Working with church volunteers in a drama ministry is always fun. Comedies are the most fun of all! Here are some ideas I've found make comedy pieces play better.
Finding comfort in an awkward circumstance. Right out of the gate, the audience has to feel comfortable with the actors performing the comedy. The actor (again, I'm fighting the gender-correctness tide by using "actor" and "he/his" to mean "actress" and "she/her" as well. I mean no disrespect to actresses or females in general, just trying to keep things moving!) must be self composed and confident. You'll lose the audience if they sense that the actor is struggling. The secret to composure is preparedness, which translates to rehearse rehearse rehearse.
Taking the words to heart. I push my actors really hard on memorizing their lines. To me, getting those lines in the head and the heart is job number one. I set up a six week rehearsal schedule for my church sketches (it sounds long, but we only meet for 1.5 hours a week). My guys have to get their lines memorized by the end of the second rehearsal. Why so tough? By the time we get to the fourth rehearsal, I want those lines to be second nature to them. The lines need to come out without thought. They can't do that until they've memorized them and rehearsed rehearsed rehearsed them without a script in hand. You'll see a good performance from an actor when he absolutely believes what he's saying. He just can't do that with a script still drifting in his mind.
The other reason I push memorization so hard is that I want the actors to take ownership of their words. New actors tend to simply memorize the words and fake the actions. The more they rehearse the scenes, however, the more meaning the words have for them. As the meaning comes in, the acting gets better, and the audience goes home happy.
What is in a word? As an actor, I'm a big believer in paraphrasing. "Let me say this in my own words." As a director, you have to be very careful to manage paraphrasing in comedy. Don't forget that most comedies are word plays. The author sets words and phrases in a specific order to capitalize on a laugh. Watch a good sitcom and you'll see how the lines are set up. Make sure your actors don't personalize the humor out of a moment!
Timing really is everything. Nothing will kill a comedy faster than a slow pace. Nobody pauses between speakers in real life. You say "how ya doin'' and I say "fine, thanks. You?" and you say "I could be better" just that fast. That's how your comedy should be; click-click-click-click. When you get your audience to the point where they want to laugh with you, they don't want to think any more. They just want to laugh. Pauses in the pacing gives them time to think, and they stop laughing. Close those gaps in the dialog. How? Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
That being said, obviously, there will be dramatic pauses that you'll want to play, and that's fine. Don't be afraid to build tension by making the audience wait for something to happen every now and again. Sometimes waiting is the most fun! But...not for an actor to answer his cue!
A comedy is like a good roller coaster ride. There are pauses while you build up to something really big. Then the big moment comes, and it's hit-hit-hit-hit and then you pause for a moment to build to the next one, and it's hit-hit-hit again. A good roller coaster ride leaves you feeling dizzy and out of breath. Your audience should be out of breath from laughing. The roller coaster comes to a stop shortly after the last big hit, so that you're still reeling as you step off the train. That's how your comedy should be, too. You manage all of that through your timing for the actors. Tighten their cues so that they almost step on one another, especially in the funnier moments.
You do have to pause, however, for laughs. If you run over a laugh, you train the audience to stop laughing so that they can hear the next line. "It was so funny I could hardly keep from laughing out loud!" is not something you want to hear!
Here's how it works: a laugh is like a wave. It starts with a kind of murmur, builds up to an out loud laugh, and then murmurs down again. If the audience starts laughing at something an actor says, have him wait until the out loud laugh begins to murmur down, and then have him continue. If he says the next line during the build-up murmur, the audience will miss it because they're laughing out loud, and will NOT laugh out loud next time because they know they'll miss something. If the actor waits until after the let-out murmur subsides, your timing will d-r-a-g and your audience will wonder what's going on and won't laugh so hard next time, either. Laughing is contagious, and you want to keep it rolling.
Don't be afraid to laugh out loud at the funny parts in rehearsal. The actors need to hear it; it helps them know what's funny, and it helps build their confidence.
Don't get jaded. I have to be careful to keep from hitting this wall. When you first read through a piece, it's a scream. But, five weeks later, the jokes are stale. Yeah, yeah, funny. Fight that tendency to punch up jokes to keep them funny. Watch Disney's movie "Chicken Little" to see an example of punched up jokes. The premise is good, but it seems like somewhere somebody decided they couldn't trust the humor in the film, and "spiced up" the production with extra dialog and jokes. Be careful! If it was a scream to you on the first read through, trust that the audience will think so, too.
Be careful, too, that your actors don't telegraph jokes. Sometimes they'll put their hand over here so that when the other guy comes in he can wave and it will be real funny. It's real funny, except that the audience will wonder why his hand is over there, and when the guy comes in the wave will seem unnatural and the joke will flop. That's called telegraphing a joke, and you have to make sure your actors don't fall for it!
Finally, have fun with your comedy. Sure, directing it can be stressful. Sure, it takes diligence on your part to keep it funny. But, hey, you're working with a whole bunch of people with the sole intention of making other people laugh. How cool is that? Relax. It'll be great!
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