Welcome!

My name's Marielle, I'm a theatre student, and this a blog for an independent study, in which I'll be exploring comedy. But don't worry, there will still be posts after this semester ends. I will be focusing on modern or new comedy, post 1970. This will also include reviews and recaps of comedy shows and movies, possible interviews, and videos of my own stand-up acts (some funny, some bad) and examples of certain types of genre.

Like I said, this is a professional scholarly project, and my professors and peers will be looking at this blog, so keep your comments clean, no spam, no insults, no ads, no creeps, and no trolls. Also, you might notice I have another blog, feel free to read it, but only if you are interested in Japanese giant robot tv shows (yeah, I'm a nerd). But I'll be mostly focusing on this blog for the time being.

Now, you're probably thinking-- why does some chick who's posted a few stand-up acts on youtube, who is not a famous comedian, and who performs mostly in small, amateur venues, and whose youtube videos, some of which are majorly panned, think she knows a lot about comedy. (Just so you know, I don't videotape all of my stand-up acts, based off of the fear of having a bad audience, and looking awkward on youtube, but I have had some really good acts!)

First off, around the age of five, I fell in love with comedy. At age ten I performed my first "stand-up" act, and by stand-up, I mean telling jokes, and a short comedic play I wrote was chosen by Child's Play Theatre, and is now performed nation-wide in other elementary schools. At the age of thirteen I performed my first real stand-up act in stand-up format. In high school, I did stand-up acts in local venues (mainly coffee shops) as part of a city-wide late night program. As well, I started writing sketches and plays and doing improv, discovering I can do more than stand-up. In college, I finally started performing my non-censored, raw stand-up in my dorm's monthly coffee house, and venturing into other formats of comedy. As well, I have written several plays and a few screenplays, most of them comedies.

Also, I watch any TV show that is funny and watch any movie that is funny, dating all the way back to "Some Like It Hot." As well, I watch last comic standing, mainly focusing on the initial try-outs, so I could see what worked and what not worked. I've seen bad stand-up acts, unfunny shows (Full House, anyone?) and I've been in good stand-up acts, and bad one, so I have a lot of personal experience. So, say what you want, but I know comedy.

Sadly, most books about comedy are how-tos, focusing on basic rules (some of which I follow, others I don't), written by a comedian, focusing on their style, written for kids, really old, or that one written by Aristotle, so I hope this will be a reliable source for people interested in comedy. And this will be enjoyable for you to read as well.