Daily Archives: June 4, 2015

Class 2 June 1: Connecting to an audience.

I want to thank everyone for taking my class again. I will always help you in the class, as well as after the class is over, to answer any questions, to encourage you, to make sure you’re growing in the limitless creative person you are. A reminder: I’m performing June 26/27 at the Comedy Factory. For tickets, call 469-499-9999. I have more copies of my novel “The Angel’s Claw.” at Indigo North Town Mall location. North side of 137 Avenue and 94 Street. My book is next to Stephen King in horror. I also share work shops and Corporate Stand Up functions. Having an event? Need a key note or a Nationally Touring Corporate Comedian? E mail me: paulsveen@shaw.ca. I’m also on face book and YOUTUBE.

 

Remember, our performance is Tuesday June 23. I’ll be promoting the grad night on my web site as well as face book. Could you please also promote the June 23 Class, Stand Up Comedy Grad Night! Show Time is 7:30. Promote it on face book, Twitter, at work at home and to your friends. Who YOU invite is your audience. This is part of the business, to draw an audience, so, get to work gentlemen.

 

OPENING JOKES. 1) Theme. Your opening joke achieve several things. 1) It is BASED in your THEME. Whatever your pattern is from the moments of your life, your opening joke should be based in this pattern. (If you can’t define your theme in one sentence you haven’t been journaling. If you’re not journaling you’re doing yourself a HUGE disservice.) 2) Our opening joke introduces our theme as well as our FRAME, (The FRAME is our set, our 5 to 10 minute STORY. We call it a FRAME because we’re going to INSERT JOKES we’ve written to embellish or amplify our STORY. These inserted jokes or TAGS are also based in our THEME. ) 3) Our OPENING JOKE gets the audience’s attention. It gets them saying YES! I LIKE this person and what you’re saying.

 

ALRIGHT. My THEME IS: “I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m doing it anyway.” My theme is true to the stories of my life. It’s HONEST. The audience knows this when I share my set. I tell them I don’t know what I’m doing. It never hurts to share your THEME with your audience. When I tell them my theme, they instantly like me. NEVER MAKE YOURSELF THE HERO OF YOUR STORY. I’m an idiot. I’m never the hero.

 

Look at your FRAME. What is the FIRST SENTENCE? Put this in the circle.  Make a horizontal line between the circle and a vertical line across the middle. These 4 quadrants are the 4 different perspectives we will write from. (If you introduce a person in any of the 4 quadrants, GIVE THEM THEIR OWN VOICE! My opening sentence is: HAVE YOU EVER FOUGHT YOUR DAD? This question reflects my theme, I don’t know what I’m doing.  REMEMBER. A great joke is the answer to a good question.  At the bottom of your page you have written the word POOL. I wrote down the ages of myself and my Dad when I fought him, under pool. I started to look at the moment from MATH. I asked some questions and here’s what I came up with in MY JOURNALS. REMEMBER: I’m inserting these jokes/TAGS into my STORY.

 

1) I never really understood problem solving math until I applied it to my life. I was 15 when I fought my DAD. He was 40 and a war vet.  I was 5/1 a hundred and forty pounds. My Dad was 6/3 two hundred and forty pounds. How many times would I fight my dad and SHOW YOUR WORK! When I showed my work, I drew a close up of my face with my dad’s fist glancing off my cheek.

 

2) The answer is 1. I would fight my dad ONCE. If I fought him a 2ND time, I have no memory of that beating, the same as if I was abducted by aliens or suffered some horrific post traumatic event. If I fought him more than once, what’s left of my brain after the second beating is protecting me. (I’ll insert my brain’s voice here, whispering something empathetic.) We can also give inanimate objects a voice, a house, rock, my pea brain.

 

3) My Dad fought me because I skipped school. While he was beating me he said: “This beating is what it’s going to feel like working a construction job pushing a wheel barrel 10 hours a day because it was the only job you could get because you only had a grade 10 education. (I’ll break up the joke on stage, inserting my Dad’s voice as if between punches.)

 

Get to work. Have fun E mail me if you’re stuck. See you Monday at 7.