Standup comedy is not easy. Findings your stage presence and writing material is hard enough. Meanwhile, make sure when you’re on stage you don’t do this:
Keep the mic stand in front of you
Assuming there is a mic stand on stage, either do your set with the mic in the stand or take the mic out and move the stand behind you. If you leave the stand in front of you, it’s in your way, distracting for the audience and makes you look like a newbie.
Comment on how bright the lights are
I get it. The lights are bright. But your job as a comic is to do your set with blinding lights in your eyes sometimes. The audience is in the dark, and the lights are not shining on them so you won’t get any sympathy.
Read from notes
Comedy is a connection between you and the audience. Putting your head down to read notes from a sheet of paper breaks that connection. Reading notes from your phone is even worse.
Doing that trick where you write notes on your hand or arm or underwear doesn’t work, either. We know what you’re doing.
If it’s an open mic and you are working new material, I get it. But if you are always reading from notes at open mics, you are practicing relying on notes.
Ask the audience how they are doing
You have about 30 seconds to get the audience’s attention and get a laugh. Asking the audience, “How’s everyone doing tonight?” seems polite but you’re wasting time.
It’s rare when the audience actually answers. So you’ve asked a question to an awkward silence. Just get into your material.
Look at the floor or ceiling
You want to project confidence. If you stand there with you your hands in the pockets looking at the floor, you don’t seem confident.
Look at the audience. If it’s so dark you can’t really see them, look in the direction of the audience. If you can’t bring yourself to look directly at the people at least look slightly over their heads.
Turn and address the whole room during your set. Focus on a person or table when delivering your punchline. But don’t direct your whole act to one table. That makes the rest of the room feel left out.
One thing you might want to do is check out the room before you go on stage. That way if you want to point out a couple or a guy with a loud shirt in your act, you know where they are so you’re not squinting to see who has the ugliest shirt.
Ask an audience member to repeat what they said
Ideally, the audience will be silent except for laughing or clapping during your set, unless you’re doing crowd work.
Sometimes people will make a comment under their breath or shout something out. It’s best to ignore that. Many times, I have heard comics ask an audience member, “What did you say?” Now you are encouraging the audience member to talk again.
And do you really want the audience member to say, “I was just telling my friend that you suck?”
Don’t ask the audience to repeat what they said. Ignore them unless they become disruptive and you have to shut them down.
Fiddle with the mic stand
Maybe you didn’t move the mic stand far enough and it’s in arm’s reach. Don’t stand there wiggling the mic clip or pushing the stand up and down.
You are not only messing up the mic stand so that it may not work for the next comic, the audience is focusing on you twisting and pushing and not what you’re saying.
Ask the audience if they are familiar with the movie, band or historical fact you are about to talk about
You’ve seen it or maybe done it. You have a joke about the band Switchfoot because you thought their name was Switchblade. So you say, “Hey, anyone remember the band Switchfoot from the 1990s?”
The audience is silent. Are you going to still tell the joke? Does it matter if they remember?
Just get into your material. Add some perspective if needed, but consider ditching jokes that require the audience to have a depth of knowledge about arcane subjects.
Chew gum or candy
If you’re on stage getting that last little bit of flavor out of your Wrigley’s Spearmint, you are sending a message to the audience that you are more interested in freshening your breath than telling jokes.
Ask how much time you have left
It’s your responsibility to keep track of your time. But stuff happens. Asking how much time you have left breaks the connection you have with the audience. (Though if you are asking how much time you have left, you may not have a connection with the audience.)
Good luck!
