You only get 5 minutes. The audience has no clue who you are. The manager of the comedy club watching your clip has never heard of you. The comic who produces a weekly show at the pizza place saw you hanging out and asked last second if you want to do 5 up front. Are you ready? Do you have that real solid, can’t miss, leave them rolling in the aisles 5? You may think you do. You may tell people you do.But if that set starts off with greeting, observations or crowd work, you don’t have shit.
Strike Fast. Strike Hard. Strike Often.
Most managers, club bookers and show producers will ask for a 5 minute clip. But in reality, they watch the first 2 minutes then basically make a decision. You need to get laughs asap. The opening joke is crucial to a 5 minute set. Way more important than the closing joke. If you make the audience wait to laugh the hardest, they won’t laugh as hard as they could if they were already laughing the entire time.
Don’t “save the best for last.” First off, if you have one “best” joke, you shouldn’t be sending clips out. You should be writing more, hitting more mics, editing and repeating. You need more material. If you are sending out clips, you should have at LEAST 15 solid, tested minutes of material. If you only have 5, take a breathe, relax and don’t concern yourself with trying to get work yet. You aren’t ready. No one is hiring 5 minute sets. Your solid, killer 5 should be a “where you are currently at” greatest hits that highlights what you have in the joke arsenal. If you only have 5–7 minutes of tested, polished material, you shouldn’t be recording and sending, you should be recording, listening, editing, deleting and repeating.
But let’s say you have the material. You have worked some showcases. You have done some guest spots. You have done your material in front of a listening non open mic audience many occasions and you have gotten laughs. Now you need to start building that killer 5. That 5 that once you get it flowing and clicking on all cylinders, you will record and send out to festivals, clubs and anyone else that can get you gigs. Now comes the work.
Start hitting open mics with a goal. And that goal is to find your opener. This will take time. You will need to find the joke in your set that not only gets laughs right away but also makes you feel comfortable and settled in. The opening joke doesn’t only have to gain the audience’s trust. It has to gain your own trust as well. This should be the joke that makes you feel good when you tell it. A joke that makes you believe in yourself when you utter it out loud. One that shows what your writing style is. One that lets the audience know who they are going to be listening to for the next 5 minutes. Not by introducing yourself but by displaying how your comedic mind works. The audience needs to know what they are getting in to. This joke must set the tone. It must be short, quick and to the point.
Strike Fast. Strike Hard. Strike Often.
At this point, don’t worry about segues or transitions. Tell a joke. Get the laugh. Move on to the next joke. You don’t need to end the first joke with a word or an idea that you can use to lead to the next joke. “Speaking of bowling” is not necessary and quite frankly, you are wasting your precious time by saying it. Hit the punchline. Pause. Get right into the next joke. Hit the punchline. Pause. Get right into the next joke. Keep the laughs coming. You want many laughs during this set. Set ups and in between joke pointless banter stops the laughs. Take out all your segues, transitions and clutter words in your current 5 minute set and you will have room to add one, possibly 2 more joke. That’s more laughs. That’s a stronger set. That is what you want.
How should you build your 5? You should tell the jokes in an order that is easy for you to remember and feels like it naturally flows when you perform it all together. Your 5 minute set does not need to tell a story. It’s a highlight reel. That first joke should be one that hits them hard and quick and makes them excited to hear what is next. And then you continue to hit them with quick jabs. No long jokes or fun tales. No time for that in a 5 minute set and it is too risky. If the 2–3 minute joke doesn’t hit, you have no time to recover and now you buried yourself. The last joke should simply be a joke you feel good about leaving the stage on. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be this insane grand finale that makes the audience explode and start a fucking parade in your honor. You aren’t trying to bury the next comic. Believe me, you won’t. Get over yourself. And you should never concern yourself with nonsense like that. Just tell a joke that you feel expresses what your comedy is all about. That’s it. Be funny from the very beginning and continue to be funny until your 5 minutes is up.
Strike Fast. Strike Hard. Strike Often.
Once you find the opening jokes and the several other jokes that you feel best display who you are as a comic, hit open mics and play with the order. Use the opener every time but then attempt to move the rest of the set around until it feels good. Once you do that, keep running the set in the order you like repeatedly. Record and listen back to make sure you like how it all works together. Once you feel you have it, get yourself on some showcases and non open mic spots and run this exact 5. Record that. Continue this process. Then after running it to the point that you know it like the back of your hand but can also perform it in a way that seems like you are for the first time, then you can record it for the use of sending out. Because you tested, evaluated and built this set. It works. It hits hard. There are no lulls. No wasted words. it starts off all guns blazing and doesn’t look back.
Strike Fast. Strike Hard. Strike Often.
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