Get Better At Your Stand-Up Career: 3 Cool Classes For Aspiring Comedians
It takes more than just being funny to be a successful stand-up comedian. You need to have a good act. If you are not comfortable on stage, or if your act is not tight, then you will not succeed. Many novice comedians think that the main component to being a successful comedian is to just have a good sense of humor, but that's not entirely accurate. If you look into how any of the successful comedians went about developing their skill, then you will see that there is quite a bit of work involved. So, with that knowledge, here are some classes that you can take that will be helpful in honing your comedic skill and preparing you for the stage.
Improv Classes
One of the building blocks of comedy is the concept of improvisation. The classes are often referred to by shorthand "improv". In these class, people are taught how to think on the fly and incorporate comedy into situations that are not scripted. These classes serve two purposes. The first is to sharpen the comedic mind. The classes show you how to take anything and force your mind to turn it into a comedic situation. This is great because it expands the way you think about things. The second thing that taking an improv class will do is to teach you how to deal with things beyond your control. This is vital for a stand-up act. You will learn how to deal with rowdy audiences, hecklers, and spur-of-the-moment incidents.
Writing Workshops
While improv is important, it's also important to make sure you have a well-scripted act. This means you need to learn how to craft a good written set. Good comedians don't just get on stage and wing it. It's simply a recipe to failure. They spend a lot of time writing their material and then editing it and revising it until it is perfect. There are no two ways about it—you need to learn how to write well in order to be a good comedian. This is why taking a writing class is important. It will show you how to structure a set, how to lead one joke into another, and how to wrap up the set.
Acting Classes
Finally, you need to have good stage presence. If you get up on stage and stand at the microphone and utter a series of jokes without stage presence, then you will bomb. Even sedate, deadpan comedians such as Stephen Wright had a unique style that was practiced. You need to learn how to "act" on stage in order to sell your jokes. This means how to walk, how to move around the stage, how to use your hands, and how to control the audience. It's very similar to how a stage actor must learn how to use the stage to perform. So, it is perfectly acceptable to take an acting class and learn how you can command an audience using tricks and strategies that stage actors have been using for centuries.