The audience

Now that I've been doing stand up fairly regularly for about a year I've developed a sense of The Audience. I never thought much about The Audience before I started doing stand up. I just assumed that if you were funny everyone would laugh and that's that. But audiences are comprised of complex, multifaceted individuals with varying life experiences and motives. Any particular audience member may react one way to a joke one day and in a completely different manner on another.

An individual may laugh at something alone in her home or in a small group of friends when no one else is around. But obviously in a public setting we all place a discerning lens on our behavior to ensure we generally comply with norms and aren't singled out as bizarre or problematic. So to get people to laugh in public you have to navigate your way past the "This is how I'm supposed to behave in public" veneer most people have to get them comfortable and laughing.

In a comedy club, the audience has a predicament. As a single entity, which it becomes to some degree when the show begins, an audience has limited means to express its collective feelings. Each member can't shout out a response or provide feedback or the room would devolve into chaos. So the feelings an audience can communicate most clearly are approval, concern, and disinterest. As a comic, I have to respect the fact that they only have a few choices. Too often I see comics interpret silence as an indication that the audience wasn't smart enough to understand the joke. No, my friend, they got it--it just wasn't funny.

So for me I am trying to respect the audience's predicament, treat them as an equal, and build up a trusting relationship where they feel comfortable with me and natural in their own skin. Obviously this is one of the primary challenges of stand up. Hopefully demonstrating respect for the people sitting there listening to you will help build a successful evening.