Comedy Career Q & A, Part 4: Develop Your Show

Able: So, it sounds like a lot of what you’re saying is go where you think your people are going to be and see how it lands with them and branch out from there.

Alicia: Yeah, definitely and tell me more about what you think your strengths are?

Able: Let’s see. Well, as a comedy singer I think just finding the truth in different things. Like right now I’m writing a song about how junk mail is the worst because you think you’re popular but it’s really just coupons filling up your mailbox and it’s to the tune of I Want to Dance With Somebody.

Alicia: That’s fabulous.

Able: So, yeah, definitely the writing side is my strength. I write a lot of songs and a lot of slam poetry. I used to do kind of traditional standup comedy with antidotes that ends in a punchline.

Alicia: You’re so Deadpan.

Able: Yeah, I guess. I’ve been called Deadpan before. I think that was Jill’s first read on me when she saw me do improv. She’s just you deliver things in kind of a flat tone, but it ends up being funny. I’m a karaoke superstar, so I think my writing combined with my karaoke presence might translate into something that people might like watching. I haven’t put these songs on stage yet. I’m kind of making a transition storytelling to music instead.

Alicia: Would you be combining both of them when you’re doing music?

Able: Yeah, I feel like I need some lead ins and some Segway and you know I can’t just start singing a song. Maybe I can use my improv skills to have a story as a lead-in and use the story to go into the song.

Alicia: Yeah, it seems to me that that’s an act itself that you would write. Of course there would be improvisational moments, but for you to have a lead-in story and an outra story, those I think would be both beneficial to create a whole sense of an experience with you.

Able: Yeah, I guess with the junk mail thing, I hope it’s not bills, but then it ends up being credit card stuff. This past years I have gotten reimbursement from hospitals for things I didn’t even know. Like who does that? Who gets that kind of mail. I don’t know, just writing really passionate songs about mundane things.

Alicia: Yeah, to me creating a show was the thing that gave me a commodity, rather than a specific thing that people could latch on to and say oh, that’s for me or that could be for me, whereas just having comedy as a generic thing could be really challenging.

So, who is your community? Who are you, yourself? What’s your identity? What’s your personality? What’s your perspective? What are your feelings? Like who are you and what do you care about? Help us care. Help us get to know you and give us a sense of what you care about and what’s important to you and what do you want us to care about and not care about?

Stay tuned for part 5…

Alicia!


Alicia Dattner

Comedian and Creatrix Alicia Dattner is an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning performer who loves to help others use the power of humor to transform their lives and write a new unfolding story for the world.

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