The Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop on Clubhouse — Thought for Your Penny
The Laugh Factory is one of the most iconic comedy clubs in the world. Now a chain, the original Hollywood, California club was opened by Jamie Masada in 1979 with a maximum capacity of 300 people. Iconic comedians like Dave Chapelle, Wanda Sykes, Rodney Dangerfield, George Lopez, Redd Foxx, and Bob Hope have all performed at the club.
Masada is a legend in the comedy world and working comics are lending a hand to bring his brand and comedy club atmosphere to Clubhouse.
And they’re doing an amazing job at it — I only barely scratched the surface of the Clubhouse comedy scene last month with Leah Lamarr. Although a working-class comic herself, Lamarr’s growing 6-figure following makes her a virtual late night host. Her Hot on the Mic club regularly surpasses 300-person crowds, giving comedians exposure to a broad audience sometimes over 1000.
She’s the most visible comedian and among the most popular users on the platform. Her rooms are always packed with hundreds to thousands of people, even with room attendance slowing. Translating this popularity off platform is the obstacle every Clubhouse creator needs to overcome.
Meanwhile, the on-platform comedy scene is thriving and includes (nearly) every step you need to walk in the career of a comedian. The Laugh Factory is the first brand I’ve seen so far successfully translate its brand onto Clubhouse.
It’s not the actual comedy club that’s succeeding so well though; it’s the brand’s second club. The Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop is the place where all the real behind-the-scenes work is done. This is where both wannabe and veteran comics perfect their craft.
Don’t think you’re going to get away with pulling some hack job here. Mods like Corinne Irizarry, Manu Maciel, and Charlie Talbert have been in the game a long time. They are experts who’ve heard every joke in every book and seen behind every corner of the comedy circuit.
While I’ve never done stand-up on stage, they gave me a few chances to try my hand at the virtual experience. Let’s break down what it takes to hone your skills and become a Clubhouse comedian.
Cold on the Mic
Writing gives me a safe distance of time and space from my audience. By the time you read this, I’m probably asleep. I can bounce from laughs to encyclopedic knowledge and personal storytelling within a blog, but there’s no direct interaction. Even when people come at me in the comments or social media, it’s well after the fact of me expressing the words.
Stand-up comedy is a whole other ballgame though.
Your job is to make people laugh, and if you don’t give them what they expect, the response can be brutal. I’ve never bombed on stage, but I’ve definitely failed to make people laugh at something I thought was funny in real life. That’s one of the reasons I show up to Lamarr’s Afternoon Delight Comedy Show as often as I can to support them with my infectious stoner giggles.
Comedy is an art form, and there are 10,000 hours of grind behind every 30-minute special on services like HBO, Comedy Central, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. Nobody is perfectly funny right out the gate — a lot of people bomb, and open mic nights are the place to work out who you truly are as a performer. Being professionally funny isn’t something that happens in the spur of the moment.
A comic’s life is like that of any other starving artist filled with rejection, and some people even travel the country (and world) to do it. Music and comedy are my favorite forms of entertainment, and my work is heavily influenced by both. The closest experience I have to workshopping a comedy bit is publishing an article on Cracked.
I’m an introvert by nature, but I dove into a whole other world by shining a spotlight on Lamarr’s Clubhouse grind. The CH comedy mafia responded by inviting me into the fold and making me feel welcome, which comes at a price.
By showing them that I understand comedy, I was invited to tell a funny story in their Overheard club. It was a nerve-wracking experience, and I’m socially awkward. The first time Lamarr pulled me on stage and asked me to tell her a story, I was so nervous I spit it out rapid fire. Unsure where the line of funny truly is, I only knew to tap into some of the bizarre drug experiences I had.
I told her the story of the cocaine dealer I dated and how we broke up over my inability to make crack. But having not told the story to anybody and knowing it contains some stigmatizing material, I couldn’t overcome the racing thoughts and just be a normal person. Instead, I told the story like I was on crack.
Embarrassing as my performance was, Lamarr turned it into a great moment that encouraged me to dig further in. I’m determined to hone my crack story into comedy gold.
I’m not a comic — I’m just a regular guy who makes bad decisions. By leaning into my insecurities, I pushed through and told the story. But I know that’s not enough to be a stand-up comic, and that’s when I went into the Laugh Factory’s Comedy Workshop.
Ironing Out the Kinks
Having never been to the physical Laugh Factory, it’s difficult for me to differentiate between who’s real. Everybody thinks they’re funny just like everyone thinks they’re a writer. If you’re not directly involved with boots on the ground in the business, you wouldn’t know who’s a professional comedian and who’s a normal person being funny as a hobby.
The official Laugh Factory Clubhouse club doesn’t get the draw Lamarr’s stage does, and much of their staff simply ignored the golden opportunity. She has an early-lead advantage, and there’s a huge comedy scene on the app now. Trying to make a splash isn’t easy, as every club on the platform struggles with numbers.
But Corinne Irizarry saw a necessary lane and expanded on a use case that built the brand through the Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop.
Like me, everybody thinks they’re funny. Jokes don’t always land though, and you can waste a lot of time even when you have a funny story. You don’t start out with an hour-long standup special. You don’t even start out opening for anybody.
Every comic has to start at the bottom, and that means grinding your way through a grueling learning process. Before you’re ever ready to hit a stage, real or virtual, you need practice and guidance. That’s what Irizarry brings to Clubhouse.
The pandemic didn’t just shut down venues comedians can work at. It also shut down their training facilities. Irizarry spends day after day hosting comedy workshops with veteran comics who understand what’s funny. They’re capable of taking a rough bit and refining it down to every individual word that needs to be said to create comedy gold.
