@Zane Dowling That is a great question, Zane! I think it is true but is also a bit of a cop out to say that it depends on the joke. In the good old days of Commedia Dell’Arte, the performers would have what they called their lazzi, or their routines. The old man Pantalone would have one where he would think there was a thief in the house, and have to hide his money before he went to bed. The hungry servant would have a lazzi of catching a fly and eating it. The Inamorati (the lovers) might have one where they keep on imagining each others deaths in worse and worse ways. These were all improvised, but quite polished, and in some of the surviving scenarios, you can see that they punctuated the action. Some of these guys were quite good at it, and had 20 or 30 minutes of potential material, but the ideal is to go on until just before the audience is about to get restless and a little bored. And that’s when you need to change it up. Because you never want the audience to be restless or bored, you want to invite them in, delight them, and leave them delight and wanting more. Knowing when that point is as a performer is a little bit trial and error, and experimentation. From a joke construction perspective, ideally you have a developed bit about some topic, and you develop material about that topic that turns into (over time and practice) a pretty tight polished routine. But there are multiple facets to the routine,and built into them you have a couple of segue moments that can allow you to transition out of that onto another topic if you have more time or if this particular audience is not feeling one of your routines, you might cut that a bit short, and transition early. It also depends also on what kind of jokes you are telling. If you are telling one liners, they should be short and fast, but not all the same rhythm. People will get bored if you do everything in the same rhythm and cadence. Change it up a lot. If you are more into a storytelling style, the story might be 10 minutes long, but with a few meanderings along the way. But you dont want to leave your audience not laughing for too long, so you should have quasi jokes along the way as well, to give them room to laugh, even if you are not at the central punchline of your story yet. I like to think there should be a mini laugh every 20-30 seconds, and hopefully a large laugh once a minute or thereabouts. There are too many exceptions, and yu can find somebody who strung an audience out for 6 minutes without laughing, but they brought them along into their story, and that counts also.

A passel more of people to welcome over the last few days! @John Nicholson , @Eric Decree @Ellie J. @Kevin Ilianxv @Luigy Machaca @Kain Masters . Welcome one and all to our little clown alley, behind the big circus tent. Feel free to make yourself at home, drink a virtual drink. Take a look around, introduce yourself in the START here topic, ask some questions, and feel free to start a topic if you have a question or want to talk about something specifically! Looking forward to getting to know you and figure out how I can help you achieve your comedy goals!

Want to give a welcome to some new members that have joined us! @Cheryl Fiedler @Sylvia Rosat @Santino Collins @Anji Young and @Amica Hunter Welcome to the tribe! It’s still a little quiet in here, but we welcome your questions, answers, and everything in between. Please introduce yourself in the START HERE topic!

It was fun. And no, you dońt have to be a member. I think the link should work. https://kafclown.short.gy/clownversation

@David Smith Awesome! Where is your Ren Faire? I used to work a ren faire in Rhode Island called The Cumberland Faire, which was primarily about stage combat and had an interconnected story that appeared on a number of stages, and ended with a giant stage combat chess match! Hasn’t existed since the mid 90s, but it was great fun. And I have friends and colleagues working the ren faire circuit..

@John Nicholson welcome John! I curate comedy everyday and write about comedy on instagram at http://www.instagram.com/kafclown. That might be a good place to start. I am late in getting some courses and resources up here.

At least one other member made it over! I saw @Jack Rehfuß in one of the workshops!