for the workshop and show people your stuff. If they like you, they will give you a spot in Young Guns Comedy.

Death Star Comedy
Caz Reitop’s Dirty Secrets
80 Smith St, Collingwood
Wednesdays 8pm

Some great people turn up here. The venue is superb for an up and comer. I don’t know what their policy is for getting some time at the mic.

Dog’s Comedy
Dancing Dog Cafe
42a Albert St, Footscray
Thursdays 7:30pm

Run by the delightful Armando who helped with a few additions to this list. So, yes, he’s supportive of new comedy. Speak with him about getting a five minute spot.

Laugh Upstairs Live Comedy
Exford Hotel
199 Russell St (cnr Lt Bourke St), Melbourne
Thursdays 8:30pm

Speak to Ged about getting a five minute spot.

Local Laughs
The Local Taphouse
184 Carlisle St, St Kilda East
Mondays 8:30pm

Janet McLeod, who runs this room, is one of the big movers and shakers of the Melbourne comedy scene. She may want an audition before giving you some time at the mic. You’ll have to contact her and ask. But as always, spend some time at the venue first getting to know its clientele.

Moonee Ponds On-q Club
690 Mount Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds
Wednesdays 8:30pm

Open Mic Night
The Dan
225 Canning St, Carlton
Tuesdays 8:30pm

This isn’t just for comedians. Musicians and spoken word artists will be performing as well. Don’t let that dissuade you. I found mixed mic nights VERY helpful in developing my material. More of them exist and you get a more diverse audience.

Softbelly Comedy
Softbelly Bar & Lounge
367 Little Bourke St, CBD
Wednesdays 7:30pm

Willow Tales
Willow Bar
222 High St, Northcote
2nd Tuesday of the month 8pm

This is one of my very favourite venues. They are strictly looking for stories and storytellers. The stories don’t have to be funny, though many are. The organisers need to get to know you before giving you a five minute spot.

Melbourne Fringe Festival

This is a good place to take a splash in the performance puddle before going on to other festivals. A number of people organise group performances with a few newbies and a few well-known comedians in one night. You can also put on your own solo show. You get a lot of support, it’s not as costly as other festivals, and you get a better idea of how things work without losing a stack of money.

Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Nothing is keeping you from jumping straight into the Melbourne Comedy Festival, but the competition is brutal and running a show is costly. You are much better off establishing yourself elsewhere first, and bringing your reputation with you. Take at least a year to prepare your material and your marketing BEFORE signing up.

These last aren’t open to newcomers, but they are important places for watching and learning from established comedians.

Comedy at the Manhattan
Manhattan Hotel
Cnr Heatherdale & Canterbury Rds, Ringwood
Thursdays

Comedy Club
Knox Ozone
425 Burwood Hwy, Wantirna South
Saturdays

Felix Bar Comedy
Felix Bar
42 Fitzroy St, St Kilda
Wednesdays

Last Laugh at The Comedy Club
Athenaeum Theatre
188 Collins St, Melbourne
Fri-Sat

The Shelf
Toff in Town
2nd Floor, Curtin House, 252 Swanston St, Melbourne
Mondays 7:30pm

One more show this season October 2011. May have future seasons.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

So we are looking at self-awareness, detached observation, and the seeking of truth. This makes comedians the nuns and monks of hilarity.

One aspect of culture that’s vital to observe in our comedy creation is “status”. The advice we are given in Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata is, “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” And yet we do it all the time and are trained to do it by advertising. Do you smell better or worse than your friends? What does your car say about who you are?

Certainly some biology is involved, since status can gain you a healthier mate who can ensure the survival of your offspring. Every group of monkeys has its top monkey that all the lesser monkeys imitate in order to gain favour and possibly become a top monkey themselves. Sometimes they go further than imitation and try to either push down their equals and lessers and/or tear down those of higher status. Observing these creatures you might realise that we really aren’t that different. We’re just smart enough to do it in more varied and subtle ways.

