If you've been taking improv classes for a while, you know that most improvisers are really warm, nice and funny people. But every once in a while, you get someone in your class you just can't stand. Trust me, you don't want to be that person. Luckily, I've done a lot of thinking about what makes someone an improv pariah. Here are the top six things that will make you the most annoying person in your improv class:

  1. Don't Bathe
    If you want to be the one person who no one wants to do a scene with, make sure to ignore your personal hygiene. Nothing will separate you from the rest of your class more than funky body odor. Literally. The class will just sit farther and farther away from you until you are are alone on the other side of the room. And what will really piss your class off besides the smell -- and that they can't get within three feet of you without wanting to throw up -- is that they can't say anything about this to your face.
  2. Talk About Yourself Constantly
    This is definitely a sure-fire way to be among the most annoying people in your improv class. If you want to do it right, before people in your class even say hi to you, go right into what you are up to, and never give them a chance to interrupt. Tell them the about the YouTube video you and your friend, Sean, just made, the movement class you just signed up for, and the non-union industrial audition you have next week. Be self-important and ignore any signs that they are bored or are trying to get out of the conversation, because you don't care. And make sure to never ask them what they are up to.
  3. Sleep Around
    If you are looking to get a reputation, this is not the kind of reputation you want. And believe me word spreads fast. You want to be known for what you do on stage, not in bed. If you are a guy reading this going "this only applies to woman," chances are you are already doing it, so cut it out right now.
  4. Show up Drunk or High
    Being labeled dangerous in comedy is usually a good thing, except in this case, where you actually a physical danger to the other people in your improv class. If you are already doing this and you think you are getting away with it, you aren’t. No one wants to do a scene with someone who is too drunk to remember what name you gave their character or too stoned to get a callback reference. Students will secretly talk to the teacher after class and let them know that they smell liquor on your breath.
  1. Name Drop
    You’ve got to love this one for the annoyance factor. Every opportunity you get in class, drop the names of improv teachers or established improvisers you “know,” referring to them by first name so it makes sound like you are "really good friends." Think you’re impressing everyone? Eh, not so much. By the third week everybody will want to kill you.
  1. Be aloof
    Another great way to alienate yourself from your improv class is to be the person who is too cool to do improv. Roll your eyes during the warm games and mutter "This is stupid" under your breath. That will establish you as a dick. Make it clear you don't want to be there and that you are obviously above all of this. This will give you classmates plenty to talk about at the bar after class, where they will ask each other the same question: Why is this asshole even taking an improv class?

Summer is here! Get in awesome improv shape with Jimmy Carrane's Art of Slow Comedy 2015 Summer Intensives on July 11-12 and July 25-26. Spots going fast! Register today.

Jay Sukow is a great improviser and teacher here in Chicago. He’s part of the old guard; he’s been improvising, teaching and directing for years. His students worship him, and rightfully so. He is so positive and affirming in his approach that it makes me jealous.

This July, Jay and his wife and two kids are packing up and moving to Los Angeles. That makes him yet another person in the long line of improvisers who has moved from Chicago to LA.

Whenever someone from the Chicago improv scene moves to LA, I feel some sadness and a sense of abandonment. It’s like being held back a grade in school and watching your friends move on. My brain processes their move as a rejection, and I think that I’m not good enough and I’m never going to make it, like a 38-year-old relief pitcher in the minor leagues who knows he’s never getting to the majors.

Moving to LA has always been a goal of mine for all the wrong reasons. I always thought LA equals fame, and fame equals happiness. For years, fame was my higher power. I was obsessed by it. I was convinced that if I ever got some, it would stop me from feeling so shitty about myself. I know it’s shallow and I read way too many tabloids, but that’s what I thought.

Now, I realize I had it all backwards. Fame will never fill that I-am-not-good-enough hole. That is work for me and my licensed therapist.

And after seeing so many of my friends leave Chicago for the greener pastures in LA, I have also slowly realized that moving to LA is no guarantee of fame and fortune. For every person from Chicago who’s “made it” in LA, there are 30 other people who are still struggling. And LA doesn’t a give a shit how high you’ve risen on the comedy food chain somewhere else. Once you enter the city limits, you are starting over.

I have friends who have been regulars on network TV shows or have gotten huge parts in major studio movies and a couple of years later, they are worried about how they are going to pay their rent.

People want to believe that fame is luck, and that just being in the right city will be your ticket to a big break. But the truth is, the people who I’ve known who are famous worked their asses off to get there. People who are famous and successful do it through something called hard-fucking-work.

