Hmm, I wonder if I am going to mention comedy in this one? Yes. All I want to do with this response is the same thing I do with all my entries and that’s find a way to talk about my stupid job that I am in love with. Well actually the reason I always mention it is because I feel like I have to find a way to relate and apply what I read or see to what I know best.
Audience is very important in comedy, you need one or else you are just doing nothing…or you’re a psycho. It’s definitely the former because the latter is implied when you are a comedian, sorry. What I mean is your audience in a lot of ways, such as mood, size, type, region, characteristics, and even layout.
Knowing your audience is one of the most important things you can do as a comedian, if you know there’s two tables of a bachelorette party, don’t do some shitty anti-women joke, or something about rape or abortion or something. Unless it is some real magic, chances are they aren’t going to like the joke, and all those annoying women are going to turn on your quickly. Also make sure they are either close enough to make fun of, but not close enough that when they inevitably make fun of you or not pay attention you can either ignore them, or call attention to them, your choice. Know the mood, if it’s a rough town, or a rough time economically or something of that nature, know that. Don’t expect everyone to be so chipper, this works in with type as this can somewhat shape the type of audience as well as the time. Later shows have better crowds, smarter, nicer, more into comedy, but the later you go, the drunker they get and those people are no fun at all. Well they are fun, they just aren’t that conducive to doing your act without interruptions or hiccups (that was wit).
Big audiences are harder to get on your side, there’s more of them, you’ll notice more faces just smiling or not laughing at all. Also more people to hate you and turn against you if you goof or do something stupid. It’s not all doom though, they laugh louder, are nicer when they like you, and tend to have a better experience because there’s a larger sum of people enjoying what they love.
Things like characteristics, and region go hand-in-hand in some cases and they meld nicely with some others like I mentioned above. Layout could be important if you care about how you see the crowd, you get a good idea if you go to a club enough times as its pretty much always the same, but sometimes layout means certain people are particularly placed for the benefit of the comedian. For instance, The Stand will place couples, younger, older, odd, and small groups of girls up friend because it is just easier for the comedian. They can make fun of them, they can make them characters that are a part of the show, or even running jokes of that particular show. It helps MCs a lot because they tend to go out there only doing crowd work to get people ready to hear what they’re about to hear. Real laugh exercisers. Don’t forget to swap to the right words and restructure or drop jokes for certain audiences and people!
Declan
I love this post! This is the clearest, most straight forward explanation of the need to understand your audience. This is true for any audience, whether they are reading your material or getting it from you directly. If you lose your audience, you lose the chance to convey your message. I still believe that we need to teach people how to listen, but most important is tailoring your message so it reaches the largest group possible.
A message shouted to an empty room reaches no one. Same is true for one that does not consider the audience.
Declan, as much as you joke about the silliness of your job, your discussion of audience is a really important aspect of rhetoric. In a previous post you mentioned that it is hard to relate to a lot of the writing assigned in college classes, but what you have here is a really great analysis of the importance of audience, not only live on stage, but also in writing! Don’t underestimate the insight you have into genre in general. I think you’ve really captured how audience is important and this is a great lesson, not only for entertainers or performers, but for writers in all genres! Know your audience! And you have a great sense of humor that you’ve adapted really well into your blog, which I imagine is hard to communicate sometimes without being able to use body language and your voice to help communicate it, as I assume you are used to. And you didn’t have to write, “this is supposed to be funny” at the top of the page for this audience to know that.