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How to "Ad-lib"
with an Audience
by John Cantu
© HumorMall.com

Amateurs think comedians walk on stage and just riff about whatever is in their head at the moment - or comics riff off topics that come up in bantering with the audience. And they also think great comedians have a special skill to create funny material "spontaneously."

This is a misperception of reality. Comedians do not create their act 100% as they go along. The art is not to make it up on the spot, but rather to make it appear as if everything is made up on the spot. Here's one way to do that.

Sometimes an audience member will ask a question or yell out something and you just happen have a bit in your act scheduled for later, but that fits in with their comment. Jump immediately to it and do that part of your prepared act. If you have another chunk of material that fits in, do it as well to boost laughs even if you hadn't planned on using it.

Keep in mind in that case, you may have to drop something from your planned set, so as not to go over time. When done with the "Ad-libbed" material, loop back into your act where you left off.

This is what set's the pros off from the hacks. Not necessarily the ability to made it up 100%. But rather the ability to bring the material out in such a way as to look spontaneous. Lenny Bruce, who was responsible to a great degree for creating this "in the moment" style, writes in his biography, "People seem to think I make my act up as I go along. I don't. I know everything I'm going to say. I just don't know what order I'm going to say it in."

That is the FIRST sentence of his autobiography.

Whenever possible, answer audience members's questions, queries, and off-hand comments with a chunk that closely matches it and then loop back to where you were originally in your act when you got interrupted. Then move forward.

When you get an unplanned comment from an listener and you can respond with a memorized, but appropriate chunk, audience members will leave the venue thinking you are a comedy genius. Because they saw you "improvise" a one, three, six, whatever minute bit in response to an on-the-spot-comment. You had to be "making it up" cause how could you "know" that audience member was gonna say that?

Believe me - twenty five years in comedy clubs producing shows with Robin Williams, Paula Poundstone, Jerry Seinfeld, Dana Carvey, Margaret Cho, and dozens more . . . they DON'T MAKE EVERYTHING UP ON THE SPOT.

(My method of dealing with a comedian's little helper: I simply worked what they said into the lead-in (which could be as simple as 'yes' - repeat what they said then a 'but/and/or...') and did my punchline as planned. They weren't insulted (not my style of comedy) and they didn't screw up my act either.) Susan Cerce, Editor