Today, as a result of the work I’ve been doing in my teaching and with my Improv Nerd podcast, my “need” for fame is less. So much so that it is confusing. I don’t know if I am giving up on my dream or my life is getting better. I am not going to lie to you; yes, I would still love to be famous, live in a beach house in Malibu on the ocean and hang out with my other celebrity friends, but I do realize that having those things won’t solve my problems.

I remember asking Jeff Garlin about fame when he was a guest on Improv Nerd and he said that that fame just magnifies what you already are: If you are a jerk and you get famous, you become a bigger jerk, and if you are a nice person and you become famous, you become a nicer person. So it was clear to me that if anything, my low self-esteem would just get worse, not better, with fame.

So now, with Jay leaving, I’m not as jealous and bitter as I usually would be. In fact, I’m happy for him and I wish him well. This is good news, and I think it means I am getting healthier. And between us, I secretly hope that since if I let go of trying to be famous, maybe it will increase my chances.

Take a trip to Chicago this summer to study with Jimmy Carrane! Spots are still available for his two Summer Intensives: July 11-12 and July 25-26. Sign up today!

How many times have you started a scene by saying, “How are you doing?” or “What are you up to?” If you’ve done that, you know that the scene goes absolutely nowhere. If you have a good teacher, director, or coach, he or she will usually say, "You need to start your scenes in the middle." You may look at them glassy-eyed, not quite understanding the concept or how it applies to your improv. This is very common. Don't panic.

The goal of starting your scenes in the middle is to get into the action that happens after the formalities of "Hi, what's up?" and begin with a strong statement that addresses what's going on in the relationship. More along the lines of: "I can't believe you just asked me out at work." Or: "Your mother found this pot in your bedroom."

I can tell you that I've been saying, "You need to start your scenes in the middle" for so many years that I'm forgetting what it means myself. So I'm writing this blog for the both of us.

Lately, I've seen students in my Art of Slow Comedy improv classes struggle with this issue, and instead of trying to explain this piece of improv theory (which only leads to more confusion), I have found it much more helpful to give them an exercise to practice it. So, I will do the same for you and give you three exercises that'll help you start your scenes in the middle. I've found these exercises to be very simple and effective, and players have a lot of fun doing them.

1. Read Your Partner

Have two players come out and face each other in silence for a couple of seconds. Then ask each player to say what emotion they're getting off the other player. Primary emotions -- such as happy, sad, anger, fear, or a variation of these -- work best.

Once the players have named the emotion, ask them what their relationship is to each other. Then ask them, “What just happened in your relationship?”

The emotions will lead the scene. For instance, if two players say that one looks sad and the other looks afraid, and they determine that they are mother and daughter, they can do a scene where the mother is sad and the daughter is afraid because the mother just found pot in the daughter’s room.

I let the players do this multiple times to build this muscle. For more advanced players, I let them start by naming the emotions, relationship and what just happened, and then go into a scene one line at a time.

2. 60, 45, 30, 15, 10 Second

This is a great exercise that helps players instinctively discover for themselves where the middle of the scene is. Get two players up to do a 60-second, two-person scene. Then they will repeat the scene in 45 seconds, then in 30 seconds, then 15 seconds, and then 10 seconds. By incrementally decreasing the time of the scene, players are forced to get to the meat of the scene quickly.

3. Name Repetition

Two players come out and name each others' characters in the scene. Beth, Fred, Beth, Fred, Beth, Fred… They keep repeating this until one of the players feels that it's time to speak with an opening line. "Fred, I can't believe you showed up for my graduation! I thought you were going to be in Hawaii."

Once the opening line is spoken, one of the players then drops the repetition and goes into the scene. What’s great about this exercise is it helps the players build tension in the scene, which typically leads to a strong opening line.

Do you have any games or exercises that you use to help you start in the middle of a scene? Let us know in the comments. Don't forget to register for one of my two upcoming Summer Intensives if you want to learn more about how to start your scenes in the middle -- spots are filling quickly!

Improv Nerd, the live comedy podcast hosted by Jimmy Carrane, begins its new season this summer, featuring some of the funniest and most well-known improvisers in Chicago. The show will run on Sundays from July 5-26, with a special preview show on June 20. All shows will be held at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave. in Chicago.

This season’s guests include Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich; Second City Mainstage cast members Scott Morehead and Rashawn Nadine Scott; iO Chicago teacher Jeff Griggs; Jorin Gargiulo of the improv group Revolver; and Rush Howell of the improv group 3033!

