ABC's of Stand-up Comedy

Learn to treat stand-up as a 95 percent business and 5 percent show, branding with banners and cards, and delivering your best set every night.

Navigate the stand-up scene by finding bookers, booking open mics, and forming a game plan for stage time, while cultivating a comedy cocoon for writing, consistency, and camaraderie.

Learn to cultivate a creative space for daily stand-up material, describe your creative cocoon, and time your set by knowing your audience and reading dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Arrive early to read room and comfort the audience. Educate yourself with unique sources and craft original material through daily effort and openness to feedback, sharing non-topical bits for homework.

Embrace setbacks, not failures, and move to the next joke, building your act from five to 15 to 30 to 45 minutes using free writing to fuel material.

Measure the gap between funny thoughts as you walk through stores, turning observations into jokes to build your comedy muscle. Align strengths with voice, staying gracious and grounded.

Hone your stand-up by writing original heckle lines, ignore hack police, stay ahead of hacks, and use gigs and mentorship to sharpen your act.

Master placing impressions in places they don’t belong, practice daily with initiative, and reflect on introvert or extrovert traits to craft and place your next impression.

Learn to write authentic stand-up by drawing on personal emotion, balance misdirection with timing, and study Rodney Dangerfield while building a three-joke-per-minute necklace.