byron-valino-flappers

Performing the Same Jokes Doesn’t Make it Boring

When you're starting out, I cannot emphasize the importance of building that core act. You should do it constantly, revise, refine and polish. Add act-outs, tags and toppers. Until it crushes. Worrying about your friends hearing the same jokes is counter-productive to you really developing and polishing your act. Not to mention that it can have a cascading negative impact on your development.
pat corley as phil on Murphy Brown

14 Reasons Stand Up Comedy is Great For Actors

Growing up the child of actors and being an actor myself, studying with the top teachers in New York and L.A., I never knew that right before my very eyes was a solution to the actors age-old problem of unemployment.

It's stand-up comedy. Out of all the actors in the Screen Actor's Guild, at any given time, 2 percent are working.

When I discovered stand-up comedy, I learned that I could work when I wasn't 'working,' hone my ability to be present and in the moment and become fearless!

As an actor, most performing is at auditions or in acting class. And what are those scenes, 3-minutes? Auditions, 1-2 minutes?

When doing stand-up, you have a nightly opportunity to be on stage and be open to every minute inspiration that occurs for stretches of time like 5, 10 or 20 minutes?

political correctness

Why Are These College Kids So Damn PC?

Got an email from a student today. It said...

"The lesson I learned tonight is that university students are PC to the point that it is unnatural. These are the people posting PC crap all over Facebook! At first I was confused about my inability to connect with the crowd. I felt it from my first joke (about marriage/children).

So how do we make this work?"

byron valino

Getting Gigs – Student Byron Valino Hits the Road

The dream is to stand on stage, hold that mic and tell your jokes, do your bits, get some laughs. Then you usually want to do it again... and again. But after doing the mics around town, getting in your fair share of 'bringer' shows, something gnaws at you to move beyond that. You want to do it in front of a 'real' audience. Some of you might even have the desire to take your act on the road for a spell. And get paid. So how do you do get to go on the road and get paid? In a word, the answer is 'work.' Hard work.

Nobody Has the Credentials to Tell You “You Can’t”

Rejection. We've all had our fair share, right? Being in the business of entertainment; being a comedian a writer, an actor, exposes you to more than your fair share, I believe. Some of us are more affected by rejection than others. We take rejection as ostracism and we can do damage to ourselves and our careers if we take it too deeply to heart. I don't know about you but I know some people who have given up after too much rejection. The problem is sometimes too much is only once. But the good news is I think we can learn to smash through rejection and overcome it.
Stand Up Comedy Clinic

“This Audience is Mostly Mormon”

[gn_spacer size="20"] So one of my favorite students Skyped with me today. He was upset about a comedy show he did. It was a show he produced. It was a show he emceed. And it