I thought a great show meant keeping the energy as high as possible from start to finish. Then I mapped my show's emotional arc on paper and saw the flatline that was killing my audience's engagement.
Read MoreThe transition from a loud comedy piece to a quiet musical number is one of the most dangerous moments in a show. I lost the room twice before I learned how to make that shift without breaking the spell.
Read MoreYour audience grew up watching TV screens packed with simultaneous information streams. They process faster than audiences did thirty years ago -- and if your show does not keep up, they will find something else to process.
Read MoreTwo masters I deeply respect gave me opposite advice about pacing. One said slow down. The other said speed up. It took me a year to realize they were both right -- because they were talking about entirely different things.
Read MoreA corporate dinner crowd, a theatre audience, and a festival crowd walk into your show. They all need different pacing -- and if you cannot read the room and adjust, your one-size-fits-all tempo will fit none of them.
Read MoreIn a forty-five-minute talking act, the audience needs a break from processing words. The first time I added a silent musical piece to my show, I understood why every great act has at least two.
Read MoreAudience participation is the heart of any live show. But the night my set ran fifteen minutes over because I kept bringing people on stage, I learned that too much heart can kill the body.
Read MoreEvery second a volunteer spends on stage is a second the audience is watching a stranger instead of you. I learned to time participation segments the hard way -- by watching an audience lose interest.
Read MoreEvery time a volunteer walks from their seat to the stage and back, energy leaks from the room. I had to learn that the question isn't 'who do I bring up?' but 'do I need them up here at all?'
Read MoreLeaving the stage and walking into the crowd can create incredible intimacy -- or it can shatter your show's momentum. The night I nearly lost a room of two hundred in Vienna taught me the rules.
Read MoreTwo audience participation pieces back to back killed the momentum in my show. The fix was embarrassingly simple: alternate between solo, musical, and participation pieces so the energy never stalls.
Read MoreThe shift from 'pick a card' to 'think of a card' did more for my show's pacing than any other single change. It eliminated procedural overhead and made the impossible feel effortless.
Read MoreI performed the same set in two identical rooms with one difference: the lighting. The room with dim houselights laughed louder, applauded harder, and felt like a completely different audience. It was the same audience. It was the light.
Read MoreEvery performer faces this choice: follow spot with a dark audience, or full houselights with everyone visible. I learned the hard way that the wrong choice can cost you the entire energy of the room.
Read MoreThe final lesson of the pacing section is not about what you do on stage. It is about what happens in the audience's mind when the houselights go down -- and why environment shapes behavior as powerfully as content does.
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