It’s worth thinking about whether you are a comedian who kicks up with your humour or kicks down. Do you solely stick it to those people you believe may think they are better than you, or do you puff yourself and your audience up by mocking those beneath you? Do you perhaps believe we are all friends here and equally tease everyone in the room? All of these have been used as comedy styles.

If you are in a pub, people may prefer humor where you’re sending up bosses, people who drink lattes, and anyone who can spell and use the word “oxymoron”. At a corporate gig people may prefer humor where those who are lambasted are the people who get dirty, find mullets the height of fashion, and misplace apostrophes. The questions that might get asked are, “Which tribe of monkeys is this, and who can I safely kick to prove I’m a part of the tribe?”

What confers status is a moving target. Amongst many cultures being heavy showed you had the wealth and power to eat well. Now days being slim means you have the wealth and leisure to not eat at fast-food restaurants and go to a gym. Once being pale meant you were upper class and didn’t have to go outside to work. Now being tanned means you have the time and means to lay on a beach catching some rays, rather than working inside a factory.

Currently in Australia it’s fashionable to make fun of Adelaide (kicking down at a smaller town) or Sydney (kicking up at a larger town), and non-non-believers (atheists kicking down at religious believers in order to demonstrate intellectual superiority).

Status also affects your stage presence. If you keep your eyes down, shuffle your feet, and have difficulty staying near the mic, you are enacting the body language of lower status. Some comedians have been able to develop a character that successfully uses this status, but often it has a cheeky twist whereby they are then kicking up like a naughty child. Mostly if you are feeling lower status and showing people lower status, you are opening yourself up to heckling (being kicked down).

Status humour is sadly often the humour of channeled hatred. It’s not acceptable to hate one individual teacher, but it’s okay to hate a whole profession. It’s not okay to to hate a former partner for exercising freewill, but you can hate an entire gender. Kicking down at all things stereotypically female by both genders means we often discourage people from valuing kindness and gentleness: these are seen as weak, powerless, and of lower status. However, anyone who has hung around St Bernards or Clydesdale horses knows how gentle and loving big and powerful can be.

One of the gifts we have as comics and artists is that we are in a position to stand at least a little outside determinations of status. In fact it’s our job. Poke fun at pretentiousness, poke fun at distorted thinking, poke fun at the trials of life. Stop and think about it if you are about to kick. Have you thought about the big picture? Do these people really deserve it? Are our egos getting in the way? Are we being fair?

Personally, I do want to see comedy help us all to become better people living in a better world.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

Examples

In Australia The Doug Anthony All-Stars, Lano and Woodley, The Umbilical Brothers, and The Third Degree all made it onto television. In Britain comic teams such as French and Saunders, The Mighty Boosh, The Cambridge Footlights, Mitchell and Webb, The Two Ronnies, etc have had long reaching careers on and off television. It’s worth noting that six out of the thirteen Barry Awards given for outstanding comedy at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival were given to group acts.

Collaboration is no easy thing. Ask anyone who has tried to form a garage band. You have to create a core group of people who take the effort seriously. You have to share a goal and each member must be ready to take responsibility for their role in the group.

Group Structure

Absolute democracy rarely works in a creative group (except in duos). You end up wasting too much time making decisions and some disagreements will be about whose ideas should dominate. Most functioning groups have one person that everyone likes and who is able to negotiate differences. They may or may not be the lead performer, but they will need to be the group leader.

Often they are liked because they are willing to listen and incorporate other people’s ideas into their own, and they are also willing to do the work. However, do not take overmuch advantage of their willingness to shoulder the chores. Everyone has to pitch in. Otherwise, you risk burning out the one person who is holding you together. Be careful of the person who is willing to do work as a way of controlling the group.

