Theory

Hitler was a vegetarian and a painter. I could just leave it here. I’m very tempted to.

But think of every movie villain that loves classical music and fine clothes. This never strikes us as odd. We intuitively know this can be the case. But there is a small subset of people, of whom I was once one, who truly do believe that art enhances us not simply in our ability to wring more pleasure out of life, but that it also enhances us morally.

There is an old line I first heard in conservatory during a talk back that I then repeated for over a decade. It’s that the Theater allows us to empathize better with others and better enables us to walk a mile in their shoes. I would then add, years later, that if we had simply seen Othello’s story in the headlines it would just read “Black man kills White wife.” But having watched Othello we could see beyond this simplistic default moral state. Being artists, and appreciators of the arts, gave us a hand, a boost, a leg up, at viewing the world in a more moral light.

The first point, about viewing Othello in a more empathetic understanding way, holds true. My mistake, and the mistake of many boosters of the arts as a tool towards moral improvement, is to think that this transfers to the rest of the world.

It does not.

Understanding the aesthetics of a Rothko, the lilt of Debussy, or the prose of Austen does not aid us in the expansion of our circle of moral concern. I regret to inform you, it’s simply not that easy. And it is that ease, by the way, that makes the idea popular. “All I have to do is like this thing I already like, and I’m also a better person?! Sign me up!” Imagine how popular I’d be if I made a convincing argument for the moral benefits of eating ice cream.

But does the theater not make us more empathetic to Othello? As I said, yes it does. But to him only. You could hear of a man who murdered his wife as soon as you leave the theater. You may think to yourself “There could be more to this story.” But your assumption is going to lean toward “murdering your wife is bad, odds are this guy is not a good guy.” And you wouldn’t be wrong. Those are indeed the odds.

Empathy is also a terrible tool for moral improvement. This may sound counterintuitive so allow this little thought experiment. You see a small child, starving and impoverished. You are told that less than a dollar a day could save their life. Easy decision. Now this child has a sister. Ok. Two bucks. No problem. Now they have ten siblings. Ok, 10 bucks still ain’t a lot, but you’re not going to do it. And it has nothing to do with the money. The money was never the issue. It was always about what tugged at your sense of empathy most. You actually care less about 10 kids than 1, where if empathy were the tool we thought it were we’d presumably care 10 times more! The fact that we don’t should give us pause as to how important being “more empathetic” should be. Like energy, like money, like hours in a day, empathy is a finite thing. It diminishes with use, it does not increase.

Perhaps empathy, like a muscle, can be increased so as to take on more? I certainly believe this is true. But also like a muscle, it will still have its limits no matter how much training you give it.

This brings us back to the original claim that the theater makes us more moral because it makes us more empathetic. Unless everyone gets 3 hours for a genius like Shakespeare to write our story for us to maximize the empathy of all viewers, I’m afraid it simply doesn’t translate to the real world.

Only systematic thinking about morality, in the abstract, with our frontal lobes, as opposed to emotional limbic system thinking, is what makes us more moral people in the only way it matters: our actions.

So by all means enjoy that play, that painting, that ballet. It is enough to simply do that. And when you leave that space and go out into the world, be kind. They are two separate things after all.

In my last post, What Is Art?, I stated the definition of Art as the conscious creation of beauty for its own sake, but how do we use that?

“A conscious creation” doesn’t really lend itself to things we can do with the theory other than not mistaking inanimate things for Art or confusing John Cage’s 4'33" or Duchamps Urinal as Art, rather than commentary in the guise of Art. Or as Rodger Scruton called it, “the Painted Word.” But once we’ve done that, we’re still left with “How do *I* use this definition to make better Art?”

“Beauty”. This is much more helpful than it seems at first glance. Due to all the fuzziness around the definition, intended or not, many are driven astray when looking for ways to improve their Art by trying to adhere to principles we were taught or gleaned from others. In my case, in the Theater, we were given principles like “find the truth in the moment”, or “ground yourself in honesty”, or “reconnect with your scene partner.” These are lovely ideas, that no doubt have importance and merit in the creation of living breathing three dimensional characters, but how do they practically help make what I’m doing better? How do I know when I’ve achieved it using any metric outside of gazing at my own navel? What if what I’m doing honestly is still bad Art? How do I *actually* improve it?

The concept that Art is the creation of Beauty (or aesthetic pleasure for those more analytically minded) is what will get us back in line with what all artists are in fact trying to do. So when we’re at a loss, the first place we should look to is the tool kits of our respective Artistic formats. In the case of actors (my cohort) our tool kit is wrapped up in our bodies and the choices we make with our lines. “How do I make this more beautiful to watch” translates to: Are you paying attention to your body or are you just existing physically as yourself? Unless you’re playing yourself, there is work there that can be done. Can the way you stand tell us more about your character without the need for words? Can you use more economy of motion in your gestures so that each movement has more significance than it would if you were just existing normally? Can you craft a richer tone of voice? Can you find a more novel, yet still believable, reading of a line? This focus lifts our heads up from our navels and back to our training, be it acting, writing, painting, singing, etc.

“For it’s own sake” lends us a hand here as well. Aim first and foremost to the work being beautiful on its own merits. Not whether it advances an agenda, an ideology, or speaks some sort of truth to power. These are all important things in their own right, but when aiming to improve your art, look to first principles before you attempt to refine or insert a topical message. For one, if the art is truly extraordinary then your message, should there be one, will be lifted by the beauty of the art itself. Second, the more you focus on a message the more you risk making the art itself secondary, cheap, and that most dreaded of all things; propaganda.

What can’t this theory do for us?

Tell us “why”. That isn’t a definitions place. What you do and why you do it is up to you. That’s where the Art exists after all. Any definition that attempts to tell you otherwise is selling something, even if it’s simply the agrandizement of the person doing the selling. There will be no lack of people telling you what they think the purpose of Art is; the Why of Art. What that beauty is here to do. You can take and leave those as you choose. But if someone tells you that the purpose of a racecar is to taste good, you’ll know they’ve missed something. So too, with Art. There are infinities of the possible within this definition, but never forget the operative word is “within”. Don’t confuse what you’re engaging in before you’ve even begun. After that, the rest is up to you.

This question has plagued mankind for centuries now. But there is an answer to this question. It is this:

Art is the conscious creation of beauty for its own sake.

How does “beauty” make sense here? It’s simply to signify that the act of conscious creation of Art is in the realm of aesthetics. Nothing more, nothing less. And it should not be confused with barbie dolls, or super models. Aesthetic pleasure can be found in the darkness as well as the bright pinks of the world. The painting A Portrait of Dorian Grey is hideous, still art. A Rammstien concert is not where you’d go wearing glitter, still art. A slasher flick is full of blood and gore, still art. They are all aesthetic creations consciously created purely for their own sake.