Also, Carrane will be doing a special interview with Jeff Bouthiette, head of the Second City Training Center’s Music Program, at the all-new Chicago Musical Improv Festival, which will be held Aug. 13-16 at iO Chicago (specific date and time TBA).

In each interview, which is recorded as a podcast, Jimmy talks with an improv icon about his or her creative process and career in comedy. Then laugh along as Jimmy performs a totally unscripted scene with each of his guests and learn how they created the scene in a revealing interview and question-and-answer session.

Since the live show and podcast began in September 2011, Jimmy has released more than 130 episodes with interviews of such guests as Key & Peele, Bob Odenkirk, Broad City, Jeff Garlin, Andy Richter, David Koechner, Rachel Dratch, Tim Meadows, Scott Adsit and others. The show is hosted on FeralAudio.com, a Los Angeles-based podcast collective that hosts shows by comedians such as Matt Dwyer, Chelsea Peretti, Dan Harmon and more.

Don’t miss your chance to see this podcast live!

SHOW DETAILS
All shows at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont, Chicago

June 20 – Katie Rich, 4:30 p.m. (as part of the Women’s Funny Festival)
July 5 – Scott Morehead, 4 p.m.; Jorin Gargiulo, 5 p.m.
July 12 – Shithole’s Kevin Gerrity and Zach Bartz, 5 p.m.
July 19 – Rashawn Nadine Scott, 4 p.m.; Rush Howell, 5 p.m.
July 26 – Jeff Griggs, 5 p.m.

TICKETS:
General admission: $10, $8 for improv students

To purchase tickets, call Stage 773 at 773.327.5252 or purchase online at http://www.stage773.com/

 

This week, social media was a-buzz after Louis C.K. did the monologue during SNL’s final episode of the season. If you haven’t seen it, he talked about every hot-button thing you can think of, from being mildly racist, to Israel and Palestine, to child molesters. Social media went crazy, I mean nuts, especially about the child molesters part. People said the kind of things they like to say on social media, like, "Did he go too far?,” “How irresponsible!,” and “What a moron."

In my opinion, Louis C.K. didn’t go too far at all, and he certainly wasn’t a moron. I found the bit to be funny and well-crafted, and it was clear to me after a second viewing that he knew by the response he was getting from the audience that he was close to edge, or about to fall off it.

He started the routine about growing up in the ’70s and how there was a child molester in his neighborhood that everyone knew about.

If anyone could have been offended by this material, it should have been me. I was molested in the ’70s. I was only 14 years old when I was molested by a junior high history teacher. Being molested is terrible. In matter of minutes, you are robbed of your childhood. It's embarrassing, humiliating and confusing. It’s one of those things that never really goes away. It’s something you have to keep working on, and it’s one of the reasons I’m in group therapy twice a week. Before I got help, it was something that I was filled with a lot of shame about and added to my already dark outlook on life.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t offended by Louis C.K.’s monologue. In fact, I admired him because I thought he was being brave.

Louie took a big risk on many levels, certainly in the subject matter he talked about, and the reaction he got on social media is proof that he pushed many people’s buttons.

But just because you push people’s buttons doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Often, it means that you are putting yourself out there and saying things that other people are too afraid to talk about.

I got into comedy to be liked. But the truth is, if you want to be liked, I am not so sure how you far you can really go in comedy. It’s our job as improvisers, stand ups and actors to comment on the ugly side of life so we all can heal.

Sometimes in my improv classes over the years students have done scenes playing molesters, and if they exaggerate it, it can be uncomfortable, funny and healing. I remember one of my students doing a scene about a guy who was a child molester and he was justifying it because he was a New Age Buddhist, so whenever anyone accused him of doing something wrong, he would justify what he was doing with some spiritual, bullshit reason.

Scenes like this are uncomfortable, sure, but they are important. Are we going to piss some people off? Yes. I’ve often found that people who are the most pissed off are the ones who don’t want to deal with painful shit. Maybe they were molested and don’t even realize it. Because they are not ready to look at it, they get mad at anyone else who does.

But what about the ones who are ready to look at it? Don’t we have a responsibility to them to bring topics like this out into the light? I say yes.

Got summer plans? Take a summer intensive with Jimmy Carrane! It's 8 hours of work packed into two days in Chicago. July 11-12 or July 25-26. Sign up today!

If you’ve ever taken my Art of Slow Comedy improv workshops, you know that they can be charged with emotions, and often participants can be more vulnerable than they have ever been in improv before. Students often get angry, cry, and show all kinds of emotions that they aren’t used to expressing in public.

