Paul F. Tompkins Quotes

I don't know what Tracy Morgan does onstage, but I can assure you, it's no act.

A lot of my best stuff is just ad libs on stage, and that's one thing that I've gotten back to at the live show.

Stand-up is different from television. In stand-up, you've got to be in control.

I prefer doing TV, where it can be different every time.

I love the stage - the fact that you only have one take to get it right, the interaction with the audience, and how every show is different even though you're doing the same thing.

I come from a much freer kind of performance thing, where I rely on my own improv and my own sense of humor.

I'm used to sort of improvising a lot when I do my comedies.

I come from standup and improv.

There are jokes I know I want to tell, and there's sort of a rough order, but usually I try to change it up every show, to improvise and talk with the audience. I think when you tell jokes, if you're not careful, you can end up telling the whole list of jokes and then that's it. And that can get a little boring.

I do a lot of talking, playing with the audience, but I don't really know what that's going to be. Somebody kind of feeds me cold. He gives me these kind of cold games that I play with the audience or quizzes that I do with them.

When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.

When I do an hour-and-a-half show, if I don't improvise 20 minutes worth of new material each night, I feel I've let myself down.

Those early days of comedy are when you get addicted to it.

I'm a singer and performer in a hybrid show that's standup, music and audience participation.

With a play, for me, there's no time to sit back on it. You're living on your instincts. And every night there are subtle changes and adjustments, because what's in front of you is a living, breathing audience.

Theatre sports is the best improv training period.

No one set that I ever do is the same. I mean, if I go to a comedy club, and I perform three sets, all three sets are different because anything can happen in between sets.

It's a tremendous feeling walking on to a set with a live audience and making them laugh, but I love drama, and I love drama where there's the ability to bring comedy into it because in a lot of tragic circumstances in life there is comedy to be had.

I think a theater show is a pure version of me doing my material. The theater crowd is a bit more polite, there really aren't hecklers, and there are a lot of people there to see me, and they're excited about the jokes and hanging out with me for a show.

It's funny, the hardest thing to do is to make something look like it's fast, loose and improvised, and get somebody to laugh.

Sometimes I know a joke I'm going to yell out ahead of time, but most of the time it's stream of conscious. You never really know it until you've got everyone dressed up, the set is built, all the extras are here.

Improv is mostly what I've studied.

I had never done a roast, but I really wanted to, because it's so different from standup.

My stand-up has a lot of performance in it, and I loved doing it so much that, after years, I put the idea of having a show on the back burner.

Cabaret is a great format. All you have to do is sing and be funny sporadically.