Why “conscious”? Because the act of aesthetic creation is something that can only be done with a conscious mind. A computer program is not the creator of art, it’s programers are. It is no more the artist than the paintbrush is a painter. As we get ever more and more powerful unconcious AI’s this point will become more and more salient.

Why “for it’s own sake”? Purposelessness is inherent in all art. No basic human needs are met by art. Which is what distinguishes it from decoration of a useful item or propaganda. It’s just a thing we do that generates nothing but aesthetic pleasure, for no other purpose but that aesthetic pleasure.

What isn’t Art?

Chairs, beds, tables, a leather jacket, a spoon, a computer. In these cases the primary function of the object is to fill a necessity. Decoration is common because beauty makes everything better. These are often referenced to as “almost a work of art” for a reason. It a high compliment to the tradesman to get you to almost forget the thing you’re looking at actually has a purpose. To remove craftspeople from the category of artist isn’t to diminish them. Is it to give back the proper weight on their creation of useful things. And to not allow an over expansive definition of art to lay claim to everything under the sun. Also, nature is not art. It is nature. It was not crafted for our pleasure, no matter what your religion says. It is a thing made by unconscious forces that we evolved in. Thus naturally we’ve come to find it beautiful. But it is to diminish nature by comparing it to the pretty and pointless baubles made by humans. Finally Lionel Messi is not an artist as what he’s doing fits none of these categories in our definition. Is soccer “The Beautiful Game?” Yes. But the point of it isn’t the creation of aesthetic pleasure. The point is to win the game. Thus, not art.

Is shitty art still art?

Yes. The quality of an art work is not a barrier to qualifying for the category and no such stipulation is included in the definition. Millions of four year olds with crayons are making art every day.

Why is this question so fraught then?

Humans, especially artists, don’t like to be told that not everything they do is art. They want to lay claim to the word in every action in their day to day lives. It’s simple greed that informs this. We value art highly so everyone wants a piece of that pie, definitions be damned. It’s also a form of selfishness enshried in Andy Warhol’s empty definition that “Art is whatever you can get away with”. Artists understand definitions outside of their field. Being told that “cancer is whatever you can get away with calling cancer” would strike them as absurd. They simply refuse to be consistent. This is aided by art’s inherent uselessness. Unlike cancer, art can seem to lack stakes. This leads to: “What does it matter how we define it?” The natural answer is that if we’re going to give a word a definition, that definition needs to work. A definition has no meaning if it can be used to define anything, and exludes nothing. That is by definition, not a definition. To give something a definition is to set limits around it, to distinguish it from other human endeavors so that we may better understand it. But human beings are incentivized to want the glory we place upon the act for themselves. Add to that the fact that there is no governing body over definitions, and you can easily see why it’s been made confusing, when in fact it’s really rather simple. But some people don’t get what they want out of any coherent definition, so they reject it.

Who are you to say what Art is anyway?

I’m a human being. That’s the price of entry to this discussion. After that it’s simply down to who has the most coherent definition. I happen to be an artist (actor) and a philosopher, so this is a natural fit for me. But anyone can play the game. Relatedly, this style of questioning can be flipped around: Who are you to tell me I can’t offer a definition? Once that move is rendered moot, we’re back to judging every applicant based upon the cogency of their answer to this question.

And that’s it. That’s the painfully simple truth about art. Now go thank a craftsperson. They do things that are useful.

T​here must be a trillion ways to tell a joke. Today, lucky for you, I’m going to explain how to tell the fundamental ones. The trillion others will have to wait for another post.

B​efore we get into “how” to deliver any basic joke, we need to define some terms.

• R​hythm/Pace: The speed with which you talk.

• Timing: The amount of time you give the audience to understand the set up of your joke before delivering the punch line. (Check my previous post on timing for a three minute explanation.)

• B​eat: The approximate time of a heartbeat.

• P​itch: The tone/note, either high or low, of your voice.

• O​perative word: The word you put the stress/emphasis on.

N​ow that we’re philosophically sound, lets break down how a joke works at its fundamental level. In fact we’re going to do it in gibberish, so we don’t get tripped up in the meaning of words.

(Spoken at a chill conversational pace) B​uh dum, buh dum, buh dum, buh dum, buh *dum* (beat) (and now spoken faster with a higher pitch) BuhDAHdum.

T​ADA! Jokes.

S​o what happened in all that?

T​o begin, the pace is even keeled and conversational. This sets our baseline with which we can deviate from when it comes to our punchline.

• H​ow does this work in practice?

B​reathe. Slow all the way down and speak as if you were telling someone about your flight itinerary to your next conference.

• W​hat are those stars over the last “dum”?

T​hat’s your “operative word”. What word you emphasize can change the meaning of a sentence in a blink. I present you the greatest operative word sentence ever constructed.

“I never put a squirrel up my ass”

Sit with that for a moment and examine how each emphasis changes the meaning. My favorite is “put”. There is so much unspoken possibility in that choice.

Let’s give an example with a simple joke. “I want to die like my grandfather. Peaceful and in my sleep. Unlike the screaming people in his car.” The operative word here is “sleep”. The last word in the set up, just before the punchline. Which, in well written jokes is where it tends to fall. This reading comes to most of us intuitively, but it must be highlighted, because messing with expectations is something we’re going to come to a while later in this long string of essays. In the meantime, notice that if someone placed the emphasis on “MY” we’d be wondering why to reemphasize that point. Is the joke now about your feeling of pride that *your* grandfather died while driving other people?

• W​hat’s the “(beat)”?

T​he “beat” I previously explained, b​ut for todays purposes, it’s just giving the audience some time to “get” the set up and add a little suspense. So, just before the punchline, give a heartbeats worth of time before delivering the punchline.

A​nd now, the Holy Grail. The Punchline. We change pace to faster and change pitch to higher. If you doubt me, watch a sitcom.

Voila. Now you know how to tell a joke.

W​hat is timing? Timing, in its most basic conception, is giving your audience enough time to grasp the set up, without giving them enough time to guess the punch line. H​ow does this work in practice? L​et’s examine three simple jokes and pay attention to where the word “(Beat)” appears: 

“I want to die like my grandfather. Peaceful and in my sleep. (Beat) Unlike the people screaming in his car.” 

“T​wo muffins are in an oven. One turns to the other and says ‘Is it hot in here or is it just me?’ And the other muffin says (Beat) ‘OH MY GOD A TALKING MUFFIN!’” 

