Stand-Up Comedy
Stand-Up Comedy

Author: Judy Carter

Publisher: Dell

Published: 2010-03-03

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0307575209

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If you think you’re funny, buy this book! Whether you dream of becoming a star . . . A better public speaker . . . A more effective communicator . . . A funnier, happier human being . . . You can learn to leave ‘em laughing! David Letterman learned to do it. Jay Leno learned to do it. Roseanne Barr learned to do it. So can you! Now successful stand-up comic Judy Carter—who went from teaching high school to performing in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Lake Tahoe, and on over 45 major TV shows—gives you the same hands-on, step-by-step instruction she’s taught to students in her comedy workshops. She shows you how to do it: create an act, perform it, make money with it, or apply it to everyday life. Discover: • The formulas for creating comedy material • How to find your own style • The three steps to putting your act together • Rehearsal do’s and don’ts • What to do if you bomb • Ways to punch up your everyday life with humor

Standup Comedy 101
Standup Comedy 101

Author: Jim Rauth

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-07-04

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 9781548618131

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"If you're looking at this book, trust your instincts," says Jim Rauth founder of the Comedy College a standup comedy school located in Milwaukee and Chicago. Jim has been teaching "Standup Comedy 101" for the last 19 years. Jim's students have appeared on HBO, Comedy Central, NBC's "Last Comic Standing", Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien and more! Jim also has managed a comedy club and has produced over 600 comedy shows. "In the early years, I was producing an open mic in Chicago and in the same room we had TJ Miller, Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle Kinane, Nate Bargatze and Hanibal Burress when they were starting their careers on a Tuesday," said Rauth. If you're looking to be funnier for the next party or you're heading for a national television gig, this workbook will get you there. It's worked for numerous Comedy College students who have made to national television shows and others who make their living doing standup. The book is an easy read and the exercises are simple to follow. It's designed to help you get your comedy act together for you first comedy performance, and then to help you keep building your comedy career.

Performing Live Comedy
Performing Live Comedy

Author: Chris Ritchie

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2013-12-02

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1408147246

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Comedy is a global multibillion dollar industry and it is also one of the easiest ones to get into. Performing Live Comedy is for anyone who has ever thought about getting up onstage and being funny or for those who have already started. It offers a breakdown of the process of live comedy and provides a basic toolbox for the student and aspirant comedian, covering all aspects of live comedy such as stand-up, music, double acts, ventriloquists and magicians. Gender, sexuality, ethnicity and disability are also covered in this book as well as ethical considerations on what we should or should not joke about. The book breaks down the entire process of live comedy from writing a simple one-liner to creating a complete act, from organising an open spot at the local comedy club to getting into the Edinburgh Festival and running your own venue. Performing Live Comedy is full of advice and original interviews with comedians and writers currently involved in the comedy industry such as Rob Grant (Red Dwarf), Shazia Merza, Henning Wehn, Ed Aczel, Paul Zerdin and Lucy Greaves.

Don't Wear Shorts on Stage
Don't Wear Shorts on Stage

Author: Rob Durham

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2011-12-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781468004847

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Rob Durham has written a book on the ins and outs of being a stand-up comic. Hilarious and enlightening, he uses some funny experiences of his own with famous and not-so-famous people to give some great tips on getting started in the biz. "Rob Durham 'gets it' as a performer and a teacher of how to get going in the comedy business. He covers the little things that so many new guys ignore. This is the book I would have written. . . if I had the time, interest, or word-processor." --Jimmy Pardo"I support this book unconditionally!" --Maria Bamford"Read this book before going to your next open mic night." --Tommy Johnagin

Step by Step to Stand-up Comedy
Step by Step to Stand-up Comedy

Author: Greg Dean

Publisher: Heinemann Drama

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780325001791

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If you think you're funny, and you want others to think so too, this is the book for you! Greg Dean examines the fundamentals of being funny and offers advice on a range of topics, including: writing creative joke material rehearsing and performing routines coping with stage fright dealing with emcees who think they're funnier than you are getting experience and lots more. Essential for the aspiring comic or the working comedian interested in updating his or her comedy routine, Step by Step to Stand-Up Comedy is the most comprehensive and useful book ever written on the art of the stand-up comedian.

Do You Talk Funny?
Do You Talk Funny?