Guidelines

Start straight away with guidelines for behaviour in the group. It may seem fascist, but interactions tend to be more peaceful when everyone knows how to behave and what is expected of them. It’s usually better to start with tough guidelines that are applied lightly, rather than loose guidelines that get ignored all together.

Amongst the guidelines you will be setting are: rehearsal times; rostering set-up, take-down, clean-up, and various other chores; constructive criticism; handling of gigs, marketing, and money; how decisions are made; how disagreements are dealt with; and when it is considered legitimate to kick someone out of the group.

I have known groups who have said things like, we don’t need guidelines because we’re all friends. And I have watched many of them fall apart over avoidable disagreements. If you are friends, then you should appreciate the effort to make everything transparent in how your group functions, particularly since you are also in a business relationship and money will become important.

Kicking someone out is also uncomfortable, but it comes up. Avoiding the removal of a difficult member has often caused groups to disintegrate. No one wants to be “mean”, but if the results are everyone resigns, it’s senseless to give the difficult member so much destructive power. If you can point out specifically where they have been breaking the guidelines, you aren’t being “mean”. They knew what was expected of them, it was their responsibility to stay within the guidelines, if they had difficulties with the guidelines then they should have said something. Their removal is just and the consequence of their own behaviour.

Outcomes

Collaboration is something like a marriage: a lot of give and take, but overall it should be fun and fulfilling. A successful group will find that they inspire one another. A successful group will enjoy themselves and thereby be entertaining to watch. Successful groups upon occasion win Barry Awards and get television shows. Give it a try.

Peace and kindness,
Katherine

Professionalism

People see the bad behaviour of A-list actors and something in their psyche says, “I want that kind of freedom.” Even A-list actors start losing jobs if they prove too troublesome. As a beginner or even mid-list actor you can’t afford to be anything less than absolutely professional. A single acting position can attract thousands of people with whom you will be competing.

Professionalism begins with contacting the casting director with a polite call or a short correctly spelled email with CV and headshot attached. Make sure the headshot bears some relationship to the show and part for which you are auditioning. I’m directing comedy, I want headshots with people smiling. Actors don’t have to go overboard trying to look funny, I just need to see that I’m working with more than a block of wood. If you send me a letter or email, have someone check them and your CV for spelling and grammar. I don’t require my actors to be highly literate, but I do want to see that they take the audition seriously.

When you are contacted you will need to be prepared to audition on the date and time you are given. It’s all right to ask if another time is available. However, once that is settled, avoid any attempts to change these again. If you subsequently cannot make your time, call and apologise, even if that means you are giving up the role. You need to maintain a good reputation. If you insult or waste the time of the people working on a production, you will automatically reduce your further opportunities in the industry.

Arrive at the audition on time. Come prepared with certain standard information about yourself and following any instructions given by the casting director. Standard information includes your costume sizes, if you have a car, and your availability. Special instructions may include things like come in a red t-shirt, memorise certain lines, be willing to audition at a cafe. Before the audition it is acceptable to ASK if you will be provided with a script. Demanding the entire script is a good way to alienate the people on a production. Original material has to be protected. Such a demand might be met as a favour to an A-list actor, anyone else would require a non-disclosure agreement.

For original comedy you may be asked to do cold readings. I usually start by just chatting with an actor to determine if they are likable (absolutely crucial for effective comedy), show charisma, and are capable of being witty in conversation. A cold reading on top of this will show me if the actor is quick in catching the jokes, capable of improvising, and takes direction well. From long experience no matter how good the actor, if they can’t take direction, they aren’t worth the grief.

Once you have completed the audition, thank the people involved and make sure you have left your contact details. If you haven’t heard from the production in one to two weeks afterward, you can either assume you didn’t get the role or call once to confirm. Understand that so long as you remain polite and civil, your audition may have been successful enough for you to be remembered for future roles, just perhaps not this one. I have called people back on more than one occasion. You can also turn down a role. Do so politely. Anything less will affect your industry reputation.

