Here are some solo exercises you can use to improve your acting skills. Good actors can make things believable. Being credible onstage for an actout joke or a sincere punchline is crucial. You also need performance skills and good vocal variety. Try these tools from the world of acting when …
THE PATTERN GAME. Finding Comedic premises
Using word association to make unexpected connections for jokes. The Pattern Game is an improvisation exercise that trains you to find unexpected connections and loop back to your premise—essential skills for both improvisers finding the game of a scene and standup comedians mining a bit for multiple punchlines. How it …
185 BLANKS WALK INTO A BAR
A joke writing format from improvisation comedy. This is a fun exercise you can play alone or with fellow comedians to work on your punchlines. You have a fixed setup and you can make multiple punchlines. First you need to think of a random object or ask an online tool …
WRITING YOUR FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF COMEDY
So you want to start standup comedy. Where to start? A good way to find topics for your first five minutes of standup comedy is to have a think about yourself… what’s unique about you? What are your most pronounced personality traits? You cannot control whether an audience will laugh at your …
PREMISE DECONSTRUCTION. Using Improvisation to find Joke Premises
As a standup, you know the importance of strong, focused premises. But coming up with great ideas can be difficult. Taking a tip from improv can help spark new premises in a low-pressure, creative way. The format “Armando” asks an improviser to give a truthful, autobiographical monologue about a word …
101 TOM SWIFTIES. A Pun exercise
A Tom Swiftie is a short joke that uses a slightly different double meaning for an adverb, which is great for practicing wordplay jokes.
WRITING PUNS. The Pun Store exercise
THE PUN STORE Write as many puns for each ‘store’ as you possibly can. Then pick a new store and repeat till you feel your Dad vibes flowing. I run a BLANK store. (Let the internet help you find a random object.) How’s business?Pretty ________ (insert adjective) Example: I run …
You must be logged in to post a comment.