Did a gig at Princeton last weekend for a bunch of grad students there. Smarty pants audience. It was kinda weird to do a show where the smarter the joke was, the more it got laughs. Usually the opposite, ya know?
The flip side of that: They were pretty touchy about anything to do with race, gender, etc. Smart + liberal = always fearful of anything that might be construed as offensive (even if it's not really). Wrote about this before here: "White audiences and comedy about race."
Anyway, I went into my bit about the gay pride parade. I know it's a touchy subject so I usually start off by going after the religious right and explaining how I do support gay rights. Still, some dude in the crowd, presumably gay, wasn't having it. Here's what happened:
It actually turned out great. I believe in the joke and the point being made in it so I wasn't really phased. And his interruption took a planned bit and made it seem like a riff (ya always get more laughs on something if the crowd thinks ya just came up with it off the top of your head). Plus, the tension made the laughs that much deeper when the bubble burst. I should hire this guy to come to every gig.
3 comments:
Great turnaround there. Perfect move into your prepared material even though it seemed entirely spontaneous.
very nicely handled!
Just pretend someone is saying, "F*** you!" at that moment in the joke each time. Bill Burr seems to act that way.
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