I sat in on multiple rooms over the course of several weeks to understand the lay of the land. Irizzary was immediately welcoming and brought me on stage. At any point, I could’ve participated by either laughing or trying to make others laugh, but what I did initially was shut up.
Like I mentioned before, I’m a fan of both music and comedy. The idea of being Cameron Crowe in a comedy-based Almost Famous was too enticing. What I really want to do is immortalize these people the same way. I’m more comfortable behind my laptop, but I’ve been a fan of comedy since I was a kid.
Spending time writing about comedians and getting to know them as people is an experience I would’ve died for as a kid. But I’m a bit more on the fence about being a comedian myself.
However, listening to comics work out their material is a great experience. It’s a craft that doesn’t come easy, and the advice Irizarry, Maciel, and Talbert give is invaluable. After being immersed in just the tip of it virtually, I can instantly see the value and wake up excited to take part in more.
With all the drama on Clubhouse, professional comedians are essential workers. And thanks to the work of Irizarry and a handful of other comedians, you can get involved too.
Becoming a Crack Clubhouse Comic
For just $5 a day, you can support your favorite Clubhouse comic, but I encourage you to go further. What Irizarry and her crew built is a vertically integrated, one-stop comedy workshop. It’s not easy — they’re professionals who expect the same level of professionalism from their students.
Becoming a comic is a humbling experience and requires knowledge of multiple disciplines. The Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop holds daily rooms that span each discipline to help you target the exact comedy styles you want to perfect.
At noon and 9:00 PM Pacific Time, the crew holds two-hour open workout rooms for any comedian to try their material. It also has an Open Mic competition every Wednesday, but there’s a lot of work to do before then.
Monday at 5:00 PM is a crowd work class. Clean Comedy is the focus of Tuesday’s 5:00 PM room, and Beginner Joke Writing is Wednesdays at 3:00 PM. Improv and Sketch comedy is Thursday at 3:00 PM and LGTBQIA+ Comedy is the focus of Saturday’s 2:00 PM room. Sunday nights are roast nights at 3:00 PM.
In each workshop, you’ll be performing in front of a crowd of comics. Everybody is welcome to offer constructive criticism, and anyone is welcome to participate. It sounds easier than it is — my first shot participating in a roast room last week was painfully awkward as I struggled to think of anything to say, much less read the room.
That’s when I overcame my nervousness and presented Irizarry and Talbert with the same crack story I told Lamarr. Making note of their advice, I realized I needed to pull out all the unnecessary information to dissect just the funny parts and pull out the punchlines. I need to set it up into small bites of setup-punchline all the way through to keep their attention.
“Punch it up,” Talbert said in comedy terms.
I’m still working on how to do that. But as I sit and listen to today’s Jokes 101 Structure/Writing workshop, I’m both writing this blog post and working out where the punchlines are in the story. The premise is that I suck at making crack even more than I suck at telling jokes.
But I’m smart enough to know that Clubhouse workshops alone won’t make me funny, no matter how many I attend. So, I bought Judy Carter’s New Comedy Bible and Comedy Bible Workbook on Amazon. I’m taking the time and putting in the work to really dissect all the hard, weird, scary, and stupid aspects of my story to transform it into jokes.
Although Irizarry gave everyone in the roast room a big hand (pun absolutely intended), I know I have a lot of homework to do before I’m ready to perform for her again.
Never one to come to class unprepared, this app converted me from a student of comedy into an aspiring participant. I may never perform on an IRL stage, but I’m going to prepare as though it’s a real possibility. Because thanks to Irizarry and the Laugh Factory crew, that is a real possibility for anybody on Clubhouse.
Final Thoughts
I’m still not a comedian. Thanks to people like Irizarry, Henry Kaiser, Talie Perry, Fizaa Dosani, and all the rest, I’m closer than I’ve ever been though. Typically, I would wait until I complete a course before reviewing it, but in this case I’m doing my review at the beginning of my journey.
On step one of what’s sure to be a long ride, I’m more interested in having the community join me. We could all stand to work on our sense of humor.
The beauty of Clubhouse is that it’s better I don’t wait until it’s over to ask you to join the conversation. I invite everybody to join me in taking advantage of an opportunity you can’t find on any other platform.
I could barely afford the gas to drive out to all the comedy clubs and get to know the regulars. As much comedy as I consumed over my lifetime, it’s never a career path I ever considered. But I respect the grind and am impressed with what these comedians built already.
As this platform grows and creators earn enough money, Clubhouse will create even more exciting content than what’s already here. It’s all thanks to the grind that Lamarr, Irizarry, and other comics put in this year. And by slowly getting to know them all and immortalizing them on the internet, I’m getting my Almost Famous moment.
The more time I spend immersed in Clubhouse’s comedy scene, the more I understand it.
What makes Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop so great as a club is that it goes beyond conversation. Every person on that stage is thinking about every word they’re saying. It’s not a place to hang out and do nothing — it’s a productive place to refine your job skills.
Every professional comedian works hard. Most people give up and never put in the work it takes to become great. But there are a lot of great comedians on Clubhouse.
Step into the most effective comedy workshop on Clubhouse to get an education you can’t get anywhere else. These comics provide a master class in comedy, and it’s for the love of the game, not the money. You’ll need 7 degrees from the Laugh Factory Comedy Workshop if you want to get Hot on the Mic.
There’s no better time to start than now.
Final Grade: A+
Originally published at http://thoughtforyourpenny.com on May 30, 2021.