Arts & Entertainment

Student Session: Workshopping Nalini's First Stand-Up Act

Lesson time 17:08 min

Steve sits down with a group of young comedians and gives Nalini hands-on guidance in the development of her very first stand up bit.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Meet the Students • Workshopping Nalini’s Act • Discussing Onstage Identity

Preview

It's a room of comedians, dangerous, dangerous. Hi, I'm Steve. Will. Will Nice to meet you. Hi. Beth. Beth. Tim. Tim. It's a hard name to remember. And-- Nalini. Nalini. How are you? Great to see you. Great to have you all together. Hey, I just want to ask you, do you know each other, any of you know each other? Tim and I know each other. Uh-huh. Yeah. Me and Tim know each other. Uh-huh. From the circuit or from college or from-- The circuit. From the circuit. Yeah From a different circuit. Yeah. But, yeah. And do all of you do stand-up, or are you more writers, or what? I know you're a stand-up, because I saw your transcript of your bit. And I know that you're a stand-up from reading your material. I actually haven't done stand-up yet. Oh. Yeah, that's my first. Oh, fantastic. Well you're. on your way, I'll tell you. That's good. And you're essentially writers or-- I do s-- I'm a stand-up. Do stand-up? And mostly writing, yeah. And, Will, how did you get into it? How long have you been doing it? I've been doing it about nine years now. Do you travel across the country? Or is it, kind of, more local or-- Right now I'm mostly based in New York, but I just headlined my first show in Cincinnati like a club [? bookends. ?] Uh-huh. How big was it? 150. 200. Yeah. That's a good size. And how was it? It was cool. It was great. There were a couple that felt like work, and there were-- there was like, one or two that were really fun, and then-- Yeah. The rest were just like OK. Good. That's, by the way, a typical week. OK. Yeah. You know. There's no- there's no like, end of a week where you say, "Every show was fantastic." Even if they were fantastic, there's always one that's a little bit, well, that one. Yeah. You know, that one. You go to bed at night, and you kind of feel a little miserable, and you don't know why. It took me years to figure out. Do a show, a club, and go home and I'd be depressed. I'd think, why am I depressed. Oh, it was because the show wasn't good. It was like, oh, really, duh. And, Tim, what's a little bit of your background? I started doing improv like, close to nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago. That seems to be the real, a starting point for people now, is improv. Well, it is that thing where there was an improv group in college, and that was like the closest thing to any kind of comedy that I was close to. So, I started doing that, and then I started doing stand-up, maybe like four years ago. And then, in betw-- and, been sharing those together. And then, sometimes it moves toward sketch and acting and things. It's like a very-- And what's the outlet today for a sketch? Is it like an improv stage? Or a-- I think improv stages ...

About the Instructor

One of Steve’s first gigs was at the drive-in movies. When the audience liked a joke, they honked. In this comedy class, Steve shares insights from performing for cars and humans over a 50-year career spanning sold-out arenas and blockbuster films. Learn how to find your voice, gather material, develop an act, and take your comedy writing to the next level.

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Steve Martin

Steve Martin teaches you everything from finding your comedic voice to nailing your act.

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