Author: David Nihill

Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1942952287

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Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change. In what doesn't sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be an accomplished comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible. One part of the plan was at least logical: he was already Irish and already called Dave. In one year, David went from being deathly afraid of public speaking to hosting a business conference, regularly performing stand-up comedy and winning storytelling competitions in front of packed houses. And he did it by learning from some of the best public speakers in the world: stand-up comedians. Do You Talk Funny?: 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker shows how the key principles of stand-up comedy can be applied to your speaking engagements and presentations to make you funnier, more interesting, and better looking. (Or at least two of the three.) Whether you are preparing for a business presentation, giving a wedding toast, defending your thesis, raising money from investors, or simply want to take on something you're afraid of, this book will take you from sweaty to stage-ready. You'll learn how to: - Craft a story and content that your audience will want to listen to - Find the funniest parts of your material and how to get to them faster - Deal with stage fright - Master the two most important parts of your performance: timing and delivery Ten percent of the author's proceeds from this book will go to Arash Bayatmakou via Help Hope Live until he is fully back on his feet and thereafter to one of the many facing the same challenges after suffering a severe spinal cord injury.

Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy
Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy

Author: Jay Sankey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1136555633

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In this engaging and disarmingly frank book, comic Jay Sankey spills the beans, explaining not only how to write and perform stand-up comedy, but how to improve and perfect your work. Much more than a how-to manual Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy is the most detailed and comprehensive book on the subject to date.

Stay Hungry
Stay Hungry

Author: Sebastian Maniscalco

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-02-27

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1501115995

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From comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco—star of the film About My Father with Robert DeNiro—an inspiring, honest, uproarious collection of essays tracing his career from playing boxing rings and bowling alleys to reaching the pinnacles of comedy success. At twenty-four, Sebastian Maniscalco arrived in LA with a suitcase and saved up minimum wages. He knew no one and nothing about standup comedy, but he was determined to go for it anyway. Two decades later, he’s on the Forbes’ list of highest earning comedians, selling out arenas, and starring in numerous hit comedy specials including Why Would You Do That? and Is It Me?. Stay Hungry tells the story of the twenty years in between. On the way from clueless rube to standup superstar, Seb was booed off stages; survived on tips and stolen food; got advice from mentors Andrew Dice Clay, Vince Vaughn, Tony Danza, and Jerry Seinfeld; fell in love; and stayed true to his Italian-immigrant roots. The one code that always kept him going: stay hungry, keep focused, never give up, and one day, you’ll make it.

Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America
Stand-up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America

Author: John Limon

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2000-06-23

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0822380501

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Stand-Up Comedy in Theory, or, Abjection in America is the first study of stand-up comedy as a form of art. John Limon appreciates and analyzes the specific practice of stand-up itself, moving beyond theories of the joke, of the comic, and of comedy in general to read stand-up through the lens of literary and cultural theory. Limon argues that stand-up is an artform best defined by its fascination with the abject, Julia Kristeva’s term for those aspects of oneself that are obnoxious to one’s sense of identity but that are nevertheless—like blood, feces, or urine—impossible to jettison once and for all. All of a comedian’s life, Limon asserts, is abject in this sense. Limon begins with stand-up comics in the 1950s and 1960s—Lenny Bruce, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Mike Nichols, Elaine May—when the norm of the profession was the Jewish, male, heterosexual comedian. He then moves toward the present with analyses of David Letterman, Richard Pryor, Ellen DeGeneres, and Paula Poundstone. Limon incorporates feminist, race, and queer theories to argue that the “comedification” of America—stand-up comedy’s escape from its narrow origins—involves the repossession by black, female, queer, and Protestant comedians of what was black, female, queer, yet suburbanizing in Jewish, male, heterosexual comedy. Limon’s formal definition of stand-up as abject art thus hinges on his claim that the great American comedians of the 1950s and 1960s located their comedy at the place (which would have been conceived in 1960 as a location between New York City or Chicago and their suburbs) where body is thrown off for the mind and materiality is thrown off for abstraction—at the place, that is, where American abjection has always found its home.

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play
Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

Author: Nick Offerman

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-10-03

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1101984708

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A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the Free—not just for the people and their purported ideals but to the actual land itself: the bedrock, the topsoil, and everything in between that generates the health of your local watershed. In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America's trails, farms, and frontier to examine the people who inhabit the land, what that has meant to them and us, and to the land itself, both historically and currently. In 2018, Wendell Berry posed a question to Nick, a query that planted the seed of this book, sending Nick on two memorable journeys with pals—a hiking trip to Glacier National Park with his friends Jeff Tweedy and George Saunders, as well as an extended visit to his friend James Rebanks, the author of The Shepherd's Life and English Pastoral. He followed that up with an excursion that could only have come about in 2020—Nick and his wife, Megan Mullally, bought an Airstream trailer to drive across (several of) the United States. These three quests inspired some “deep-ish" thinking from Nick, about the history and philosophy of our relationship with nature in our national parks, in our farming, and in our backyards; what we mean when we talk about conservation; and the importance of outdoor recreation, all subjects very close to Nick's heart. With witty, heartwarming stories and a keen insight into the human problems we all confront, this is both a ramble through and celebration of the land we all love.