Probably one of the toughest things in life is to make someone crack a smile, and making them laugh is a much bigger task. If you think it is hard to make someone laugh, then think how much harder it must be to make someone laugh, professionally? That’s why we must appreciate all the comedians and stand-up artists that we follow online and have been going to watch live for adding a pinch of happiness in our lives.
Now, if you had been hiding your comic side in the closet for a while – thinking it is better to stick to your boring corporate job and make a steady income, we won’t diss you or call you out for that. It’s a pretty understandable choice and for most societies – an intelligent one. However, if you are ready to hang your professional shoes, put on the cap of a professional comedian, there are some questions you need to ask yourself!
Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Comedian
First of all, one must make sure that it isn’t just some fun timepass; if you want to take it up as a hobby, that’s completely fine, then you just need to make a balance in your life and find the equilibrium to make the best of both worlds.
However, if you wish to become a professional comedian, then you have to realize that it is an actual career path that requires equal commitment and even more passion than most careers. So, if it’s a half-hearted, mid-life crisis sort of decision, then you better think again, buddy!
Secondly, you must have good writing skills to make sure you can jot down a nice tight and funny set. While being funny is the topmost requirement for being a comedian (obviously!), one should also have a flair for writing down their jokes and bits to build a set to perform for the audience.
You can seek help, hire professional writers, or hang with other comedians to work out your pieces. Maintaining a journal and writing down funny bits and anecdotes will help you put together strong bits and eventually strong sets.
There is no academic training or school that’ll prepare you to be a comedian. You’d have to put yourself out there in public – go for live shows, open mic nights, comedy fests, put up videos on social media, and more to get noticed and come into the public eye.
And for doing that, you *must* have exemplary comic writing skills at your disposal because making a room full of strangers is one of the hardest things in the world.
While we are making this list, let’s also point out the fact that not all days are bright, shiny, and merry. They’ll be days when you’d sail through like you own this world, then they’ll be days where you’d not be able to even snail through it, but that’s just how being a professional comic’s life is going to be.
So you have to ask yourself the question that do you have the perseverance to watch your set fail in front of a crowd?
However harsh it may sound, there are going to be many days where you would tank on the stage without getting many laughs from the audience – that’s the part and parcel of this career path and if you are ready to go through that without taking every failure to heart, then we’d say you would be able to make it as a professional comedian.
Dig Deeper, Know What Works
While it may seem that a comic’s job is to crack some jokes and make people laugh, it is so much more than that. It’s the art of weaving a story and getting the audience so hooked, and when they least expect it then suddenly dropping the best joke at that right time to set the laughing alarms on.
It may not be the funniest joke, it might not even make sense if you simply just play that one joke to someone else – it’s that entire story weaving process that gets the audience hooked in the first place that makes any joke work. That’s just how a punchline works.
It always helps to know your audience. When you know what kind of audience you are going to come across, you should try to imbibe that into your set. Make cultural references, play the language card, and anything and everything you might know about the place or the audience while adding your touch to it.
For example, if you are approached to perform in a college fest, then always stick to experiences you or your friends experienced in your university days, talk about the crowd, the college – make even the smallest detail sound like an intriguing adventure to get your audience’s attention.
It is no news that the audience likes when the comedian offers a humorous perception to even the most mundane daily tasks, so giving your point of view to such things helps them relate to you better.
As frightening as it may sound, a comedian doesn’t have much to their aid when they’re up the stage. A mic and an overly eager audience are what you have at your hand when you take up a stage.
So, instead of being overwhelmed, one must try to indulge the audience. The biggest tool is talking to the audience. It is impromptu, non-rehearsed, and requires you to be at your witty best but it is one of the best exercises as well as a mechanism that’ll make up for good material for your future sets.
So, like most professions, being a comedian requires you to have certain skill sets and experience but it is surely the only career that’ll give you the most fun while you are at work!