T​his last one involves some audience participation and telling the joke like a pirate. “​What’s a Pirates favorite letter? (Someone invariably says R) Aye, you may think tis R, (Beat) but it’s the C that he loves.” 

I​n each of these examples the “(Beat)” appears at the end of the set up, before the punchline. A “beat” is a unit of time and it denotes the length of a heartbeat. Thus, we see that at the most fundamental level, we should give our audience about a heartbeats worth of time to grasp our set up, before delivering the punchline. 

I​f you go back and look over those punchlines you may find that it would have been difficult to guess where the joke was going unless you’d heard it before. And you’d be right. The last take away with timing is that you’re going to spend most of your focus on not leaving your audience in the dust. Because you already know the end of the joke, it can be tempting to “get to the funny part”. But, giving your audience time to take in the set up and using that heartbeat of time before the punchline to build a little suspense, is more enjoyable for them. After all, you’re telling the joke to make *them* laugh. A​nd that’s it. That’s timing in its most basic form. 

Could you time things differently and still tell a funny joke? Absolutely. There are infinite ways to tell a joke well. But, this is the root error people make when they say you can’t teach timing: they despair in attempting to explain all possibilities instead of clearly and concisely explaining the basic rule. The joke “You guys ever steal an old person?” doesn’t need a beat after the word “steal” to be delivered well. But if you added one you wouldn’t be telling it poorly either. As they say, you can’t break the rules until you learn them. S​o run free now my nascent joke tellers and future rule breakers. You’ve now learned the basic rule of timing.

Applied Humor Theory

This book was written because fundamentally, no one knows what they’re talking about, and therefore, by extension, neither do you.

Aristotle thought humor was the recognition of failure. Hobbes thought it was due to sudden glory or triumph. Kant thought humor was about irregularity. Schopenhauer added the need for resolution. Descartes thought it was due to sudden shock or joy. Some find the groundings of humor in the play of children. Others in a character's unadaptive rigidity. Assholes think it’s about creating tension. All of these great thinkers were partially right (even the assholes), which also means they were partially wrong.

Almost all training for the stage is based on a lie we tell ourselves while training and studiously ignore once we go to work. The lie is that everything is just personal subjective taste. Then, as soon as we step out into the world, we are met with the simple truth: some people are incredibly good at this, and some people are obviously not. So, we are left with two choices: accept that the skill and talent of our greatest practitioners are just the dumb luck of lining up with a society's current tastes (tastes that could change next Tuesday), or that there is an objective grounding to what makes them so good that is not simply the product of random social agreement. If it’s the former, and it’s all luck, why train? Train for what? How exactly? If it’s the latter, and there is an objective grounding, then we can get to work. First, by identifying those traits and skills, and second, by learning how to gain them for ourselves. Comedy is often referred to as “almost more of a science than an art.” As this is a book about technique, it is 100% science. This is a textbook on how not to suck at comedy. There will be a quiz.

Now, odds are I’ve done more work, over a wider range of genres, than you will have at my age. I may or may not be smarter than you. I’m definitely not more naturally gifted than you are. But I am almost certainly better than the vast majority of you at this. The reason is I got lucky. Just like everyone who came before me. Through constant repetition, an obsessive need for perfection, and the sheer dumb luck of figuring out the nuts and bolts and being able to apply it for myself. There was and is no straightforward path to this knowledge. Well, at least there wasn’t, until now.

So why should you learn this theory and these techniques from me? Who am I? I’m a working stage actor. I’m not famous. In fact, I’ve meticulously avoided fame. An easy thing to do as a stage actor. I have eschewed New York (too expensive) and LA (it’s... LA) in favor of simply getting to work. And that I have, nonstop since the long-ago day that I graduated conservatory. I’ve paid my bills in make-believe. I’ve done what our greatest dramatic actors have not; Hello Dolly. Triple Threats can only envy me; I’ve also done Henry the 6th part 3. From Shakespeare to Simon to Sondheim, if it’s there to be done, I’ve done it. And after all this preamble about how great I am, I’m happy to inform you that none of this book has anything to do with me. You will find very little of my opinion within these pages. My opinion is unnecessary when we have facts on the matter. And there are indeed facts, subjective as this art form may be. Imagine a friend with the widest palate for food and the highest heat tolerance. In no world will they ever want to eat a white hot branding iron. This is not an opinion. It is simply a fact about who we are as human beings. What we can ingest, the evolutionary molding of our taste preferences around that, and the body's ability to absorb heat before permanently damaging itself. This book is based upon such in facts as regards comedy and will be centered around its application in the field that I know best: the theater. While

the theory that grounds this book and the technique that informs it can be used in stand-up, improv, screenwriting, or playwriting, this book will focus on the performance of comedy by actors on the stage. So whether you are an old hand, looking to up your comedy game, or a bright shining light fresh out of school, looking to prove your chops to the world, this book will be for you. It is my goal to save you the 20 years it took me to get here by putting that knowledge into a book you can read in a day.

This book was written because fundamentally, no one knows what they’re talking about, and therefore, by extension, neither do you. Aristotle thought humor was the recognition of failure. Hobbes thought it was due to sudden glory or triumph. Kant thought humor was about irregularity. Schopenhauer added the need for resolution. Descartes thought it was due to sudden shock or joy. Some find the groundings of humor in the play of children. Others in a character's unadaptive rigidity, a la B. F. Skinner's Behaviorism. Freud thought it was about releasing tension and some jerks think it’s about the creation of tension. All of these great thinkers were partially right (even the jerks), which also means they were partially wrong. Contemporary theater, however, doesn’t even get this far.

Almost all training for the stage is based on a lie we tell ourselves while training and completely ignore once we go to work. The lie is that everything is just personal subjective taste. Then, as soon as we step out into the world, we are met with the simple truth: some people are incredibly good at this, and some people are obviously not. So, we are left with two choices: accept that the skill and talent are just dumb luck, or that there is some objective grounding to what makes them so good. If it’s the former, and it’s all luck, why train? Train for what? How exactly? If it’s the latter, and there is some

objective grounding, then we can get to work identifying those traits and gaining them for ourselves. Comedy is often referred to as “almost more of a science than an art.” As this is a book about technique, it is 100% science. This is a textbook on how not to suck at comedy. There will be a quiz.

You may be wondering who I am to assign this quiz. I’m a working stage actor. I’m not famous. In fact, I’ve studiously avoided fame. An easy thing to do as a stage actor. But odds are I’ve done more work, over a wider range of genres, than you will have at my age. I may or may not be smarter than you. I’m definitely not more naturally gifted than you are. But I am almost certainly better than the vast majority at this. Through constant repetition, an obsessive need for perfection, and the sheer dumb luck of figuring out the nuts and bolts and being able to apply it for myself.

