Stage Timing Quotes

Sometimes an actor will stumble on the joke, and I'm right on them. Back it up before the audience hears the bad version of the joke, because humor is 90% surprise. If they know what's coming, they won't laugh as hard.

Some people do specials, like, when they've only been doing comedy for three years or something. Which is fine! But I'm kind of old fashioned, and I knew that I didn't want to do one too early.

The audience goes to sleep really quickly! If you have a slight pause at the wrong time, that's it!

A soprano in Massenet's Don Quixote complained that she had missed her entry in the aria, "because Mr. Challiapin always dies too soon." "Madam, you must be profoundly in error," said Sir Thomas, "No operatic star has yet died half soon enough for me."

Being a dancer and a singer gave me some advantage with regards to having a stage presence. I always take my timing from the audience because they are half of my act.

I've spent years on stage adjusting the timing of a line to infinitesimal degrees.

[George Carlin] was obsessive about time; he was obsessive compulsive about his material and making things shorter and more perfect. He did an HBO hour every other year. It's live; you have to be off-stage at 55 minutes. It's a network; you've got to be off. And it's perfect.

If I'm at home for the weekend - and that is almost never - I tend to get twitchy at about eight o'clock in the evening because my body clock is timed to go on stage. I don't know what to do with myself.

When you're doing comedy constantly, you're organized: you know where everything is, you know how to get out of it, you know how to stretch it. But, like, doing 'SNL,' I stopped doing spots, and then I would finally do some sets - it take me so long to, kind of, get in the rhythm of it.

Almost every play is 10, 15 minutes too long.