Jeff Justice is a standup comedian that in 1990, noticed many beginners in comedy could use some help. He gave a few tips for rewriting their material to improve the jokes. He also gave some tips on timing in the delivery of those lines.
Surprised that some of them listened and even more surprised with a group of them asked him to do a workshop.
Here is a quick overview I did for Jeff back in 2012.
My wife took both of Jeff’s classes. Now the hard part is after your graduation standup routine at the Punchline, the next step is no longer a class but a live and unforgiving audience.
Mark Evans took Jeff’s class back in 1993, which changed his life. He is a successful comedian today. His latest tour Southern Not Stupid is where you can see him perform.
He remembers that graduation night was such a fun event and wanted to recapture that time when the audience was a little more forgiving than jumping straight into the hecklers that can be in a typical audience.
Sunday night, April 29, 2019, was the first Jeff Justice Comedy Workshoppe Alumni show organized by Mark Evans at The Basement Theatre in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, Georgia.
While helping the students write better jokes is central to Jeff’s workshops, he is also helping them with timing. Delivery is everything. Jeff often says, “‘I’m a wild and crazy guy isn’t funny. But Steve Martin delivering it as he did was hilarious.”
I think Mark Evans knows that the one thing that everyone needs to get better is practice. It is only by doing this enough times that you help manage those butterflies so you can get that Comedic Timing down for delivering a joke that gets laughs.
While you put yourself out there by performing once, you don’t improve until you do it consistently.
No matter what you want to learn to do, taking a class is just the first step. It would help if you worked on your craft. Put yourself out there consistently, and you have a better chance of making it.
For photographers, you need to shoot lots of photos and share them. Then it would help if you embraced the honest critiques of your work. That is how you grow.