If your audition was successful, you still aren’t off the hook regarding professionalism. You will need to be easily contacted at all times by phone or email. You will need to respond promptly to all communication. Check your email daily. Confirm the receipt of instructions, rather than relying on the production people to assume. If you have any difficulties, give the production plenty of time and help to work around you. If you can’t make a rehearsal (do this rarely), inform people as soon as possible and NOT the day of. I have allergies to certain colourants and perfumes, so I will inform people and often get asked to come in a day early for a makeup test before filming.

Turn up to ALL rehearsals. Turn up to all rehearsals promptly and stay until the designated completion time. If your lines are not currently being rehearsed, sit quietly. Begin learning your lines immediately, rather than waiting for the director to set deadlines.

Experience

I find all sorts of experience are valid for building fine performance skills, not just big name acting schools. Nevertheless, you still need experience. I have had more than one actor turn up with a nearly empty resume, then ask immediately what sort of money they can expect. If you are a practitioner of any art form, you will have to put in many hours of skill development without pay. This is not about fair or unfair. Most jobs require training without pay, except perhaps the military.

Treat ALL productions equally. Whether you are in an amateur, volunteer, or professional production behave reliably, responsibly, and to the best of your ability. These shows provide you with skill-building, networking, and a reputation (preferably a good one). I have brought on actors through word of mouth by other actors who knew them in an amateur production. I also know of a few actors who started being knocked-back because people they mistreated in their early days were now in positions of power. You are not functioning in a vacuum.

As a director I completely respect amateur experience. It shows you are willing to put in the work and have a genuine passion for acting. Volunteer productions have the added value of professional intent. They may not make money, but they are stretching for excellence. Experience with standup comedy is of great use to me. I have the funny factor for which I’m looking. Comedians will have to prove they can act and, more importantly, that they can work with other people.

Getting Over Yourself

This issue boggles me, but I’ve run up against it so many times, it’s worth noting. Comedy involves many crazy and insane roles. Even the “straight” roles will involve moments when the character will either behave foolishly or be the butt of foolishness. This should be understood.

I frequently have had actors apply who think comedy sounds like fun, but are terrified of allowing themselves to be funny. This isn’t about having the comic equivalent of two left feet. This is about people who have carefully groomed their persona for one type of leading role and live it everyday. Even dramatic roles require more flexibility, but these actors admire and emulate cultural stereotypes. Letting that persona slip feels like an ego death.

To do comedy you must have a greater self-acceptance and resilience in the face of your own humanity. You must be comfortable with your self as a fallible human being. You must be in touch with the core of who you are then play with being other, rather than always living the mask. You also have to be brave enough to make large gestures, take large risks, and live with the odd large disaster. Comedy is mostly about exaggeration.

Sex

You might think I put this in to get your attention. Hey! And it worked. Comedy revolves around sex, violence, and fallibility. I’m less inclined toward the violent end of things, so I use more farcical sex. Sexuality in drama can be controlled and one note. Sexuality in comedy can be chaotic and anarchic.

In audition and in performance you will have to show me that you can walk the line between respectful and open. You will have to be able to convincingly play the male gender, the female gender, trans-gender, and any and all permutations in-between. Panto thrives on the humour of inverted genders. You will have to be able to passionately embrace all genders. You will then have to be able to switch that passion on and off, depending upon whether you are on stage or not. You will have both the confidence and humility to ask your acting partner regularly, “Is that all right? Are you comfortable with that?” Then you will listen to and respect their response.

Sleeze-bags who think they are funny will be weeded out faster than you can say “uh…” Sexual harrassment laws apply equally to theatre as to any other work place. Everyone’s permission for certain behaviours must be clear. I’ve already had to deal once with some minor dressing room harrassment. Fortunately, it took only a word to the wise to sort out.

