Nailing the "Act Out"

Crushing the “Act Out”

Why You Need Them: 

There isn’t a pro comic alive who hasn’t done some form of an act out in their time and I’d put it down as one of the most essential skills for joke telling in any comics repertoire. At its most minimal it’s a physical representation of a bit to amplify a jokes ability to resonate with an audience and at its best it’s the single most effective way of communicating an entire premise complete with jokes, tags, concepts in the shortest way possible.

Here is one of the best act out's in modern standup. Bill is known for a great use of characters and voices that aren't ever a specific person but still manage to resonate with everyone which is a great skill to have in a comedy arsenal but this bit goes above and beyond. We have amazing mic technique and voice work layered over a terrific story with almost continuous beat for beat measured movement.

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When we think of act outs they tend to be larger than life characters, situations and gestures but in reality act out’s are anything physical that helps convey and sell a joke. The key to its efficiency is that we as humans can perceive a large amount of information from movement and sounds far quicker than if we were to have them explained to us and longer still if we were to read them.  So the bottom line here is you don’t have to use act outs if you don’t want but if you don’t in even the smallest way you are at an incredible disadvantage. You don’t have to invest large amounts of energy in huge gestures as for many new or low energy comics that can seem daunting. But you need to understand the relationship between physicality in a joke and how every decision you make when bringing your written word to life can and will affect its quality to an audience.

In film there’s a concept of a “suspension of disbelief” that allows people to fully invest in stories that they themselves are not part of and identify with characters who never existed all whilst in a lounge room or movie theatre that is clearly separate from the images we are watching. In comedy the act out allows jokes to create this similar suspension of an audience’s disbelief. Act outs don’t just make audience believe what they are watching is real it also makes them forget what’s real around them. You can garner pure attention for longer and in comedy that is golden because it’s a long while before a starting comic can get a spot at a venue where distractions are minimized to their fullest extent and until you’re getting booked at such places you need to learn everything you can about getting attention, keeping it and using it.

They also can be used tactically to work an audience. If you’re in a low energy state it can come across as jarring to jump to a high energy one straight away. However if you work in a character that the audience would understandably believe is high energy like an recreating an altercation with an angry man in traffic or a drunk person dancing at a club then you remove your current state from the picture and let the act out do the work to drum up the energy of the crowd. Once you exit the bit you can leave on a higher energy as the act out served as a more fluid ramp up in momentum than if you just started screaming at the audience.

Finally an act out can in many ways to the heavy lifting of a joke. If your explanation or punchline isn’t landing sometimes a physical demonstration of what you mean creates clarity that allows it to be received. An act out can serve to be the “reveal” in a pullback and reveal, it can be mime or slapstick or it can even be enough of a shock to the audience that it shifts the dynamic of the joke quick enough to release any tension build up and in this way serves as a defacto punchline. Now I’d never tell people do to any of these things individually but learning to use multiple ways of joke telling at once is something that I would recommend constantly. It’s not about telling different jokes over the top of one another but rather telling one joke in the most comprehensive way to ensure that when it lands, it lands big. 

How To Begin:

Now as I said no one’s expecting you to jump on stage with amazing fully formed characters and scenes. But what I would recommend is going through your jokes and having a look for any parts that don’t take place in the present or those that reference things outside of what you are doing in the moment. If we are watching a bit about a conversation a comedian had previously small things like changing the direction you’re facing when speaking for the different people in the conversation breaks up who is speaking and makes it easier to understand for viewers. Another step in that ladder would be to give them unique voices and body language. If you’re speaking to an older lady then you hunch, if the person you’re talking to is dumb make a dumb face. I’m not encouraging you to get laughs purely off a silly face but in this way you are giving the audience a slightly more realistic situation to buy into and you can play for bigger laughs off of that investment because an audience will only get returns relative to how much they invest. You can’t get laughs off something no one cared about enough to listen too.

When we begin to perform truly great act outs they extend so far beyond the joke that they began from that they become entirely new jokes themselves. You can do call backs to an act out of a joke you did, you can play act out’s against each other, you can improvise and riff with the audience creating dynamic and dimensional comedy that’s operating on many layers.

Voices are one of the funnest parts of performing standup for me. Not only do I enjoy doing them in general but when coupled with a good joke that enjoyment allows me to keep my own energy up for the set. The rate that a joke would naturally decay is slowed purely because I enjoy doing it for longer. You can gently begin giving different people you talk about accents maybe even when you repeat a response from an audience member. Be mindful of keeping impressions of others upbeat in those interactions. You want to come across as playful and not demeaning.

