CCPP with Valerie Lopez & Ellis Aych: Lesson #5 - Heckling and Crowd Work

Heckling: kryptonite or playground?

We're gonna teach you how to set some boundaries and establish some law and order in this bitch!!!

And THEN.........undo everything we just said!!!

Because we all just wanna have fun with a lil bit of crowd work 😉

Heckling is when an audience member shouts out during your set without permission. Whether it's good or bad, it ruins your flow, and it can even ruin a punchline. One you've spent months perfecting. When you're loose, it breeds interaction from the audience if they don't understand you've been perfecting this "conversation" for months. Heckling is the pits! If you're the comic, that stage time is YOUR time. We had to send Ellis to therapy because he has some untreated trauma from past heckling experiences. Don't be THAT audience member. As a comic, you have control to ignore it, engage, shut it down, or anything in between.

Crowd work is almost the opposite of heckling because it's when a comic chooses to engage with the crowd. Maybe the comic simply cannot ignore what's happening in the audience. Or maybe you don't want to do it at all. Do you want to be a Matt Rife? You have to practice and learn how to do crowd work well. Consider crowd work an exercise in mental agility. If it's not your forte, stick to your material. That's ok, too. And be warned, crowd work can sometimes lead to..... heckling! And if you're not careful, you will lose control of your audience. Shoutout to excellent examples of crowd work shows: Standup on the Spot (Jeremiah Watkins) and Surrounded (Mike Falzone). Both of these shows are based in Los Angeles but come through Austin with Moontower Comedy Festival.

Do you ignore (the tried and true Valerie approach), do you engage, do you shame them, or as Ellis says "shut them the eff down"? You are, after all, at a comedy show. You don't want to leave proverbial carnage on the club floor. You want to have a party!! So use what the heckler says to make a joke, but don't make it about the heckler. Valerie suggests not trying crowd work or dealing with hecklers until the after the first year. Watch how the pros do it - Big Jay Oakerson is well-known for his crowd-work. Let your comedy brain develop because if you lose the audience with a haphazard approach, it might be tough to win the audience back before the light comes on that your set needs to wrap up. Participate in shows like Off Script, Arielle Isaac Norman's heckling show. Try mind mapping - starting with one premise and then brain storming related thoughts until you have a tree of possible responses to a single heckle or crowd work idea. You can even practice riffing with the unexpected just hanging out with your comedy friends.