Claire Parker’s Guide to DIY-ing Your Own Comedy Special

Words: Rob Corsini | Guide: Claire Parker

Make it stand out

You might know Claire Parker as one of the co-hosts of the podcast Good Noticings, formerly known as the Celebrity Memoir Book Club. What you might not know though, is that she’s also a veteran stand-up comedian who has performed in the New York circuit for the past ten years - which is also how she met her podcast co-host, Ashley Hamilton.

Last year, Claire had one mission: to take her decade of experience and produce her very own comedy special - completely independently. After twelve months of preparation, Claire Parker’s 32 was born. Playfully titled with an apostrophe -  as though the year belongs to Claire - the special serves a double function. 

On one hand it’s an amalgamation of everything Claire achieved in one year of work - writing, producing, and even filming the whole special one week before her 33rd birthday. And on the other, it’s a statement of what 32 means to Claire Parker - a time which, for straight women, is filled with questions like: Should I be having a baby? Should I get botox? How would I fare in an apocalypse?

Producing the special was a baptism of fire, one that taught Claire everything you’d need to know about produ. Here’s Claire Parker’s guide to DIY-ing your own comedy special.

Deprogram Your Internal Gatekeeper

Step one to doing anything is letting yourself try. For me, I had to get over the idea that someone needed someone to “let” me do this. I’ve been deprogramming my internal gatekeeper, which is tough because it comes from a place of insecurity AND cockiness. A real double whammy of thinking: if I was good enough wouldn’t somebody come do this for me? But also, I am good enough, so why won’t somebody come do this for me? I had to change my mindset from ‘who is letting me?’ to ‘who is stopping me?’. And you’ll never guess who the answer to question two was … (me.)

Another thing I had to get over was the feeling that I wasn’t up to my own standard yet. I  started looking around at people way more successful and famous than me and realizing: well, their special isn’t up to my standards and that’s not stopping them.I saw a transformative tiktok that said If you’ve ever looked at somebody who's doing something that you think you're better at, you don't respect courage as a talent. Don’t be the person to tell you no.

A Bad Performance is Better Than A Perfect Idea

The most important thing to realise is that you’re never going to be in the perfect position to make something like this happen. In your head, there will always be an endless list of reasons why if things were just a bit different then you could make it work. You’re always going to want your jokes to be tighter, your YouTube to be bigger, etc. But in the end I convinced myself: a bad special is more valuable than a perfect idea. And a lot of people get trapped in that perfect idea space for way too long. Especially in our current self-promotion climate, it’s really on you to create the public image of who you want to be. If you want to be thought of a comedian who shoots specials, you often have to put out the proof of concept before the industry will get on board. They know what they can see, and if you have nothing to show for yourself you’re probably not in the running.

Now, I've learnt so much from doing this special that next time I’ll know more about the technical side, the optimal timeline for planning, and all the other moving pieces that are important for the filming but not the standup itself. Even though I’m shooting myself performing live, the nerves, the pacing, the energy in the room is different and there’s no way to prepare for the medium-change other than work in that medium.

Force Yourself to Get on Stage

I’d been doing stand-up for years and then in the pandemic my podcast took off. I really thought I’d made it and had this mindset of I can't spend 3 more hours in a basement waiting my turn to do 2 minutes to a bunch of my peers on their phones - especially now I have something to show for myself with the podcast.

But then I realised: with my comedy career it had been years of waiting for it to happen, and it clearly hadn’t happened yet. So, I had to eat crow and tell myself, you’re back at the bottom - you have to remind people who you are, show up, and do a good job. For me, the real concrete step I took was starting a new weekly bar show called Flash with Audrey Black and Temi Adeoye. That gave me a clear, consistent place to practice new material. The next thing that I did was go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with my material. It was really like a pre-season boot camp for me

Writing is An Act of Refinement

Some of the jokes that ended up in my special have I’ve been telling for years. I think every comedian has that experience where a joke you’re telling that happened “a few days ago” becomes a few months old, then a few years old, then one day you realize the story about the break up that happened “a few days ago” comes right after a joke about your wedding and suddenly your timeline and set makes no sense. You have to either reframe the joke, or more often than not, kill your darlings.

