Tag Archives: audience

May 12, 2019 · 7:48 am

10 Things You Must Never Do at a Comedy Show

Over the years, I have had the great pleasure of attending many stand-up comedy shows. I have always been a firm believer that laughter is the best medicine and that a good dose of belly laughs can be a welcomed break from the seriousness of the world.

I have been most fortunate in being able to catch a few shows a year, whether they featured major icons of comedy or rising young stars who were able to successfully guide us into taking a step back and have a chuckle at the silliness that surrounds us.

I would even add to the mix certain musical artists who share so many funny stories between sets of music that you aren’t sure whether you saw stand-up comedy with a side order of music or music with a side order of stand-up comedy.

Either way, I am most grateful for the artists who have the knack for telling a funny story and made a few hundred or a few thousand people laugh. It’s an incredible talent and a joy to behold!

To me, the show that will always be remembered most fondly is a Just for Laughs Gala in Montreal hosted by the legendary Joan Rivers, a couple of years before her passing.

But over the years, I have had many eyeball rolling moments at audience members. I often ask myself if they’ve ever been to a comedy show as they seem to break every unwritten rule about attending a comedy show and in some cases, annoying the rest of the audience.

To help set the record straight, here are my suggestions of things you should NEVER do at a comedy show: Continue reading →

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September 30, 2018 · 8:09 am

Cinema through the Eyes of a Writer

This past summer, when most of my television programs wrapped up for the season, I decided to replace my TV time with the simple pleasure of enjoying a big bowl of popcorn and catching up on my movie bucket list.

There have been times over the years when life got in the way of seeing everything I wanted to in the theatre, and I am OK with that. When I missed one, I usually said to myself, “It’s just a movie.”

But more recently, I have picked up a renewed interest not only in that list of missed movies but old classics as well.

At this point in my life, it’s a whole new ball game. In my 50’s, I know I have a greater sense of appreciation for the artistic effort behind any movie. I also bring to the table a greater ability to admire the masterpiece in its intricate detail.

Plus, in looking ahead to my next career as a writer, I have to admit that the appetite is there to go through as many movies as possible to see what common denominators come up that make a movie work. Continue reading →

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October 4, 2015 · 10:55 am

To Prune or Not To Prune?

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES With well over 100 posts on my blog, the result of almost two years of writing, I have recently been contemplating the question as to whether I should prune my blog or not. While I enjoy the sense of accomplishment of that many blog posts (which would equal the word count of a substantial novel), I sometimes wonder if there comes a point when some posts should be deleted.

After a bit of quick research on the web, there seems to be different schools of thought on the subject. At its core, at issue is the delicate balance between the business side and the creative side. On the one hand, bringing in and retaining the audience is an important factor. On the other hand, we have the slow and iterative creative process that sometimes takes a while to gain traction and to fully develop the body of work.

Based on my own experience, it is sometimes through the weaker written pieces that we have to put in some serious sweat equity in order to grow as artists. But weaker in whose eyes?

As I have mentioned before, there are some posts that were fully written in under an hour that achieved great results, whether number of views, likes or comments, while I have toiled for weeks over certain other posts that are important to me that barely registered a blip on the statistics. Either way, I am fine with that, but it just goes to show you do not always know for sure what will resonate with the audience.

Being the typical Libra that I am, weighing pros and cons on almost everything, here is a short list of reasons for and against the idea of pruning the blog.

    10 reasons why I could delete a few posts:

1-By decluttering, favourite blog posts should be easier to find for readers.
2-By keeping the blog on a few selected topics and deleting the ones that are outside those lines, it is easier to pitch the blog to a target audience, rather than trying to attract such a wide audience.
3-It could lead to better curated content. By keeping to a combination of the ones that attracted the most views, the most likes, and the ones I enjoy most, a collection of more popular content could be more inviting to new readers.
4-By achieving a better curated content on a limited number of topics, a better established niche could lead a visitor to read more posts on the same topic.
5-If after retweeting several times, a post does not find an audience, perhaps it is not meant to be and it is time to take it down.
6-If a new reader joins in, Continue reading →

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