Charlie Kasov

Today I am interviewing Charlie Kasov, a comedian born in New York, NY who has been doing comedy for four years. To find out more about Charlie, please visit his website.

Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

My parents used to take me to Caroline's all the time back in the early '90s. When I was 11, I saw Dave Chappelle headline there. He was only 19. It was incredible. He's been my favorite ever since. I've been doing comedy, improv, sketch, and theater-related stuff since I was 13. It was just something my reptilian brain knew it wanted to do. I'm along for the ride.

How has your comedy changed since you first started performing?

I've been trying to sound less influenced, trying to get all the Chappelle, David Cross, and Todd Barry tropes out of my act. I find honest crowd work and riffing has helped me improve and gain my own voice. The other thing I learned since I've been doing stand-up is that I love to travel more than I love comedy. It's the only thing. I was in Israel this winter, and I had a choice to make: try to get up at a comedy club in Tel Aviv, or go visit the ruins at Petra, Jordan. Went to Jordan, got 5 minutes of new material. I realized that if I ever stop experiencing new things, my comedy will immediately go stale.

What you do before a big performance and how do you handle stress?

I don't handle stress. Stress handles me. I am a total tweak. What I like to do before a show has always been an issue for me with comedy. We stand-ups love to bash improv people, as we should, they have an insult gun pointed right back at us, but improv people have more theater professionalism. Putting on a show requires everyone keeping his or her ego in check, but to be a successful stand-up, one's ego must be dominant onstage. That's the paradox that keeps stand-up shows frequently mediocre. Either the performers are brats and phone it in, the booker's a prick who just puts his friends up, or the producer's an idiot and alienates the audience before the show has even started. Sometimes all these things happen on one show. And sometimes all these things are perpetrated by the same person. I need not name names.

I studied a lot of acting, especially voice and movement, and I know that to have good control of my voice and body, it's important for me to do a standard vocal warm-up and stretch a bit to gain some balance. It's very difficult to do that at comedy shows, especially in bar room comedy. But even at clubs, there is no privacy. Even if there is a green room, comics are assholes (including me) and will make fun of someone who is stretching or banging on their chest to clear up their vocal resonators.

The idea of being natural onstage is not just about performing repeatedly until comfortable. To be natural with the hot stage lights, the agoraphobia-inducing theater space, and the hundred eyes focused directly on you, you need to be extra relaxed. Xanax is expensive and dangerous, so that's why I'm so adamant about the vocal warm-up and stretching. Man, I feel like if I ever go to jail, and any prisoner has read this...I'm going to be the first one to be raped.