DELRAY BEACH – Stand-up comedy is designed to make people laugh, but it can also be instructive.
That’s pretty much the theme of today’s Stand-Up Spotlight.
It leads with a story from a comedian who recently began teaching comedy classes. Turns out, he learned plenty about comedy while teaching – with several of those lessons being applicable to every day life.
There’s a feature on Dave Chawner who overcame an eating disorder, incorporating that struggle into his act in an effort to help others. In a Q&A, comic Michael Cruz Kayne discusses how the loss of his child affected his comedy.
Is laughter the best medicine? According to an article below, there’s actual scientific proof that it’s, at the very least, good for people. And apparently “laughing yoga” is a thing.
Finally veteran Mark Steele discusses why the British comedy scene of the 1980s offered some advantages over the current scene, lamenting the specialization of today’s comedians. It’s a curious take, but does have some merit.
A new month is here. Let’s March through the funny.
STAND-UP SPOTLIGHT – March 1, 2023
Collier’s Weekly: What I Learned Teaching Stand-Up Class
Contrary to any assumptions, stand-up comedy can be taught; I assure you it’s much more than the David Lynch quote, “Let’s try that again, but this time good.” While you can’t teach someone to be funny, you can teach them to structure a stand-up set, discern good jokes from bad, hone delivery and performance and present themselves professionally. They’ve gotta come up with the material, but that material can always get better.
This is my first time teaching a course after more than 12 years as a comedian myself, and a few things have struck me in the process. First: Teaching is hard work. Every professional teacher in the world knows this quite well, of course, but I’m someone who has done no more than occasionally stammer about my career for an hour to a group of sleepy college sophomores. I’m surprised at how exhausted I am at the end of a class — one that lasts just a fraction of an actual school day, by the way — and, moreover, how much work goes into preparation beforehand.
Click here to view original web page at Collier’s Weekly: What I Learned Teaching Stand-Up Class
‘I cried more doing comedy than I did in therapy’: Man who had anorexia for a decade launches comedy course to help others
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Comedy and therapy both work on the same things: good communication and crafting a sense of self,’ explains Dave Chawner, who had anorexia throughout his teenage years and early 20s.
‘They are about trying to make dark things understandable to other people, as well as building your own confidence.’
Good health is a laughing matter
Science confirms that laughing enhances not just mental health but physical health, too.
Just ask Dr. Mariah Stump, an attending physician at Lifespan’s Women’s Medicine Collaborative and a professor and researcher at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
“When you laugh, it helps people work their respiratory system,” Stump told Ocean State Stories. “It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the body’s natural relaxation ‘rest and digest’ system.”
Click here to view original web page at Good health is a laughing matter
Mark Steel: Today’s comedians are brilliant – but the odd joke wouldn’t go amiss4
Stand-up comedy is everywhere. When I started performing in the 1980s, being a stand-up comic was seen as exotic. If you told someone this was your job, people stared with wonder and disbelief, as if you had said you were a full-time tropical plant.
Then you would be showered with pity. Because it was a declaration of glorious failure: you clearly earned no money and spent your life changing into a sparkly costume in a toilet before a hen party threw peanuts at you.
Stand-up comedian and Colbert Late Show writer Michael Cruz Kayne says ‘Sorry for Your Loss”
While television audiences know stand-up comedian and writer Michael Cruz Kayne from his work on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (for which he’s been gifted a Peabody Award) for starring in the digital series Short Term Rental, and as a creative consultant for Billy on the Street, the more personal side of Kayne grieves. The father and husband’s life was transformed when Kayne and his wife lost a child. Yet, Kayne has wrangled a warm, embracing brand of humor from such sadness with his newest live stand-up show Sorry for your Loss, as well as his A Good Cry showcase on Apple Podcasts
