YOUR BODY, YOUR COMEDY TEMPLE

If you are not current-mainstream-society's-definition-of-physically-perfect, you are in luck: you have a body built for comedy. And the further you are from current-mainstream-society's-definition-of-physically-perfect, the more ideal your body is for comedy. You may receive nothing but negative messages about your body from those people and institutions who subscribe to current-mainstream-society's-definition-of-physically-perfect (or, fuck it, C.M.S.D.O.P.P. from now on), and that sucks, but once you're on a comedy stage, you will wipe the floor with everyone if you know how to use what you got.

Love your body, if for nothing else than its comic potential. But seriously, love it because it's yours, and it's the only one you'll ever get. If you loving your body is difficult for you, there are other blogs devoted to this. Go to one of those, and come back here once you've made some headway. Loving your body is crucial to your performance work, and fuck, to being human.

Back? Okay, good. So whatever your body is, you love it, because it belongs to you, and because you suspect that it will get you laughs if you know how to use it right. And you are 1000% correct about that.

If you have a body that looks like it does not exert itself much, guess what? Remember that anything that feels like a special, rare thing, an audience will cherish. So if you look like a bit of a couch-lover, but you are onstage dancing a tango or crawling like a tiger across the floor, you will quickly, quickly receive a lot of audience adoration. You will receive it way quicker than a yogi or an acrobat will. The audience expects the yogi and the acrobat to do physical things; they are not expecting that from you. Surprise those fuckers and win their love.

Also make sure to accentuate your body with your costume. A costume that reveals the contours of your body is generally a good idea, especially if you are not C.M.S.D.O.P.P. We'll talk more about what to wear later. 

But oh no! What if you are C.M.S.D.O.P.P.? What should you do with that idealized form of yours? Well, for starters, you better be ready to do your yoga and your acrobatics, if need be. And you also need to exploit whatever so-called "bodily imperfections" you do have. The good news is that C.M.S.D.O.P.P. really applies to like 2 people total. So chances are there is something about your body that is not, as they say in the trades, strictly ballroom. You're too skinny, you have a big beard, your knees look weird... there's gotta be something, Cindy Crawford! And/or this could be where some strategic padding or posture-adjustment could come in handy. We'll talk about that stuff later.

Your goal is to get a laugh the moment the audience sees you. There are so many ways your body can accomplish this. Choose yours.