Here’s a bit that’s illustrates what I mean, in it I’m talking about gangs but because Australia doesn’t have as pronounced a gang culture as other countries I’ve gone with playing on the clash of cultures from putting a south American cartel into an Australian primary school. It doesn't say all people from a certain area are a certain way, it doesn't say there's anything inherently negative about the people or anyone impersonated and it's sole use is to create a fun spin on childhood nostalgia through a silly and offbeat lens.

I hope..

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From here I’d start coupling actions relevant to what you’re talking about. For instance if you mention you were driving in the bit, hold your arm forward like you’re holding a wheel. It’s simple, costs you nothing and will make you look like you know what you’re doing which is one of the biggest hurdles a newer act needs to tackle. Then start to work actions into your set at all relevant points and work on gradually pushing them. By pushing the act out I mean changing physicality, increasing energy, volume, pace and alternating your tone and melody of speech.

A lot of people are intimidated by starting to use act outs because if you do something and it doesn’t get a bigger laugh you may feel like it bombed. But don’t be discouraged if you’re getting the same amount of laughs with an act out then you’re on the right path. If you’re getting less than you need to adjust because what you’re doing is more distracting to the bit than helpful. Consider any actions you add to a bit that don’t get an extra response but don’t hinder the joke to be neutral. Once we start pushing from a neutral position we can push the bit further until you feel it clicking with the audience more. I think of neutral of this neutral state as I would neutral in a manual car. You gradually increase acceleration until a critical friction point is reached and from here you can take things to another gear but in order to do so you need to feel that the vehicle (the joke and the audiences reaction to it) is ready to make that jump.

The final stage to act out’s that offers the most creative freedom is when they begin to extend beyond the jokes they’re supporting and become independent themselves. You can do this by pulling characters that began in a joke and give them life of their own by continuing on with them outside of the joke they originated from. To practice this try pushing on with an act out once you get a good laugh from it without breaking the energy of the bit. You can also try writing setups to jokes where the punchline is delivered as an act out. Consider using act out’s to illustrate things beyond the physical world, metaphysical concepts such as emotions or time are things that you can use to make the abstract seem relateable. Characters and impressions are great for this because they allow you to fully push an act out but within a limited and disposable amount of time and after which (provided the joke doesn’t bomb too hard) you have a clean slate to try again.

Here’s a great example of TJ Miller riffing entire act out’s, notice how he makes characters on the fly, plays them off one another and his surroundings, works in older material into new scenes and shows variety with some impressions and characters too. 

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Also if you’re struggling to push yourself on stage try loosening up before hand, it might be embarrassing or feel weird but if it helps your comedy then do as many acting warm up exercises as you can. Have a look online to see what works for you but even a good shake of your body and practicing some vocal warm-ups it’s better than nothing.

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To recap

-Find points in your set already where you can act out what you’re talking about by identifying verbs

-add in movements and voices to conversations to differentiate characters to the audience

-start writing act outs as punchlines to bits

-begin to push act out’s beyond the confines exploring scenes and locations within the act out

-perform different act out’s back to back and play them against each other with commentary and call backs to create layered performances

-Above all else COMMIT TO THE BIT, you will not sell a joke on a half assed act out. You give it your all or you don’t do it at all. That doesn’t mean you have to be the most high energy manic version of yourself you can be but it does mean, doing the movements fully, sticking with the voices, sitting in the pauses and not bailing the second you don’t get a laugh. You’re going to learn from the joke whether it lands or bombs so you may as well give it your all.

Tips

1. Try to direct act out’s towards the audience

2. If you’re really nervous then begin with the most common sounds an actions you would use in regular conversation so that it’s not a stretch to hear them on stage i.e a car screeching, clicking a tv remote, opening a can of coke

3. If you need any help on doing voices then listen to every album and special Maria Bamford has out, there’s nothing more I could tell you that she couldn’t show you

4. Consider using the microphone as a prop within an act out like below, or really anything you can get your hands on within the space you perform in.

Sidenote:

Now there’s a lot to be said about what is and isn’t appropriate as far as imitating others goes. But I’ll make a blanket statement here. If you’re doing an impression of a race it better be your own. I’ve done jokes impersonating people from different races just for the sake of it and I found that in large they don’t serve to enhance a bit and instead detract from it. I’d say the only time you can risk doing an accent that is intentionally race focused would be to play on the situation but never the people like the example I offered earlier. I WOULD say that, but I’m not because chances are if you’re reading this you’re likely a newer act and whilst I have complete faith that with perseverance and dedication you’ll be a crusher eventually I’m not going to tell anyone to do racial voices because it’s way too likely to fail and there’s infinite jokes that aren’t that to be explored. So sit back at the gig and cringe when others do it then let them get heckled off stage by understandably angry foreign audience members.

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