I have eschewed New York (too expensive) and LA (it’s... LA) in favor of simply getting to work. And that I have, nonstop since the long-ago day that I graduated conservatory. I’ve paid my bills in make-believe. I’ve done what our greatest dramatic actors have not; Hello Dolly. Triple Threats can only envy me; I’ve also done Henry the 6th part 3. From Shakespeare to Simon to Sondheim, if it’s there to be done, I’ve done it. And after all this preamble about how great I am, I’m happy to inform you that none of this book has anything to do with me. You will find very little of my opinion within these pages. My opinion is unnecessary when we have facts on the matter. And there are indeed facts, subjective as this art form may be. Imagine a friend with the widest palate for food and the highest heat tolerance. In no world will they ever want to eat a white-hot branding iron. This is not an opinion. It is simply a fact about who we are as human beings. What we can ingest, the evolutionary molding of our taste preferences around that, and the body's ability to absorb heat before permanently damaging itself. This book is based upon such facts as regards comedy and will be centered

around its application in the field that I know best: the theater. While the theory that grounds this book and the technique that informs it can be used in stand-up, improv, screenwriting, or playwriting, this book will focus on the performance of comedy by actors on the stage. So whether you are an old hand, looking to up your comedy game, or a bright shining light fresh out of school, looking to prove your chops to the world, this book will be for you. It is my goal to save you the 20 years it took me to get here by putting that knowledge into a book you can read in a day.

The Job of the Comedian on Stage

The goal of every comedic performance is first and foremost, to serve the story and stay true to the script. At any moment you could burp or fart to get a laugh, but if that isn’t within your characters motivations or personality type, you’ve supplanted the story you are telling for laughs and your priorities are out of whack. We are first and foremost story tellers. But unlike dramas, we get to have a good time telling our stories and we want the audience to have just as much fun as we do.

Truth in Comedy

Being true to the script and your characters motivations is just as important in comedy as it is in drama. If no one believes you, they won’t fully invest themselves in your story and your jokes will get less traction with the crowd. If you don’t take it seriously, why should they? Your character certainly would take their situation seriously. Their situation is as real as it can be and the stakes for them are as serious as they would be for you or I in that situation. Stay true to that as you would playing Shakespeare and your comedy will be built upon a solid foundation. Ignore this fact and

you will be like a carpenter without a hammer. You’ll be missing one of your most basic, and most useful tools.

Overview of the Hurley Model

Before we get into the nitty gritty of humor theory; a note. A common misconception is that because comedy is funny, the explanations of comedy will also be funny. Let me dispel that myth now for you. This is not a funny book. If you find yourself laughing at any point simply chalk it up to the author being effortlessly witty and charming. But it is not my intention to entertain you. There will be jokes in this book, granted. However, they will be bad, on purpose, so as not to distract from learning the skill of telling them. Before we can entertain, we must learn how to do so. Or to put it a different way, to eat a cookie is different from making a cookie. To make a cookie worth eating takes time, effort, skill and failure, none of which resembles the experience of eating one. Furthermore, no cookbook tastes like a cookie and you’d be thought insane to dislike a cookbook on the grounds that it didn’t taste like the recipe it contained. So it is with this slender volume. With that out of the way, let’s get to it.

Imagine yourself as one of our ancestors on the African Savanah. You have an infinite amount of information coming at you at all times and decisions you must make right now. So you develop shortcuts regarding what you should focus on and create mental models of how you expect things to go in the very near future. You are forever and always in this loop. If this sounds like a lot, just take stock of the fact that as you read this book your present situation is exactly the same. You too have an infinite amount of information coming at you, so you use shortcuts to help you focus on what is deemed important, and you make constantly updating mental

models filled with your expectations of what is about to happen next in the world around you. Yet, as is to be expected, sometimes your assumptions are wrong.

Happily, you are built with an innate wish to correct your false assumptions. This is thanks to your long ago ancestors who developed this trait due to random mutation. In the same way that our distant relatives mutated a desire for sweet things, we too developed one for the correction of our mental models.

When it comes to our innate desire to correct our mental models, this is in part due to the good feeling some of our ancestors developed whenever they corrected their mental models. They got a little endorphin boost, and we call that “mirth.” So those hedonistic ancestors who wanted more of that good feeling were more likely to correct their mental models in order to get that boost. Thus, making them more likely to survive long enough to procreate and pass that trait down to you. This is evolution by natural selection 101.

Eventually, we decoupled our innate love of sweets from their evolutionary beginnings and amped them up for the pure joy of experiencing them. Once, these traits guided us to seek what benefited us from nature; now, we focus on what we like, creating and intensifying it ourselves. A cupcake is now just a sweet thing we like turned to 11. So too is it with mirth. Our brains once rewarded us for updating our mental models. Now we get that good feeling by creating false problems and solving them in unexpected ways. We call this process “telling jokes.” Jokes are just little logic puzzles that present us with an incorrect mental model, and then fix it at the end, making us feel good. Sometimes we even laugh.

Finally now, we’re ready to tackle the definition of mirth as explained in the Hurley Model.

The Hurley Model of humor/mirth goes as such: When you fully assume (commit to without direct, explicit knowledge) a trivial (non-catastrophic or inconsequential) fact and then have it
fully overturned by new information (that isn’t overridden by negative emotions).

Let’s break this down. Why fully assume? Why not partially? Why need assume anything at all? To only partially assume something means we’ll be less surprised with the outcome and will therefore get less of a boost. To go from “I’m not sure” or “I could be wrong” to correct understanding leads to reactions like “Oh, ok, I understand now.” And less of an “Oh my god, I was WAY off” reaction we’re looking for. If we assume nothing at all, we have nothing to overturn, and thereby nothing to reward. Like a balloon pop, no assumption gives us nothing, some assumption is a quiet thud, and a full/strong assumption gives us the POP that we’re after. This is also the difference between jokes and riddles. Riddles begin with confusion, a weakly held assumption due to the facts leading up to a seemingly nonsensical conclusion. Riddles are then solved by adding missing context. An old sexist riddle was “A man takes his son to the hospital after a car accident. The doctor says ‘I can’t operate on this boy, he’s my son!’” How can this be? Our sexist forefathers were confused by this. The answer of course is that the doctor is the boys mother. So while a mental model has been overturned with new information, it didn’t begin with assuredness. It began with confusion. All assumptions were put into question. Jokes begin with assuredness; the assumption being held as strongly as possible.

