OK, so technically we're half way through day 4 of youth comedy camp at the Great American Comedy Festival. I'll talk about yesterday's happenings though, and leave today's for a post for later tonight!
Again, I am in AWE of the talented kids who are attending the camp. Amazing! Simply amazing!
Stand up class started with an explanation of riffing - where a comedian talks with the audience. I found it interesting how quickly the students were able to come up with funny responses on the spot. The other students gave false names and made up jobs and location of residence so the comedian could interact with the audience. I heard some very good stuff!!
If you attend the events at Johnny Carson Theater at night, the folks from Reader's Digest have a joke booth there. You enter the booth and record your joke. The grand prize winner wins a trip to New York City. I've been practicing my joke that I plan to record tonight. The students have been coming up with their own jokes and have recorded their one-liners.
The Reader's Digest group visited camp yesterday. They even provided some audience participation. We certainly appreciate the assistance they offered!
During improv, the students worked on the structures they will be using in Saturday night's Youth Comedy Showcase. They definitely have a group mindset! My favorite to watch yesterday was the group story when each student was given an emotion. Then, each portion of the story they told had to use that emotion through the language. Wow! I heard some pretty creative stories about a vacation in Florida.
Sketch comedy and sketch writing finalized scripts and assigned parts for the showcase. Then, it was off to memorize lines in time for Thursday's class.
As a surprise - or actually more like a break from rehearsing - we attended the second semi-final section. Very impressive. Six outstanding comics from across the country performed and the top two advance to Friday's finals. Listening to the students on the way back to the dorm was interesting. Some agreed with the judges' decision; others felt there were other comedians who were better. But, the judging criteria was listed in the program, and we talked about perspective and how to decide how the audience reaction plays into the decision.
More practicing and fine-tuning stand up routines, and then, finally, lights out!
Whew!
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