Saturday, February 9, 2013

Ken Criste-- On Comedy (Part 2)-- Ltr to Whitney


From: Ken Criste 
Date: Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 7:48 AM
Subject: speech


Whitney,
Congrats on your first comedic speech success. John has high praise for your efforts!

Keep a few things in mind while you visualize your performance(s).

The audience for comedy comes to laugh so they are automatically "on your side" and 99% will go along for the ride. Think of yourself as driving a bus. Everyone on the bus ordinarily just wants to enjoy the scenery and relax...you are the bus driver and the more confident you seem the more people just "accept". You do not seek approval as much as you just want them to enjoy.
The audience is conditioned to laugh. harness that and use it to help them enjoy your performance. A performer who is unsure or not confident will be shifting a certain psychological responsibility to the audience to "take care of the performer" or feel pity or something. They didn't pay for that.
Learn the set up/punch format in the beginning and the more cleverly you disquise this the funnier and more intelligent it will be. Of course if you observe the older female comics you'll see how married they are to this delivery and its the type of stuff they do the type of jokes which the audience comes, pays for, expects..no shame in structuring this way if it suits what you are about.
Anyway...take a couple acting classes... you'll learn some things and you might even get parts in movies commercials voice overs etc!
Ken
on. You 

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