Why trivial? A mental model correction about a situation where the stakes are high (a military operation, a bomb squad, a complicated thanksgiving dinner recipe) isn’t likely to render us with a good feeling as the anxiety and stress of the situation is going to be overpowering. “Where are my sunglasses? Oh they’re on my head” however, is trivial and much more likely to elicit a laugh from us. Although, some people do get overwhelmed by a mental model correction when the stakes are high and laugh hysterically. We tend to think their behavior is, at best, not the right place and time.

Why fully overturned with new information? To have a strong mental model that is shown to be incorrect but you don’t fully know why, is the definition of confusion, not mirth. Confusion we spoke of already, but that was in terms of the beginning of the joke. This is confusion occurring at the end.

Lastly, the bit about negative emotions. Everything can be set up perfectly and yet some people still won’t laugh because the subject matter is distressing to them. Many people like to say comedy can’t be about this or about that. What they are saying is “this offends me.” Usually, it’s because they have first hand experience with the subject matter and are unable to emotionally detach from it the way everyone else can, and see it as an abstraction. Or it is about something they hold sacred, or directed at some affiliation that they derive their identity from. The comedian cannot allow themselves to be swayed by this. It is our job to read the words on the page and tell that story.

What does this mean in terms of stage performance? Honestly, it doesn’t change much. It means that we want the audience to fully believe an incorrect assumption, about a non-dire situation, which is then completely corrected by new information (that hopefully

doesn’t trigger anyone) which we give in the punchline. Which is exactly how things stood before.

But you’ll notice laughter isn’t as any part of that definition. Not as an integral part of the theory or as a desired end. I’ll be saying “Mirth” instead, which is a reaction you can’t fake. You either feel mirth or you don’t. Laughter can happen for all sorts of reasons. Polite laughs, nervous laughs, laughing along with the group so as not to feel left out. You can fake a laugh, therefore it isn’t a trust worthy guide as to whether or not we’ve performed the joke correctly. Which brings me back to negative emotions. Sometimes you might get a quiet response because the audience didn’t prefer the joke, or you may have delivered it perfectly, the audience enjoyed it, and it simply wasn’t a big enough joke for laughter to occur. The important take away is to not get too caught up in the audiences laughter. Focus on your technique and tell the story.

In the next chapter we’ll begin putting the model to work. Applying the theory

Let’s do a full on breakdown of one joke, then we’ll move through the model piece by piece. We'll start with this very simple joke: “I want to die like my grandfather. Peaceful and in my sleep. Unlike the people in his car.”

Here we can see that the assumption being created is one of being asleep in a bed, the operative word “asleep” causes us to assume exactly that. Only then to be told in the punch line that it was asleep in a car... full of other passengers. In this joke the previous assumption is strongly held (sleep + bed is an obvious combination) completely overturned (the word car does this cleanly) leaving no

room for confusion. How can it be non-dire? There are other people in his car?! Those people are fictional and the audience treats them as such. No real lives are at stake. What if my grandfather died in a car crash? Well, you are a rare case and you may or may not enjoy the joke. Not every joke is for everyone.

Acting 101 and terminology

As with all acting on stage the toolbox remains the same. You have a character with an over all Objective. The you have what they want in any given scene, which which they use any number of tactics to get them.

Perhaps your overall objective is to clear a floor of all its people without threats or violence. And there are people in each of, say, 4 rooms. One room is full of Marketers, another full of Data Analysts, another full of computer repair and IT guys, and the last full of Janitors and Security Guards. While you over all goal is to get them all out, and your want in each room is also to get them all out, how you will approach each room (the tactics you will employ) will be different. This is as true for comedy as it is drama.

However comedy brings with it an added set of techniques that drama doesn’t place as much emphasis on. This is because while there are infinite way to say a line correctly, there are far fewer ways to tell a joke correctly. In order to do that we must first understand our tool kit.

Pitch, pace, rhythm, beats and setup/punchlines are much more integral to the comedic actors toolbox than they are to the dramatic actors.

Pace (Tempo): The speed at which you talk.
Pitch: The note at which you speak.
Beat: A pause of generally 1, and no more than 2, seconds. Rhythm: The pattern created by speaking and pausing.
Set up: The who what where when why, of a joke. Punchline: The end of the joke.

The Bare Bones Joke

The most basic joke you can tell doesn’t even involve words, Just pitch, pace, rhythm, and a beat. A set up begins with your normal speaking voice at its typical pitch, paced like everyday conversation, creating a familiar rhythm, until right before the punchline, in which you take a beat, catching the audiences attention and building a little tension, then you deliver the punchline at a higher pitch, and faster pace. It looks like this Bah dum, bah dum, bah dum, (beat) BUHDAHDUM. That is the foundation of every joke ever told. To understand it, is to then be able to deviate from it, and know why you’re doing it.

Stillness

One of the most important performance skills you can learn as a comedic actor is to hold still after a punch line. To create motion while the audience is laughing implies to them that the action of the scene is continuing and they need to once again pay attention. Thus, if you move unnecessarily, you can end up stealing your own laughs. It also releases tension that you want to maintain for the forward momentum of the scene. Some stand-up comedians will begin the next sentence to give the delivery a natural storytelling ease, but after two or three words they will hold for those laughs. The impulse to laugh at ones joke also steals the dramatic tension

from a scene. Unless it is a very specific choice, avoid this bad habit.

Operative Words

Operative Word: A word that receives more "stress" in terms of pitch and pace.
Operative words are used by both dramatic and comedic actors alike. They help clarify the meaning of a sentence by highlighting certain words that are the most important to give clarity to the thought bing expressed. The only difference is that comedic actors are using Operative words to create false assumptions in the mind of the audience. Leading them down the primrose path to the punchline we’re hoping they didn’t see coming.

An example of my favorite operative word sentence is “I never put a spoon up my ass.” Depending on which word you stress the entire meaning of the sentence changes.
*I* never put a spoon up my ass. But someone else might have.

I *never* put a spoon up my ass. A reading I hope is true for all of us.
I never *put* a spoon up my ass, is by far my favorite. Perhaps I fell on it? Someone threw it with pinpoint accuracy? In any case you can see where it goes from there.
*A* spoon, implies multiple, a *spoon*, implies some other object, *up* implies it came out (oy) *my* implies a friend or very friendly stranger, and *ass* implies somewhere else. Nose perhaps? We’ll go with nose.

In terms of our grandfather falling asleep in his car, we would want to put extra stress on *sleep* so as to really hammer home the

assumption of it all occurring in a bed. All to then be overturned by the punchline.
Expectation

While not a full explanation of the humor/mirth response to information, thinking of things in terms of expectations can be a useful shorthand. In terns of our grandpa/car joke, we’re trying to make the audience expect “bed” and then we give “car”. Again, this doesn’t work for all styles of joke, but for your use on stage, it will also suffice.