My goal in my workshops is not to break people down, but to show them that they have the capacity to be well-rounded and believable on stage, making them better actors and better improvisers.

Recently, I taught an improv workshop at the Houston Improv Festival, and a few weeks later, I received an email from Steven Saltsman, the Conservatory Director at the Station Theater in Houston, who took the workshop, asking how he could continuously achieve such raw, emotional scenes in improv without having an external force, such as a game or exercise in a workshop.

This is such a great question and one that I have been getting variations on for years. I think the easiest and most practical way to “consistently achieve” these kind of moments is to find a group of like-minded people who want to play this way, so when a player initiates an emotionally charged scene, the other players aren’t freaked out by his choice.

To go to an emotional or raw place, whether in class or on stage, you need permission to do so. In my workshops, I am giving people permission to show their complete range of emotions. In a group or show situation, the entire group has to “buy in” to the same, specific style of play to make it work. In order to create a group that feels safe enough to do more emotional scenes, you need to develop trust, and often times it takes several rehearsals for players to feel comfortable enough with each other to start getting real.

Another way of doing more emotionally charged scenes is to just add more real moments into the long form show you are already doing. Don’t forget that having a variety of energies in your scenes is an important ingredient in any long form show, and adding some darker scenes is a great way of varying the energy.

Recently, when I was teaching at ColdTowne Theater in Austin, TX, I tried a new approach to having the students experience what it’s like to do a darker, more emotional scene. We did a series of scenes, alternating between grounded and real scenes, which I called “Acting Scenes,” and sillier scenes, which I called “Improv Scenes,” which were similar to the types of scenes the players would normally do at a typical improv show in Austin.

What we found by doing these darker and lighter scenes in succession was that the two different types of scenes began to blend together, and after a while, you could not tell the difference. The Acting Scenes affected the Improv Scenes, and vice versa, giving the form a nice blend of different energies.

Remember, the goal of a good improv show is to make the audience feel as well as laugh, and having the ability to add some more serious, touching moments into your work is a wonderful way to do that.

 

Are you coming to Chicago this July? Want to study with me. Then  check out my award winning Art of Slow Comedy Summer Intensives July 11-12 and Jul 25-26. Register today!

Improvising is about creating something beyond your imagination with the help of other people. It takes humility, it takes courage, it takes faith. We are creating something out of nothing on a regular basis.

And to do it, we have to stop pretending that we know what we are doing and get comfortable in the not knowing.

For improvisers, "I don't know what I am doing" is the starting off point. When you admit that, you can truly be in the moment and you can create something wonderful right away. You can use your not knowing as a guide, as a road map that you are on the right path.

Unfortunately, when you’ve been improvising for a while, you get “good” enough and cocky enough to think you actually do know what we are doing. We learn some tricks that help us fake our improv, and if you are like me, you end up doing the same scenes and characters over and over again. Improv is not spontaneous anymore. It becomes safe and predicable – and that is not a good thing.

I gravitate toward safe, but lately, I’ve been in a lot of situations where I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel like I am finally in the deep end of the pool, and I just remembered I am not a good swimmer; actually, I can barely float.

Lauren and I have been trying to have a baby through fertility treatments and it’s so frustrating that I yelled at our doctor the other day. My dad, whom I have a lot of anger and resentment toward, is dying. He left a message on my voicemail that he now has only six months to live and he wants to resolve things before he goes. On top of that, recently I dropped a friend off in our car and he opened the door on a biker and now I am being sued.

These are all areas in my life where I have never been before and clearly, I don't know what the fuck I am doing.

I feel like one of my students who does a wonderful two-person scene and comes off-stage dizzy and wobbly, seeing stars like a cartoon character who has gotten hit over the head with a giant rubber mallet. The student will embarrassingly say, "I didn't know what I was doing."

Isn't that funny? They have just done their best work, all because they didn’t know what they were doing. They accomplished their mission of creating something beyond their imagination with the help of others, but they had no clue they had succeeded.

I want to be able to accept that being in a place of not knowing is actually a good thing. It’s like I am flying at a higher altitude, and my art (and life) will reach new heights if I can embrace that. It’s part of the evolution of every artist to realize that if you keep stretching and pushing your boundaries, you will hit the place of “I don't know.”

Now all I need to do is have the wiliness to apply this to my life.

Want a boost to your improv this summer? Check out Jimmy Carrane's Art of Slow Comedy Summer Intensives July 11-12 and Jul 25-26. Register today!