Conclusion

The screen and stage industries in Australia are small. Even elsewhere the number of performers far outstrips the number of available roles. This imbalance has upon occasion been abused. Yes, you have to be hyper-polite to make it. Learning equanimity, patience, humility, and forgiveness along with timing, gesture, and motivation will get you a long way. Your reputation is worth absolute gold, jealously guard it. I do not believe the competition means you have to compromise your integrity, because that too will form part of your reputation. It’s mostly a matter of treating everyone you meet with respect.

When you go in to audition, learn how to keep your ego in balance. You need that ego to give you the self-confidence to do a grand and guffaw-worthy performannce. Also understand that yours is not the only sensitive ego, many artists go into creating a collaborative work such as a play or film. Your graciousness and civility will make you a prime candidate for involvement.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine

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

* 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

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

Persona

We all have a multitude of facets to our personalities and can be five different people depending upon the day of the month or hour of the day. However, as a comedian you need to find a signature way to present yourself, so that people recognise you and your style of comedy straight away. This has everything to do with marketing and selling yourself to the audience.

One comedian in Adelaide likes taking on a sort of 1960s Rat Pack persona. So, he either wears a suit and tie or a polo shirt and slacks. Either way you can easily see him taking a relaxed pose, sipping a martini, and tossing out smooth
lines to the ladies. I know a couple of women who like the Gothic Lolita look: a bit girly and a bit edgy at the same time.

If you find this too limiting, you can always go the Sir Barry Humphries route and instead of cultivating a persona, create several memorable characters with individual looks. Remember that Humphries has created a theme of Australian types to coherently weave his characters together. You too will want to find something that connects your characters for marketing purposes.

Visibility

A lot of guys want to look dark, mysterious, and dangerous, therefore they tend toward black shirt, black pants, black shoes, black socks, and black lace underwear. DON’T DO IT (except perhaps the lace underwear). You are not a ninja, you do not wish to hide in the background. You are a comedian. Comedians need to be seen in order to be heard. You can get away with the black pants, but you must wear a light or bright shirt to catch your audience’s attention and direct their eyes to your face.

If you are a large person and are using darks to hide your shape, DON’T. A part of comedy is about accepting your humanity and embracing your physicality. In that way you give yourself more comic material and you help others to become more accepting of people like yourself through laughter. However, if you need to take babysteps toward finding that sort of self esteem, take a few tips from how the larger opera singers dress.

Wear that light shirt or blouse, but go ahead and wear an unbuttoned dark jacket. If you were to wear a uniformly dark outfit, you would simply create a large dark outline. The jacket will cause people’s eyes to be drawn to the light
shirt which now has a very slim line leading up to your face where all the action is.

Comfort and Flexibility

It’s hard enough standing in front of an audience not knowing whether or not they will like your humour. You do not need to make yourself even more uncomfortable by giving yourself uncomfortable clothes. Make sure that whatever
you’re wearing will not constrict your body anywhere or cause you pain (eg high heels). If you like your comedy to get a bit physical, then also make sure your clothes are flexible enough to handle it. You don’t want to go ripping clothes on stage and then having to pay for their repair or replacement.  I own some dance clothes specifically
for physical comedy.

Do NOT rely on t-shirts and jeans even though they make you feel emotionally comfortable. The vast majority of young comedians are doing that and you will disappear amongst the crowd. If you must go that direction, then at least make sure you have a collection of unique t-shirts that match your persona.

Upstaging Yourself

Here I’m pushing you to be a bit more outrageous and flamboyant. However, you must always be more outrageous than your clothes. If you have extremely loud clothes, but your humour is subtle, you may find your outfit is wearing you and it steals the show. Some of the artistry of comedy is found in striking the correct balance in presenting yourself. Dame Edna gets away with sparkly clothes and big eyeglasses because she’s larger than life. I will suggest that if you do find a vibrant wardrobe you like to wear and it’s overtaking the show, turn yourself up rather than the clothing down.

Peace and kindness,

Katherine