Expectations also come from our cultural norms. Simply behaving in a way one ought not to can be the entirety of a joke.

Spot the Assumption

The thing to notice here, and to keep in mind going forward, is that if you can’t find the assumption in the set up, you’ll find it being overturned in the punchline, which should lead you to finding it back in the set up. Which brings us to our first exercise: Guess the assumption. In this exercise you will get a punchline, to admittedly terrible jokes, and I want you to imagine from that punchline the assumption the set up might hold.

“Then I suppose your barn is on fire.” “That’s not my dog.”
“No! This is her Husband!”

Having done that, we’ll move onto our second exercise, in which this time you’ll get the full joke to work with. The goal is to identify the assumption in the set up. If you’re having a hard time finding it, remember that it is always overturned in the punchline.

“A man asks a farmer, ‘Do your Cows smoke tobacco?’ Farmer says ‘No.’ Man says, ‘Then I suppose your Barn is on fire.’”

A man walking down the streets sees another man with a very big dog. One man
says to the other, "Does your dog bite?", the man replies "No my dog doesn't"

The man pats the dog and has his hand bitten off, "I thought you said your dog
didn't bite?!" "That’s not my dog.”

“A guy phones the local hospital and yells "You've gotta send help! My wife's in
labour!" The nurse says, "Calm down. Is this her first child?" He replies, "No! This

is her husband!"

You should notice by now that the false assumption being placed into the mind of the audience is directly tied to the operative word.

The Rule of Three

It has been said often that 3 times is comedy. I’m here to tell you that once again. This is not an “everything you thought you knew was wrong”, kinda book. Most of what you might think about comedy is in fact correct. But it doesn’t tell the full story, or the explanation for it finally runs aground on the shores of “I know it works, just do it like I do it.” The Rule of Three does not derive from the Hurley Model or humor theory in general. It is based in performance technique and storytelling skills passed down over eons of human myth making and story telling.

The Rue of Three engages our love of pattern finding. We like repetition. It’s fun to see a joke continue to show up like an old friend. It creates familiarity. One joke alone is just a joke. Two of the same joke teases at a pattern. The third repetition of a joke completes that pattern, and gives us the joy and satisfaction of seeing it completed. While it is not strictly tied to comedy, (there are three witches in Macbeth, Jesus spending three days in the underworld, The Three Riddles of the Sphinx, none of these stories are particularly laugh out loud funny) this repetitive device goes hand in hand with a comedic story tellers needs.

When watching any stand up special, or well written comedic show, you’ll find things coming in three’s left, right and center. I just did it there. Keep your eyes and ear peeled for these sets of three, because when you find them, you’ll by the end of this chapter how to deliver them.

Ascending and Descending Builds

In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy walks down the yellow brick road with her friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. They discuss the danger lurking ahead. “Lions and Tigers and Bears!” This elicits an exclamation of “Oh My!”. This is a naturally ascending build. The pitch of their voices keeps going up, up, up, as the excitement and anxiety increases. In fact it would probably take a second of focus to imagine what it would sound like any other way. Most beginning actors however don’t tend to notice these sets of three and do nothing with them. So the delivery is the same for each word as if they’re reading a grocery list. Imagine now if “Lions and tigers and bears oh my” were said on the same note. It simply sounds strange. This is why we keep an eye and an ear out.

A descending build is rarer but still worth our attention. These tend to occur when our triplet gets increasingly depressing.
(A Man defending a Rampart looks through a spyglass)
It’s just one guy.

(Looks again)
With 100 of his friends. (Looks again)
And they all have guns.

The pitch keeps going down, down, down, as the news gets worse and worse and worse, from our characters initial flippant attitude. Could this be told in an ascending build? Sure. Especially if it’s three guards each looking though the spyglass one at a time (each seeing worse news) and their anxiety increases with each viewer.

Undercuts and Literary devices

Undercuts

Sometimes we’ll see groups of four and the last of these things is not like the others. Like three weddings and a funeral three are of one emotional tenor and the fourth is the opposite. This is where we find our undercuts. The performance of these is simple. Whatever build you begin with, ascending or descending, the fourth iteration is delivered in the opposite manner. We call them undercuts because usually they come after an ascending build and drop under the starting pitch to end the line.

(An appliance salesman showing off an appliance) It’s new, it’s exciting, It’s at a discount!
(A spring coil pops out)

And it’s broken.
Up, up, up! And down. That’s life. And that’s an undercut. Literary Devices

Literary Devices are also good to keep an eye out for simply as a storyteller of any kind. In comedy however we can lean into them more for comedic effect.
Alliteration: the same letter or sound repeatedly used in quick succession. We tend to find these in our vocal warm ups “How now brown cow?” But they are often used in scripts when a character is trying to baffle an adversary with dazzling language. “Me? No! You’re looking for a man doing a hand stand behind a can full of rubber bands named Stan!” In such cases we want to lean into the sounds, and “punch them up”. It can also just sound silly. Silliness in all aspects over turns our expectations on behavior, and when you get a chance to play with it on stage, revel in it. Opposition/Antithesis: When seeing opposites within a a few lines of each other that is a clear indication for you to make something out of them. Likely, they will be the operative words in each sentence.

Aside: When a character breaks out of a scene and quickly addresses the audience, we call this an aside. These are delivered quickly so as to not ruin the rhythm of the scene in play. You don’t want your scene partner waiting for eons as you deliver aside, and certainly will not be holding for a laughs. These are quick throw away lines that reveal the cleverness and intelligence of the speaker, not show- stopping bring the house down laugh lines.

As you progress in your art keep an eye out for even more. The gifted playwrights will reward your attention, and you may be able to make more of the works of playwrights who aren’t quite as gifted.

Running Gags

A running gag is similar to the rule of three in that it involves repetition. But with a running gag, the delivery tends to be quick, and the number of repetitions can stretch to how ever long an audience will allow it. If you’ve even seen a scene from Family Guy or Monty Python, you know these gags can be repeated for a very long time.

Timing

Timing is something that tends to mystify people. They talk about it in hushed reverent tones, like ghost s I’ve heard it said it can’t be taught. This is nonsense of course. When someone says it can’t be taught it either means they can’t explain it, or the person doing it is inordinately good at it. But just like you might not be a gifted NASCAR driver, it doesn’t mean you can’t be taught how to drive a car.

Timing is actually quite simple. It’s the art of leaving enough time for the audience to understand the set up and make their strong, incorrect assumption, but not enough time for them to begin to guess the punchline. When dealing with humans, this rhythm tends to be the same. A beat of 1-2 heartbeats between the end of your set up and the beginning of the punch line typically will suffice.