I’ve been traveling around the country a lot lately, teaching improv in all different cities. And one thing I’ve noticed in some communities is that improv can feel like gang warfare.

There are theaters that don’t want their students studying or performing at other venues. They are protecting their turf. I get it, they are scared. They think there is only so much money, so many improvisers and so much audience to go around.

That is not true. In fact, if they all work together they would all be better off. I have seen it first-hand.

For years, it was exactly the same story here in Chicago. Luckily, in the past decade or so, things have changed in the Chicago improv community for the better.

When I started out, things were very territorial. You were identified with the place you performed at, and if you wanted to go perform at another theater, you felt shunned and ostracized. When a new theater or group popped up and gained popularity, people became threatened. It was definitely an “us against them” mentality.

I remember some of my friends from iO-Chicago, where I started out, would give me shit for joining The Annoyance Theater, the same way we gave people shit when Second City didn't hire someone from the iO. I didn’t dare hang out with people from ComedySportz because we all felt we were superior.

In a lot of ways, the improv community was segregated.

Slowly, however, things began changing and the walls came crashing down. The size of community could not be contained. The new generation of improvisers moving to Chicago did not care where they were performing. They just wanted to get good at the art form. Thank God for that.

Today, the Chicago improv community is thriving with The Annoyance and iO-Chicago moving to bigger, snazzier spaces and the Second City Training Center expansion coming soon. There are now a slew of smaller storefront theaters – Under the Gun Theater, The Playground, Chemically Imbalanced Comedy, The Den Theater, and Bug House, to name a few -- that provide improvisers more opportunities to perform.

By adding more theaters, you’d think that they would all be competing for the same tiny pool of improvisers, but in fact, the more theaters there are, the more improvisers there seem to be. Imagine that?

This is all possible because of the cross pollination of the theaters and training centers. When people come to Chicago they are expected to take classes at at least three or four places. They get to immerse themselves in the art form. If they don't make a Harold team at one of the big theaters, they have a thriving indie scene where they can create something of their own. If they don't get hired by Second City, they may end up finding a home at The Annoyance. The opportunities are endless.

I am not saying Chicago is perfect by any means. Yes, there still is healthy competition and gossip among the theaters, and there can be some arrogance, but it has improved greatly over the years.

My wish for other cities is that they see that having more improv theaters is better for the community, not worse. That encouraging your students to play and to take classes with everyone will make them better improvisers who will do better shows and hopefully develop a following.

After all, we all embrace the “yes, and…” concept on stage. Why not in our improv communities, as well?

If you want a bigger career in improv you are going to have to network. If you want to climb the improv ladder, you will not be able to able to avoid this step. You are going to have to play the game. You are going to have to schmooze.

If you don't want to, fine. Maybe you think your career is big enough as it is. You can hate me for saying this, but when I hear people who refuse to network, what they are really saying is they are afraid of success. That’s been my experience.

Networking is important because talent is rarely enough to get ahead. Your talent will only take you so far, and the quicker you learn this, the better off you will be.

Ideally, networking should start the first day of your first improv class. You don’t have to whip out your headshots and business card, but you do have to think about building relationships with people and trying to be someone people want to be around and someone who is easy to work with.

When I was coming up in the early ’90s in Chicago we all wanted to be hired by The Second City. We were all told we had to go see the improv sets after the Mainstage shows. We needed to hang out. We needed to get to know Joyce Sloan, who was the producer at the time and who did the hiring. If Second City had a party, you had to find a way to go. You needed people to get to know you. Unfortunately, you can’t get ahead in show business by being anonymous.

When I was at The Annoyance Theater, the only criteria to get cast in a show back then was if you were a nice person. How would we find out if you were a nice person or not? You had to hang out there or go to the bar down the street after a show. If The Annoyance had a party, you had to make sure you got there. I don’t think a lot has changed since.

Networking is simply about building relationships. I have had opportunities fall out of the sky because people I had worked with in the past gave me a job or referred me to people who could hire me. And I have missed as many opportunities as I have gotten because I refused to the play the game.

This doesn’t mean you have to be running for president or buying people drinks at the bar. You just need to show up and be yourself.

