Before I continue down this path of posting under this heading, here is the disclaimer (it won’t be like the disclaimer you’ve seen on drug commercials, you know, “heart palpitations, irritability, fatigue, chronic dizziness, anal leakage or sudden death:quite frankly if I’m going to suffer from anal leakage, just kill me now!). The disclaimer for this part of How to be a famous comedian, is that there is no guaranteed path to fame and “fame” is defined by what level of fame you need to achieve to attain your own personal success. If your only goal is household-name-fame, then you better think about another line of work, because the odds are incredibly stacked against you in show business.
However, you can achieve a level success in the comedy business, which is why I call this: How To Be A Famous Comedian. It’s all based on hard work, raw honesty and perseverance. It’s a process and it happens in steps. One of those steps just happened to one of my students, Chris Rubiez. He’s a very talented young man who had never done stand up before. He’s an excellent writer and a good actor.
He came to the class, learned the fundamentals of comedy structure:and if you’ve seen my blogs or attended my lectures or my classes, you know comedy structure is CRUCIAL. If you’re reading this for the first time let me quickly say that comedy structure doesn’t detract from the creativity, it enhances it. But without structure, you have no surprise and therefore no laughter.
Chris, came to the class with some material that I was not a big fan of. His whole act was bout him in the bathroom. Now, to be honest, there is nothing wrong with that, but it narrows your audience tremendously and is usually frowned upon by industry. It’s called “scat” (which is short for scatological) and doing it will not help you if you’re reading this to learn how to be a “famous” comedian.
I suggested that he really dig deep and think of other obstacles in his life that he faces. He took the suggestion and kept writing. Through trial and error and hard work (there’s that word again!), Chris developed a funny act that revealed some personal struggles he’d been going through. The key is, he made his story FUNNY using comedy structure and since it was about himself, he stayed absolutely true to himself. His persona and individuality shined through.
Chris recently appeared at the Comedy Store in the Mainroom on a Friday night. Prior to the appearance, he came by my class again to get a ‘brush-up’ and do some final tweaks.
Where am I going with this and what does this have to do with finding out how to be a famous comedian? Well, Chris rocked the Comedy Store and an agent was in the room. The agent was so impressed, he asked Chris for a meeting. It was due to hard work, applying the fundamentals of comedy, doing a killer set on stage that got him noticed, which, by the way, is a key step in the process of how to be a famous comedian.
Come take a comedy class! Maybe we can help you on your way too!
