More and more, I’ve been hearing comics crowing about how they get up every night of the week. In cities like New York and LA, it’s common to hear talk about doing 15-20 sets in a week. And my question is, so what? Don’t misunderstand – there is no substitute for stage time. You needRead more
Not everyone is going to like everything you say. If you like a sunny day, someone else likes the rain. If you like puppies, some one else is a cat person. When you take a stand, someone will disagree with it, always. And that’s okay. But let’s talk about you taking the RIGHT stand. ThisRead more
Ignite Hospitality is a company that gets comedians hotels for 25% of the retail price in exchange for social media mentions. Its wonderful – they do all the leg work, and you get nice hotel rooms for $10-$30. All you have to do is tweet about your stay and give them reviews on stuff likeRead more
It happens to all of us. You get booked for something and then plans change. Maybe you get something amazing like television. Maybe you got another gig you just can’t turn down. Maybe your routing changed or you had a family emergency or you’re feeling sick. Whatever the reason, sometimes you need to cancel. Here’sRead more
If you’re a comedian, you will be heckled. The vast majority of the time, heckling isn’t “You suck!” or something like that. I define heckling as anything that obviously interrupts the show. Even someone accidentally stepping on a punch line by yelling “we love you!” still steps on the punch line, which prevents aRead more
Hopefully, we will all get to the place in our careers where flying to gigs becomes a regular thing. When it does, here’s how to do it well. 1) Pre-Check is extremely important. Aside from the benefit of not having a stranger’s hands all over your body or having to go through the radiation machines,Read more
By the end of this year, I’ll have run over two dozen comedy festivals and performed in several others. And, while lumping them all in one “festival” category is difficult, hopefully this post will take you through everything you need to know about them. (And if you’ve done any festivals that you loved, please postRead more
There are very few indisputable rules in comedy. One of them is that your voice has to be honest throughout your set. Whether your voice is really you, a heightened version of you, or a completely different character, it needs to be honest. As soon as one joke contradicts another, you become less believable toRead more
When I posted a pro-tip about where to move and when as a comic, the questions came flooding about what scenes I recommend. The problem is that every comedian is unique both in life situation and career development. So I thought it might be more helpful to post a massive piece detailing various scenes. TheseRead more
Figuring out whether or not you should move for comedy is a bit of a “choose-your-own adventure”. Each comedian is unique, and the same answer does not apply to everyone – so hopefully you can use this as a guide to figure out the right move (or not move) for you. (Note: I wrote thisRead more