Comedy Support Group.

Starting out in comedy I thought it was a lone wolf sport. I thought it was something you just did alone. In many respects it absolutely is. But as I have been in it longer and longer, the more I realized that standup comedy is so much better with friends. Especially early on, to form a group of friends to support one another makes the beginning hard parts of comedy so much more bearable and actually sometimes pretty fun.

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” Booker T. Washington.

I have always been attracted to individual sports and activities. I like to be a part of a team but I do better when it’s a team of individuals. That is why I like sports like Bowling, where even when I am on a team most of the time I am just competing against myself, just with friends around. At the time of this writing we are still in what feels to be the middle of a quarantine and it does not look like live standup comedy will be back for the remainder of the year. Thankfully I do not yet rely on standup for my livelihood. I think it’s the first time I have been grateful for that in my whole comedy career. But for me Standup gives me something else. I need it, so this time away has been particularly difficult. So much so that I organized a social distance show with my friends just for fun. I have a group that I collaborate with often and do shows with on a regular basis. So we got together and the 6 of us just put on a little show for one another. This really was helpful for me on so many levels. I am so grateful for this group of comedians.

An observation I have made about comedians that are successful is that they have to have someone vouch for them. At some point someone must believe in you. For some that is getting into a club, for others it’s finding a group that supports them. I have improved so much faster and had a generally better time in comedy when I have a group of friends. Honestly at first all we can get is other comedians as an audience. Comedy communities always have some drama, but I am so grateful to be a part of something bigger than myself. So often I start writing these articles with what I think is a fresh idea and it usually loops back to something I have already covered. But I have been so much happier and honestly successful when I am in service to something or someone beyond myself.

When forming a comedy support group I make sure it is with people that both encourage and challenge me. I think about how we are the product of the people around us, so I surround myself with people who are as or more committed than I am. I want the people around me to push me to be better. I want it to be people who inspire me to keep showing up and I hope that I can inspire them.

My comedy support group started as a weekly writing meetup. I invited several different people at the beginning, but it was the ones who continued to show up week after week that formed a tight bond. I think writing groups can work and sometimes they don’t. But we found success in our writing group focusing on the feedback being only two questions.

1. What did you like?

2. What do you want to hear more about?

This simple thing kept the group from getting too into detail about feedback or just giving feedback for the sake of feedback. We work to steer clear of more specific wording changes or technical feedback. I believe that the other feedback is just how you would do it in my voice and I don’t want everyone to sound like me. I want to encourage each person to be authentically and uniquely themselves. Now we are not perfect. We often accidentally fall into this feedback, but we strive not to most meetings. Unless it's wildly offensive or punching down on a moralized group, we steer clear from “what I didn’t like.” This keeps the room positive and safe for building ideas rather than cutting them down. For me the positive saying yes and... leads to more fun ideas. If it’s not getting laughs that is enough of an indication that they didn’t like it in my mind, no need to highlight what we didn’t like, we did with our silence.

No successful standup comedian is an island. They may be the one on the poster and make it look like it, but they have a team that builds them up and holds them up. So we can do that even at the lowest level. Even if it’s just 6 people getting together and telling jokes through masks into bananas on a stage under a carport 6ft apart. At the end of the day my purpose is to enjoy my life, make people laugh, and lift up my friends. So go start your own comedy support group. 

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Thank you for reading, You’re doing great. 

Bjorn RG.