Product Description

The sound of one hand clapping may be the performer's worst nightmare. In this engaging and disarmingly frank book, comic Jay Sankey spills the beans, explaining not only how to write and perform stand-up comedy, but how to improve an perfect your work.

This unique insider's look explores the finer points of stand-up comedy, including sources for ideas and writing the jokes; taking the stage, delivery and timing; dealing with nerves; breaking in new material;relating to the audience; marketing and self-promotion; and much more. Sankey enriches the understanding of anyone who is thinking about a career in this profession. Much more than a how-to manual, Zen an the Art of Stand-Up Comedy is the most detailed and comprehensive book on the topic to date. It is an invaluabl reference tool for amateurs and professionals, a thought-provoking look at performance art, and a source of inspiration for anyone seeking artistic growth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124575 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 214 pages

From Library Journal
Toronto-based comedian Sankey may not be a household name, but his how-to book is a worthy complement to Judy Carter's Stand-Up Comedy: The Book (Dell, 1989) and far better than Richard Belzer's slight How To Be a Stand-Up Comic (Citadel, 1992). While Carter offers more specific advice on joke writing to beginners, Sankey provides more depth, musing helpfully on writing, delivery, set structure, and more. He may be right to advise that naturally funny people can learn to do stand-up, but Sankey could say more about the daunting hurdles to latter-day professional success. His Zen references are judiciously sparse, and his conclusion that stand-up comics can learn from Zen about being "in the moment" and staying loose on stage rings true. For strong performing arts collections.?Norman Oder, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Jay Sankey offers aspiring stand-up comics a career's worth of wisdom in Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy. His advice [is] both thought provoking and practical.
–Publishers Weekly, May 1998

Jay Sankey offers aspiring stand-up comics a career's worth of wisdom in Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy. His advice [is] both thought provoking and practical.
–Publishers Weekly, May 1998

Language Notes
Text: English, German (translation)

Customer Reviews

A Great Book for the aspiring and seasoned Standup
This is indeed an excellent read and FULL of great insights about nearly every aspect of Standup comedy (Writing, Performance, Delivery, The Audience, Set development, etc).

The author gives you great insight into both the "Art" and "Science" of standup. You can tell that he has a wealth of experience and shares it in a fun, easy to read kind of way.

I think if an aspiring Standup combines this book with Judy Carter's "The Comedy Bible" they will greatly shorten their learning curve into many aspects of Standup Comedy (of course this will have combined with actually getting up on stage a bunch of times).

That's good larnin'!
This book's humor is a little...erm...Canadian, but the author is an experienced touring headliner and touches on a lot of topics that beginning through intermediate comics could use- solid advice on how to keep writing, keep building, edit material, professionalism, etc. Highly recommend!

Great book but some shortcomings
I found this book to be very thorough in covering most aspects of Stand-up performance, with some very original insights. It was however a very dense read. This was mainly due to so much content being covered in a relatively short space. I think Mr. Sankey needed to maybe give a few more examples/elaborations of the points he was making... not to clarify them, but rather to give the reader a chance to absorb them before proceeding to the next point. Do I recommed this book? DEFINITELY!!! It is a very realistic and ENCOURAGING read, with tons of info. I would have liked to see a bit more depth possibley by way of example AND because of its scope IT NEEDS AN INDEX!!!