For new material, I start by sitting down and writing about things that I’m thinking about or that I’m noticing, and then I try to write what I think is a good joke. But then the important part is riffing it out on stage. When you’re on stage and you’ve got that adrenaline from standing in front of a room of people, and you feel the visceral importance of landing on a punchline and a laugh. I’ll  try the premise a few times until I recognize where the laugh is, listen back to my recordings, and then when I have it in a good spot, I write it out physically. Economy of language is really important to me, anything that doesn’t serve the laugh I try to cut, which can be an exercise in ego death more than anything else. 

Find People Who Know More Than You Do

Early on I decided that I was going to do it myself - I wasn’t going to put any stock or energy into shopping this around. I was tight on time and I also was tight on vulnerability. I probably could have tried to pursue a more “industry” route simultaneously, but I don’t think I could’ve stomached the rejections while also building it out myself. It’s like waiting for a text from your crush, and then being enraged that anyone else would text you and get your hopes up. I couldn’t risk being disappointed, so I picked my lane and proceeded wholeheartedly. I watched a lot of specials made by comedians around my level and found out who they used - and eventually went with a friend from my comedy softball team who’s done a great job for other comics.

I gave him a date and he was able to hire the cameraman, sound guys, the production aspect - which was incredible. Hiring people who know more than you is essential. Anybody who has even tried to do a man on the street video will know, it’s not something you want to be figuring out the day of - the minute you decide to go above your phone’s microphone it’s suddenly the hardest thing in the world.Outsourcing is critical, from a technical perspective and then also because you simply cannot be holding your own cameras.

Look For A Space You Feel Comfortable In

I’ve been doing stand up in NYC for over ten years now, so I’m pretty familiar with which venues made the most sense, what I was surprised by was their booking availability. The first-choice venue I reached out to had a 7 month lede time. It ultimately worked for the best, because I ended up at Union Hall, one of my favorite live venues in the city. 

I was worried that it would be too tight on camera, because it’s such a small space. But my friend convinced me that it’s better to have a special where you’re the most comfortable and performing your best over the venue with the most drone shots. Especially for the scale of production I had, it was definitely true. I also worked really hard with my dad to build a custom scaffolding to build out a unique backdrop so my special didn’t look like every stand up clip coming out of Brooklyn. 

Always Leave Them Wanting More

Before the special, I probably had an hour of material. I brought about 45 minutes onto the stage on the day of recording and that got edited down to about 35 minutes in the video. Anytime I thought that it was getting a little boring or if there was any moment that didn’t quite land, I’d chop it.

I really wanted it to be as many jokes per minute as possible. I’d rather cut a good joke than keep a mid one. And even with the good jokes - if the set up felt too long or it felt a bit out of place, I’d get rid of it. I’m a huge believer in leaving them wanting more. Or maybe it’s the self-hating part of me where I’m like: who even wants to be watching comedy? Let’s get them out as quickly as possible.

Fill The Room With Guaranteed Laughs

When I announced that I was filming my special so many people from my past and present reached out to support me. A lot of old friends reached out to say they were excited to buy tickets and come, which is so nice and amazing and I’m very grateful but also no thank you. I wanted to make sure everyone in the room was a comedy-specific fan. I didn’t need anyone from my high school math class showing up to find out I’m not exactly their comedy cup of tea, or good friends but bad laughers to be in the audience. I was very strict about making sure everyone in the audience liked me for one specific reason - that they found me laugh-out-loud funny. Because those laughs are going on record, and a “you were so funny, I was smiling the whole time!” type audience members doesn’t play well on an audio track. 

I was even tough on other comedians who wanted to come hang. It’s pretty standard at a comedy show that other comedy friends come for the hang, to support or hoping to get a few minutes of stage time. Again, I didn’t want anybody but real fans in the audience. I’d rather bomb in front of a thousand audience members than one comedian I know who is going to take it back to the community. To feel my most comfortable on camera, I needed to stack the deck in my favor.