Lance Weiss

Today I am interviewing Lance Weiss, a comedian born in Russellville, KY who has been doing comedy for four years. To find out more about Lance, please visit his website.


Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

When I was in college I was in an improv troupe, and it was really fun. We played this game where we were supposed to go out into the audience and make a really bad pun and the audience was supposed to boo it. I really loved the direct feedback from the audience, and the one-on-one communication with them. After that, I started to go to open mics in the DC area and just went from there. After a while, I got a job as a doorman at the DC Improv, which was great because I was able to see so many great headliners. Then, when I graduated from college, I moved to NYC, where I am still going at it today. Making people laugh is the best. Up until this point in my life, I haven't found anything that is as cool or as fun as comedy. Perhaps if I find it, I wouldn't do comedy any more or as much, but up until this point, this seems to be the most fun.

What do you do when the joke that always worked stops working?

To be honest, this rarely happens to me. I'm not saying I'm "ooh, so amazing, this never happens", but I think it has more to do with the way I write and perform. Usually a joke that works (a tried and tested one) will continue to work for me down the road because I do not write that much topical or political material. I talk more about experiences that have happened to me; therefore, they will always remain true and continue to work into the future. I mean sometimes a joke needs to be re-done a little bit or tweaked to fit who I am today versus who I was in the past, but for the most part, I can take a joke that I did 3 years ago, just adjust a couple things in it, and then it will usually get a nice response. I could see if a comedian was doing a lot of topical jokes, then that may be a problem. For instance, if you talked about how bad the Sony Walkman is - that may not necessarily work because very few people use them anymore and it would be out-dated. Although, personally, to me, anyone talking about a Sony Walkman would actually be hilarious just because it would make me think of the Sony Walkman days. Overall though, most of my jokes either always worked or always bombed. Rarely do they cross paths for me. I try not to tell the ones that bomb anymore.

How do you think stand-up comedy has changed in the last 20 years?

This question is a bit difficult for me to answer since I wasn't doing comedy back then. I can only speak from my own personal experiences over the past few years. I guess its always changing. People are always experimenting with different styles of comedy, and what is hot today probably wont be hot in 5 years. Its just constantly changing, which I think is good because that means its always developing, growing, and getting better. I think in the present moment a lot of it is about talking about personal experiences, and a lot of it is more conversational as opposed to setup...punch. Its not so much like, "hey, here's a joke I wrote, tell me if you like it." I think there is more emphasis on it being more like, "Hey, we're all just hanging out having a good time, and this happened to me." The laughs are coming from a story about weird situations and whatnot. With setup...punch, we know where we are supposed to laugh, but with this new conversational style, I think its more for you as an audience member to just decide what you find funny and what resonates with you. There is also a big alternative comedy scene in NYC which I think right now is much more experimental, where you see some comics who use music, art, video, and sketch in addition to their stand-up, which I think is pretty cool because it also brings out new and exciting styles of comedy which I think is ultimately what keeps stand-up progressing.