The advice Bobby Lee gave Whitney Cummings when she started doing standup
What matters more: jokes or getting comfortable on stage?
Variety: Is Social Media the New Comedy Club? Stand-Up Comics on How Digital Media Differs from Live. [via
]In the piece, Whitney Cummings remembers comedian Bobby Lee telling her when she started to “not worry about jokes for the first two years; just worry about getting comfortable on stage.”
Smart advice. Learn to host, talk to the crowd, and write new material. In the beginning, you’re stocking your toolbox. Later on, you can figure out just what you’re building. Plus, you’re going to keep writing better material so don’t get stuck repeating the first five minutes you get off the ground. You’ll look back at those jakes later and groan.
And btw re: “Is Social Media the New Comedy Club?” Allow me to refer you to Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Booker Erin von Schonfeldt explains why there’s no substitute for live:
“There are those, especially today given the viralness of digital media, who can find an audience from a single online clip and find initial success,” she notes. “But if you want to be a professional stand-up comedian, there’s really no substitute for working in front of live audiences, night after night, in multiple cities to build a real foundation.
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Thanks for the shout!