Smash to Punchline

At a certain point in our lives we either consciously or unconsciously begin to form expectations about how a joke is supposed to be timed. As comedic actors we can use this expectation to our advantage. One such way is with a smash to the punchline (in video editing we call this a smash cut or smash edit). It’s where you cut out the beat before the punchline entirely and often pitch the punchline up higher, louder and faster than you normally would. The muffin joke gives a simple example of this.
(Delivered very casually) So there’s two muffins in an oven. One muffin turns to the other and says “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” and the other muffin goesOHMYGODATALKINGMUFFIN!

Much less common on stage is long pause. Typically, a production just doesn’t have time for gag and a director will tell you to pick up the pace. But I did once see in Avenue Q a scene where Christmas Eve tells Rod (a closeted gay republican puppet) what she would do after Rod makes up a story very similar to his own. Her chipper smiling reply is “Oh I’d probably kill myself!” The audience erupted in laughter and the actors held still waiting for the laugh to die down as you’re supposed to do. But in this performance the actor puppeteering Rod, simply didn’t move. He just held his slightly stunned look and Christmas Eve held her bemused smile. As the audience caught on that Rod was still in shock over her answer they erupted in laughter all over again. The actors had essentially done nothing. But they understood the joke, and as the second round of laughter died down Rod continued the scene with a short clipped “Ok” which got yet another round of laughter from the crowd.

As I said these are rare. But when you find one, it can be a real gift. Putting It All Together

So by this point you have all the tools, seen the technique, can identify the operative word, know how long to pause, how to pitch and pace your punchlines and how to hold still after them. Now is your chance, to do it all wrong.

In this exercise, you’re going to attempt to choose the worst operative word, the wrong pitch, the wrong pace, the wrong pause, and the delivery of the punchline. This is to take the pressure off your shoulders to “be funny”. This is about technique, not party tricks, and in order to master any technique you need room to fail and to earn from that failure. This also allows you to show your mastery of the technique by deftly doing it superbly wrong. Another gift that this exercise will give you is that doing a joke incredibly wrong, is also pretty funny (the first few times you see it).

PART 2
The Pitfalls and Tricks of Real World Performance Holding for Laughs

One of the most elementary mistakes any new actor can commit in a comedy is to fail to hold for a laugh. Sadly, many professionals never learned this skill either. The number of times I have watched an actor barrel forward in the lines while an audience is laughing have been innumerable. The issue should be obvious. If you are speaking while the people next to me are laughing, I cannot hear you, and therefore lose out on lines I would have liked to have heard. If I could draw you a bellcurve where laughter is the Y-axis and Time is the X-axis, I would highlight 5 places along that graph. The first point would be where the audience has just begun to laugh,

the next would be during the upswing of the laughter and the third would be the apex of the laughter. To continue your lines at an any of these three places is a rookie mistake to be avoided at all costs. The last two points would be during the down swing of the laughter and when the laughter has all but died. Of these two only the down swing is when you should begin your next line. It continues the pace of the scene while at a decibel level that doesn’t drown your voice out relative the people sitting next to me. A more uncommon, but still common enough to mention, is when actors wait until the laughter is completely gone. The possible selfish motives for such behavior to one side, the effect is to allow the momentum of the scene to stall. As I mentioned at the very beginning, the job of the comedic actor is still to tell the story first and foremost. To allow it to die, so that you can wring every ounce of laughter out of a moment, is criminal. Never be that actor.

Of the 5 points listed on our bell curve only one is the correct time to continue the scene;It is the first possible moment that the audience can hear your voice above the laughter, allowing you to continue the scene. That is #4 on the curve. Until you hit that moment, you must live honestly in a suspended moment in time. I suggest a stillness that retains the tension of the moment and your characters emotive state.

Laughing at your own joke.

Don’t.
Unless your character is making a joke, you the actor, should not be laughing. As I mentioned before in the section on truth in comedy, the stakes for your character are deadly serious. It is that juxtaposition of seriousness and silly that fuels much of the humor.

Quiet/No Laughter

There comes a rare moment when an actor is doing a scene and they tell a joke they know in their bones is funny, but it gets no laughter. This has driven many an actor (author included) to near madness. It was early on in my career I discovered a very helpful fact: You cannot a hear a smile. Just because your joke (that you may love) didn’t leave the audience in stitches doesn’t mean it’s a bad joke, or even that you told it poorly. It’s the simple recognition that not every joke will bring the house down. If you ever doubt yourself, check back in with your tool box, make sure you’re hitting your operative words and strongly setting up the false assumption in your audiences mind, giving a beat before the punchline. If you’ve done all that and the joke doesn’t kill, then the fault dear actor, is not with you. Sometimes, it works perfectly well, and perfectly well only results in a smile. Save money on that therapist.

Jokes with Partners/Stealing the Laugh

Unless you’re doing a single hander, you will be in a show with other actors and you will be creating set ups with those actors that one of you will provide the punchline for. Let me make something very clear

In any joke, only one actor will deliver the punchline.

If I could turn that sentence into a blinking neon light I absolutely would. One step under the loathed act of Upstaging is the act of Stealing the Punchline. This occurs when two actors in a scene are creating the set up to a punch line through shared dialogue and one actor delivers the penultimate line as if it were the punchline, leaving the response to that line, which is the actual punchline, dead

in the water. [Example joke] Here we see that there are many funny lines within the banter that leads to a punchline, all of them building upon the ones before them until one actor delivers the punchline, and a new set up begins. However, many actors are so desperate to get laughs on all their own lines, they will sacrifice an entire story beat just so they can get a laugh. Everything the writer has built up to in that moment, one selfish, self conscious actor has undermined. Don’t be that actor. Support the story first and foremost. You are here to serve the play. The play is not here to serve your ego. If you hate the actor who delivers the punchline, or if you think they stink, too bad. They are not your concern, they are the directors concern. You are only responsible for yourself. Though, part of being responsible as an actor is to be generous and open to what you’re being given on stage. Theater is a team sport after all, and no one player scores all the points.

Silent Comedy

I won’t go too much into silent comedy because nohting can really replace good Mime or commedia del arte training. But here are some tips.

In everyday life people know what we’re doing with our bodies within the context of our words. I say “I want some water” and no one is confused when I cross to the sink. Without that spoken context however, we are left only with the facial expression and bodily movements of our character to provide that context. A common pitfall is to simply go about doing things as you would normally do them. Without the added context however the audience can be left confused and wondering what they missed. What they missed was the thought process of your character. Now often enough this isn’t a problem. But sometimes we will want to give

context and provide the audience with our own characters assumptions during an extended bit of silence. It is here that some craft comes in and the old adage “Show, don’t tell” really matters. In extended silent comedy bits you will want to break down for the audience what we’d normally just say. “I want X, but Z is in my way”. In order to do this I have to break up beats into much smaller chunks. Let’s say I want an apple.