Here are my Top 4 Tips to Networking in Improv

  1. Be nice to everyone
    Be nice to everyone -- not just the people who you think are talented. Remember, you never know where people are going to end up. They may become directors, producers or writers -- the kind of people who can actually give you a job someday.
  1. Ask questions
    If you are nervous or afraid to talk to people, remember to try be interested versus interesting. Put your improv skills to good use and listen to others. People love to talk about themselves. It makes them feel good.
  1. Know the players
    Do a little research and know who the Charna's, Mick’s and Ali's are in your theater. It's your job to know who the teachers, directors and producers are, as well as the players on established teams.
  1. Be a person
    There's a time and place for bits. You do not have to prove you are funny all of the time or prove that you are the smartest person in the room about improv. In most social interactions, sincerity and being genuine will go much farther. You have nothing to prove, other than that you are a good person to hang around with.

Want to take your improv to the next level this summer? Sign up for one of Jimmy Carrane's eight-hour, two-day summer intensives. Class will be limited to 14 people for personal attention. July 11-12 or July 25-26. Sign up today!

If you’re an improviser, you’ve probably thought about it: How do I get a writing job on TV?

That, my friends, is a very good question, and the answer is not as simple as you may think. Unlike a regular job where you just send in your resume and cover letter, when you apply for a position as a writer for a TV show, you have to submit a writing packet to show off what you can do.

Since I have yet to write for a TV show, I decided to ask a couple of my friends who have gone on to write for successful shows for a little advice on how to submit a TV writing packet that will really get you noticed.

Here is some of the advice that writers in the industry had about submitting a TV writing packet:

Brian Stack, writer for Conan
"Don’t drive yourself crazy second-guessing what people want to see. Write what you’d want to see yourself if you were watching that show."

Tom Purcell, head writer for The Colbert Report
"Write clearly and concisely as if it is dialogue for the show. Even when pitching an idea, give examples of dialogue. Using objective language when pitching a possible idea often comes off flat. Bring the idea to life with a snippet of script. And always include a shit ton of jokes. I cannot emphasize that enough. Write jokes. In the end, I am much more concerned about a young writer's ability to write jokes off a decent premise than I am with so-so jokes on an awesome premise."

Rich Talarico, writer for Key & Peele
"Write more than you need. So if you need to submit 10 monologue jokes, for example, write 30 or 40. Ten will be good enough to submit. And don’t be too funny in the cover letter. It can be a turn off if you come across as personally wacky."

Brian McCann, former writer for Conan
"Every show has different guidelines for what they would like to see as a writing submission. I think you increase your odds of being considered if you focus on the one show you'd really like to be a part of, and spend the time to truly learn the voices that are used on that show. If you can submit a package that honestly hits the host's tone with some solid jokes, as well as hits the overall tone of the show with some larger pieces (field pieces, correspondent suggestions, guest ideas), your packet will stand out. Keep in mind that at the end of the day, all anyone wants is to see that there is a writer available who can deliver exactly what the show needs on a consistent basis."

Peter Gwinn, former writer for The Colbert Report
"First, make a list of the shows that you would be interested in submitting to if you were someday asked. Then watch those shows, starting right now. When shows ask for packets,
you usually have a week max to write it. So there’s no time to cram lessons on the show’s voice. You need to already be familiar with it.

When you get the packet instructions, read them carefully. Don’t be the guy whose packet is eliminated immediately because you submitted 10 segment scripts when they asked for 10 segment pitches. If you ignored Tip #1 and haven’t been watching the show, and you don’t know what something is that they’re asking for (like a “Tip/Wag” or a “desk bit”), don’t be afraid to ask.

Here are three things not to worry about:

1) Exactly nailing the voice of the show

You need to be in the ballpark (maybe don’t send Fallon your best racist gags), but the head writers don’t want what they already have. They want something familiar, but new. Much better for your packet to nail your voice.

2) Repeating a minor bit that they’ve already done

Follow Tip #1 so you know the Big Famous Bits, and don’t repeat those. But don’t worry about pitching an idea that they did once, four years ago. Probably half the staff doesn’t remember it. (To give some Colbert Report examples: submitting the pitch “Stephen reveals he is a huge Lord of the Rings fan” would be bad, as it would indicate you don’t know a single thing about the show—Stephen liking LOTR came up in like, 80 episodes. But submitting “Stephen creates his own MMORPG video game” would be OK, even though that happened once.)
Script format
Every show has a unique format. As long as your packet looks professional, and the parts that are scripts look like professional scripts, you’re fine. (If you don’t know what a professional script looks like, look that up right now).

Finally, the big one:

3) PROOFREAD YOUR SHIT.

If you’re terrible at spelling and don’t know how to use a comma, get someone else to proofread your shit. But make sure the packet gets proofread. You could have the funniest joke in the history of comedy; if there are three typos in the setup, no one will ever read the punchline."