We’ve all seen clips of comedians absolutely destroying with crowd work. It’s been a big deal on social for years now. After watching enough of them, I’ve noticed that comedians who are really good at crowd work tend to have their own recognizable schtick. (I say “schtick” in a positive sense here.) Yes, they’re all talking to strangers and creating in real time, but they don’t necessarily approach those interactions the same way.
Phil Hanley, whose stuff I could just watch on repeat, is incredible at crowd work. There are a couple of places I regularly see him go. He’ll playfully interpret an interaction as a woman coming on to him, or he’ll manufacture this ridiculous sense of superiority over the person he’s talking to. And he’s mastered that! Tumua Tuinei frequently plays with recognizable stereotypes, especially white and Pacific Islander ones, and then uses playful mocking to push them somewhere hilarious, usually including roast-driven act-outs. Todd Barry, one of the greatest, is calm, understated, and has a penchant for making anyone or anything seem absolutely foolish.
Chris D’Elia, who I think may be one of the best alive at crowd work (if not “the” best alive), often takes something incredibly small that somebody says or does, twists its meaning, and then keeps exaggerating the new interpretation until it becomes totally absurd. Jeff Arcuri seems driven by genuine curiosity about the person he’s talking to. He’ll discover an interesting word, characteristic, relationship, or piece of information, latch onto it, and start playing with it so that he can share a genuine laugh with that person and everyone else present. Matt Rife often seems genuinely interested in meeting the person, too, but he’s usually looking for an opening that allows the conversation to turn toward playful roasting.
They all have their thing, their schtick. Even so, I see many of the same underlying skills showing up over and over again with each of them. These guys, for instance, are really good at establishing rapport quickly (though their fame certainly gives them a head start because the audience already knows and likes them). They listen closely, notice specifics, reinterpret information, exaggerate, make associations, and remain playful while doing it. They’re also masters of synthesis, taking something from one audience member and connecting it with someone or something else in the room, sometimes several minutes later.
Unfortunately, when we talk about this stuff, we tend to lump it all together under one giant category called “crowd work.” I’ve done that myself, and I’ve certainly heard other comedians talk about getting better at “crowd work” as if they’re describing one specific skill. But I don’t think it is one specific skill. I don’t even think there’s just one “type” of crowd work. I think there are at least three main types of crowd work: Pre-Planned, Semi-Planned, and Un-Planned.
Before getting into those, let me just say that the “type” of crowd work isn’t necessarily the same thing as a comedian’s “style” of crowd work. Hanley’s playful superiority, Tuinei’s use of stereotypes, Barry’s lethal sarcasm, Arcuri’s genuine curiosity, D’Elia’s twisting and exaggerating, and Rife’s playful roasting are choices of “style.” Pre-Planned, Semi-Planned, and Un-Planned describe something different, namely, “types” of crowd work. When I’m talking about “types,” I’m mainly thinking about this question: How much did the comedian know before the interaction started?
1. Pre-Planned Crowd Work: This “type” is probably the safest of the three because the comedian already completely knows or has a pretty good idea where the conversation will go. Comedians who choose this method tend to take a rather common lived experience and use it as a runway leading to their joke. They ask a question about a generic life experience, an audience member gives an answer, and they use the response as a bridge to their prepared material. It looks like an open conversation, but the comedian has really already entered the destination into the GPS.
Now, here’s the thing: That doesn’t make it fake crowd work. Another person is involved, which means something unexpected can always happen. But many of the most common answers have already been anticipated by the comedian so they’ll have some idea of what to do with them. Most importantly with this type of crowd work, the comedian has purposefully designed the interaction so that almost none of their answers can derail the journey toward the joke they’re trying to tell. That’s also what makes this kind of crowd work relatively low-risk. The audience is participating, but the comedian is still controlling the journey and the destination. In short: Pre-Planned Crowd Work plans out the journey and destination ahead of time.
2. Un-Planned Crowd Work: This “type” is almost the complete opposite. With this, the comedian doesn’t know who they’re going to talk to, what they’re going to ask, what they’re going to say, or where the conversation will or will not go. There’s no destination programmed into the GPS because the comedian has no idea where they’re driving to. Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no preparation involved! There pretty much always is.