What do I see? I need the audience to clearly see what I’m focused on.
That delicious apple.

How do I feel? My expression towards the object or person provides that context.
I am so hungry and that apple looks so good.

What is in my way? All drama involves conflict. Let us see your reactions to it.
I see Ben. Ooo, I don’t like Ben.

How do I get it? How can we show the audience what your plan might be? What is your tactic that we will enable you to get what you want?
I’m going to sneak behind Ben and get that apple. I prep by getting low and looking shifty.

All that done, NOW I can begin to creep ever so cautiously towards the apple.

Every bit of silent humor can use this kind of specificity. In fact every bit of spoken humor can use this kind of specificity. Admittedly, you may end up going through these beats quickly, so

as not to drag down the pacing of the scene. But if you have the specificity laid out, the audience should be to follow you naturally.

Heighteners

Much like the Rule of Three certain story telling techniques lend themselves to comedy while not needing to be funny all on their own. Some of those are humor that is risqué, adding a fission of sexual tensions and the forbidden or taboo to our joke. Outright politically incorrect humor adds the feeling of getting away with something. A confrontational comic can use the tension of that conflict to get nervous laughs out of an audience. Bullies use belittling as a way to get everyone to laugh at someone through mockery. None of these ways of getting a joke are related to the Mirth response that grounds the Hurley Model. Recall the fact that laughs can occur for all sorts of reasons unconnected to a joke. Many stand up comics confuse what they do for how humor/mirth functions in all senses. Their jobs is to quite literally keep you laughing every 5-7 seconds. The more laughs they get, the funnier they are considered to be. As a comedic story teller your job is to tell the story first, and get laughs second. So while the stand up will use every trick in the book to keep you laughing, whether connected to a joke or not, we’re interested in laughs coming from the context of the story, and the jokes/situations therein.

Performance 101

This is simply a list of performance techniques you could learn in any half decent high school. I highlight them here, because 1) You can never go wrong going back to basics and 2) They play a significant role in the performance of comedy.

Volume: Speak up! If I can’t hear you, what the hell are we all doing here? There are 500 people in this theater if you’re lucky and if you turn away from a portion of the crowd they still need to hear your lines. Bodies absorb sound. They’re round and soft. Singers like resonant bathrooms because of all the echo those hard flat tile walls provide. A bathroom made of human bodies would provide no such reverb. I’ll leave it for the reader to make jokes about how such a bathroom would come into being. All I want you to do is speak up, or I can’t hear you.

Diction: Jokes can be thought of a logic puzzles. The solution of which gives us mirth and laughter as a reward. But you can’t solve a puzzle if you didn’t hear the premise. Unlike some styles of drama where the actor emotes and mumbles his way though a performance like Marlon Brando, there are no famous mumbling comedians. People actually need to hear what we’re saying. Even beloved beatnik comedians like Mitch Hedberg, for all his laid back styling, still enunciated the hell out of his words. And while Bobcat Goldthwait was known in the 80’s for getting on stage and basically yelling and having what looked like a mental breakdown, it is this exception that proves the rule. He wasn’t known as a comedian. He was known as a lunatic. In his later work, where he’s actually telling jokes, he speaks perfectly clearly.

Pace/Tempo: In line with “we can’t hear you” there is “You’re talking too fast, I can’t understand you.” Punchlines tend to increase in pitch and pace. This is hard to do if you’re already going a mile a minute. The art of timing as previously stated is simply giving your audience enough time to make their strong and wrong assumption, without having enough time to get ahead of you. But getting to the punch before the audience can understand the set up (and make that false assumption) is also a pitfall. “In real life I would

hyperventilate.” No one can really understand the Scottish.” “I have to tell him everything before time runs out!” This isn’t real life. It’s a play. Do not sacrifice the story to some other ideal like “realism” or “honesty”. For all my words about truth in comedy, I’d sacrifice it all before I would sacrifice the clarity of the story I’m telling.

Rhythm: You may have noticed that many of the terms used in comedy are terms used in music. This is not a coincidence. There is an inherent musicality to a performance within a well written script. But much like a drummer playing in 4/4, a guitarist in 3/4, and Singer in 7/9 would be audial torture, it also grates on ones ears to hear a cast not in rhythm with each other and the text. There exists in every scene, a rhythm, much like how in Shakespeare we have Iambic Pentameter. While contemporary comedy and drama is no longer written in verse, the natural ebb and flow of characters talking is there all the same. In a farce such as Noises Off the rhythm is nearly its own character, with door slams beating like drum sets. You’ll know you’ve reached the correct rhythm when everyone seems to be humming along at the same speed in their set ups, pausing the same amount before punchlines, and picking up their cues. Which brings me to my last note. Pick up your cues, you keep dropping them.

Pick up cues: To pick up a cue is to leave very little empty space between your scene partners last line and the beginning of you next line. It all goes hand in glove with rhythm. Treat it like you would music. Begin on the beat, not before and not too late. If a director tells you to pick up your cues it is an indication that either you don’t know your next line, or you’re doing all your acting in-between the lines and not during them.

To “step on” someones cue is when you begin talking before they’ve finished. Too much air between lines and your cue has been dropped. Beginning before another has finished is too little. Like Goldilocks we are looking for just the right amount of time between lines, and you’re going to find the answer to your questions in the Rhythm of the scene. If you’re looking for a perfect example of the rhythm of comedy you can do no better than watch Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?”

Part 1

THE THEORY

• The Job of the Comedian on Stage

• Truth in Comedy

• Overview of The Hurley Model

THE TECHNIQUE

• Acting 101 Objectives, wants, & tactics

• The Bare Bones Joke

  • Set up

  • Pitch

  • Pace

  • Rythmn

  • Beat

  • Punchline

• Operative words

• Spot the assumption

  • • Exercise 1: Punchline to Assumption

    • Exercise 2: Spot the assumption in the set up.

    • Exercise 3: Find the operative words that support the assumption.

• 
  

• The Rule of Three

• Builds: Ascending and Descending

• Undercuts & Literary Devices

• Running gags.

• Timing

  • Smash to Punchline

  • Long Pause

• Scaffolding (Putting it all together)

  • Exercise 4: Do it Wrong

Part 2

PITFALLS OF REAL WORLD PERFORMANCE

• Holding for Laughs

• Laughing at your own jokes

• Quiet/No Laughter

• Jokes with Partners/Stealing the Laugh

• Silent Comedy

• Performance 101