RichardPryor.com Forums

Hey, I'm 17 and a huge fan of Pryors, hes probably the biggest influence in me wanting to be a stand-up comic. Anyway, I wanted to know, did Rich do a lot of writing when it came ot his material on stage or did he have it all in his head. And if he did write, would he sit down for a while and think of stuff or if he already had an idea would he sit down and work on it? Just curious, Thanks

-Rob

anyone know the answer to this?

Go and listen to a stand up of his called "I just don't give fuck" he explains how he gets his material... Basically yea, he sits at homw and writes his shit and practices it... As you would, how the fuck you expect a man to freestyle a 2 hour show? (Altho Im pretty sure Bill Cosby's famous 24 hour show was some what improvised at least half way through.. LOL..

Thanks. I didnt expect him to improvise his bits i know he didnt, i just like to see how comedians work or record or hold on to their material. Probably since I'm going to be a stand-up comedian.

PryorBruce,
From having listened to and studied hours upon hours of Richard's stand-up gigs over the years, it seems to have been a mixture of prepared material, which he would sometimes hone, fine-tune, and reshape over the course of several years, and improv. Even with the prepared stuff, he would almost never do it exactly the same way twice. And the stuff he would do at clubs like the Comedy Store would feature much more improv than he would do when he'd take it out on the road to the larger venues. Like a lot of comics, he'd try out (or "practice") material in front of small club audiences for weeks/months at a time, get a feel for what worked or didn't work or needed more work ("woodsheding," as Jennifer aptly refers to the process), and then go on tour playing to larger crowds and/or record an album once he felt that he nailed it.

The bottom line is that his material (even the stuff he'd performed for years) was almost never "phoned in," or by-the-numbers. He'd always leave himself enough room to improv within it, and sometimes he'd go off on something that he'd never say again onstage. Part of his professionalism and genius is that, no matter what, he'd always make it sound as if he were rattling the material off the top of his head, whether he was actually doing that or not. He worked very, very hard on his craft, but, like the best of them, made it appear effortless.