Need help with your jokes?
What's up r/Standup!
Longtime lurker, first time poster.
My name is Louis Katz. I've been a professional comedian for 25 years. Over the past year, I've expanded beyond writing and performing my own stand up to consulting and directing other comedians' specials.
I consulted on Frankie Quiñones' Hulu special, Sheng Wang's newest Netflix special, and I'm currently consulting on Dan Soder's upcoming Netflix special. I also worked intensively with Bobby Lee on his upcoming Hulu special, which I also directed this past January.
To be clear, these are all extremely funny and talented comedians in their own right, and they certainly don't need any help from me to be hilarious.
But a lot of times even great comedians are too close to their own work to clearly see how their acts can be improved. While the audience's reaction might be telling them a bit isn't really working, I help figure out why it's not working and how to fix it. Often times this consists of making minute changes to individual jokes so they hit harder and land better. But I also take a more holistic approach, moving jokes around to accentuate themes, giving the hour some structure, and improving flow to keep the audience engaged.
Basically, I'm trying to help comedians shape, polish and elevate their material so their hour specials can be something truly special.
Or in other words, I'm trying to be like the Rick Rubin of comedy. Except I'm an actual, working comedian and Rick Rubin can't play music.
So why am I posting about this here?
First of all, just to publicly announce that I'm doing this kind of work now. I'm open to working with different levels of comedians, so please reach out and DM me if you're interested in my services. And second, I want to try creating short form content where I help other comedians with their jokes/bits. So if you have a short 1-3 minute bit you'd like help with that you'd be cool with me re-posting, please dm me the clip!
I'd also like to know what the community in this subreddit thinks about all this in general, both the consulting and the concept for content. So feel free to comment with any questions and/or opinions.