What I mean is, the comedian still bring structures, techniques, strategies, and years of experience onto the stage with them. They might know how to look for an outlier, get more specific, reinterpret an answer, exaggerate something, make an association, escalate a premise, or synthesize multiple pieces of information. Here the tools are be prepared but the content isn’t. That’s also why this type of crowd work tends toward open-ended questions. And the audience member’s answer will always what happens next, which means the comedian doing this actually has to listen instead of just waiting for their turn to speak. Of the three types, this is probably the highest-risk because it can go anywhere or nowhere.
3. Semi-Planned Crowd Work: I don’t think this “type” is simply a 50/50 mix of the other two. In fact, I think it’s much closer to Un-Planned because, with this the comedian still doesn’t know where the interaction will ultimately go. The difference is that the comedian has done a little scouting beforehand. So, rather than preparing the conversation, they’ve prepared some possibilities. They, for example, might be standing in the wings of the room before they go up and notice a guy wearing an American flag shirt and generate some ideas. That’s exactly what happened during my show last weekend in the clip below.
In this clip, everything “seems” totally spontaneous. But about 15 minutes before I went up, I had scanned the room, saw this guy, and immediately thought of “Captain America” and pledging to the flag. The rest came in the moment. So, it was a mix. I also noticed that night nine people squeezed around one table, giant silver beer tanks beside the crowd, and a garage door directly behind me. I riffed on all those during my performance. But before I went down, to help me remember it all, I jotted down a few ideas. Now, I had no idea what any of those people would say or whether any of those observations would be funny, but I gave myself a few places to begin and went with them.
There can even be a little gamification involved with this. Sometimes, I might challenge myself to talk to three people, connect two unrelated observations, or eventually weave one audience member back into something another person said. Those little challenges create constraints without scripting outcomes. It’s like improv in that way because it has some constraints but is also willing to keep playing when those constraints get blown up. The thing here is: Instead of preparing jokes, the comedian gives their brain some starting blocks. Semi-Planned doesn’t determine the GPS destination but packs up and says, “I’m ready to go.”
I think it’s useful to consider crowd work this way for a few reasons. One is this: Instead of simply wondering whether I’m “good at crowd work,” now I can actually ask what “type” of crowd work I’m actually trying to get better at. And if I were just trying to start out at crowd work, I might begin with Pre-Planned, grow into Semi-Planned, and then grow into Un-Planned. And sometimes during a show, a comedian could totally start with Pre-Planned and suddenly find themselves doing something completely Un-Planned. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. The type of crowd work can change right in the middle of the interaction.
Saying, “I need to work on my crowd work,” is a little like saying, “I need to work on my comedy.” Okay, but what exactly needs work? If I’m practicing Pre-Planned, I can think through likely responses, prepare bridges, and figure out how to move naturally from an audience interaction into my material. If I’m working on Semi-Planned, I can work on observing, generating premises, creating games, listening, and adapting. If I’m practicing Un-Planned, I gotta become comfortable with uncertainty and strengthening my skills of association, specificity, exaggeration, escalation, synthesis, and callbacks. Viewed from this perspective, “practicing crowd work” becomes something much more concrete.
This distinction also takes some of the mystery out of watching great crowd-work comedians. What looks like magical spontaneity is often the product of somebody who has spent years developing repeatable tools. Their words might not be scripted, but their instincts have been trained. But as with most pros at anything, the better they get, the less others can see the machinery underneath what they’re doing. They just make it look natural and easy, like they were born to do it.
The biggest difference between the three types of crowd work isn’t whether they’re spontaneous because all crowd work contains some degree of spontaneity. After all, another human being is involved and, as we all know, they’re able to say anything. The bigger difference is how much uncertainty each comedian’s willing to carry onto the stage. Sometimes, for instance, I know the destination, sometimes I’ve scoped out a few roads worth exploring, and sometimes I grab the mic without a map and see where the audience takes me.
Now, if this kind of breakdown is helpful, I want to invite you to subscribe to my weekly newsletter, so you never miss any of my posts on thoughtful comedy. I regularly write about joke writing, crowd work, performance, persona, mindset, and all the other things I’m learning while pursuing stand-up myself. I’m not interested only in workshopping better jokes; I’m interested in workshopping the comedy and the comedian. Click below, let’s connect, and let me send you my FREE “Joke Blueprint Playbook.”