Recently a friend of mine decided to embark on a career in stand up comedy. In 2017, I did something that had been on my bucket list since childhood: I started working towards becoming a stand-up comedian. The people in the audience are guests in MY house, are in MY space and are on MY time. You'll also have to allow some time for laughter (hopefully) and potentially improvisation , but this is more advanced - it may best to keep this to a minimum till you gain more confidence on-stage.
Stand-up comedy is about writing and performance. Ultimately, a lot of this revolves around finding your voice, which is the one thing you shouldn't have to teach yourself, because most stand ups know why they're doing it and what part of themselves they want to exaggerate on stage.
Think of writing a joke like writing a song by developing a rhythm for your material. There is a lot more to being a successful Stand-up comedian than being able to make people laugh, you also need to be able to create fresh new material that strikes a chord with an audience.
For those seriously trying to learn stand-up comedy techniques that actually work and can be applied to punchlines now, I want to expand upon the key word or keyword phrase position in a punchline. You may be like a Dane Cook were you walk all over the stage, but if the audience can't see you, then you won't be that
Funny Videos American.
This class will teach you how to write, edit, and perform the minimum 4-7 minutes of material needed to function at the open mic level. The comic should understand that this is not a comedy club gig and they need to keep it clean. Thankfully in the content marketing world - unlike stand-up comedy - you do not have to be born with great timing to excel.
For me, the thing that sets this book out from alternatives is that it is brilliantly written and is by someone who has been doing comedy for (20?) years and clearly enjoys doing it, not because it gets you laid, not because you can get paid, but from the joy of it. I've been gigging for a bit now and have used this to both develop material and pick my ego off the floor after a bad gig.
You can be writing the most incisive and accessible joke the world has ever seen, but it won't mean anything unless you know how to deliver it. That's where experience in performing onstage comes in handy, simply so you're comfortable and light on your feet in front of an audience.