The Stand-Up Workshop

I love taking workshops with Cary Odes. He’s smart, nurturing and most importantly, knows comedy. He can help you develop material, punch-​up jokes, or just inspire you on your comedy journey. He’s a great asset to both new and more experienced comedians — I definitely recommend!

You will learn more from this class than you will doing open mics for a year. Cary is a phenomenal teacher who really cares about his students. Met some amazing people in the class and had an overall great experience!

I contacted Cary about taking his class after it’d already started and when I decided I still wanted to join he was more than accommodating to catch me up to speed one on one via phone. His enthusiasm and teaching techniques are undeniable and get results. Every single class you tackle whatever personal fear or roadblock you have and you get up, get behind a mic, and do your set or whatever you have prepared. As the class progresses he helps you tighten your act with constructive feedback and often helps with phrasing and creation of new jokes just for you. If you want to do comedy as a career, or just have an itch that you want to scratch, I highly recommend him and his class. Cary is right about everything.

Cary is the best! If you want to learn stand up, he is the one. I am French, scared to death by public speaking and had never done theater, improve or anything involving me a stage before. I was starting from scratch, in a foreign language… In only 7 weeks, Cary managed to give me confidence, great advice and a nice tool box to write and perform a short sketch with a mic, in front of a real audience. And not only I managed to do a funny (oui oui !) 5 minutes gig but I enjoyed it!
Thank you so much Cary, you changed my life!

I’ve taken a lot of classes and Cary is the best. He knows exactly your strengths and weaknesses and how to work with them and make you the funniest you can be. He can pinpoint the exact problem with your joke. AND AND more importantly he’s not an asshole. He is supportive and kind and is genuinely a great and funny guy.

Cary is an amazing teacher! Seriously, this class is the best.
Cary takes the time to understand what is funny about you and your unique experiences and helps you build a 5 – 7 minute set by the end of his eight week course. You get feedback from Cary and your classmates along the way and then get to perform in front of a paying audience at the Hollywood Improv. So cool!
I truthfully did this class on a whim, and I’m so glad I did. I had an amazing time, learned so much about writing jokes, and became much more interested in stand-​up in the process. I feel totally comfortable reaching out to Cary for any questions or advice I may need from here on out. He’s a great teacher and human being. Glad to have been referred to his class! Thanks Cary!

Cary is truly dedicated to helping his students to develop outstanding comic talent. He’s an experienced professional as well as engaging comic. He has a rare gift for helping teaching comedy that is truly extraordinary. If you want to learn standup Comedy, take Cary’s class.
Class involves developing a personalized standup comedy routine, practicing with lots of help from Cary and then performing at the Hollywood Improv after 8 weeks. Sample routines from my class included the students discussing their experiences being French in America, being a mechanic, Heing a single girl, surviving pstd (really funny) and being blind (hilarious). It was a great educational experience that helped all participants grow their comedy skills and grow as people.

Wow. I really feel like working with Cary helped me see comedy in a whole new light! I have done stand up before, never been so successful in REACHING the audience. I felt confident and capable during my performance.
Cary was accommodating and helpful the entire time. He took special care to look after my progress even when I was dealing with a lot with work and on a personal level. He truly is a great man and a caring individual — but he won’t fret to tell you to put your chin up and keep working!
Loved the class and my classmates, was a genuinely uplifting environment! I would definitely take his class again and recommend it to anyone looking to venture into stand up!
THANKS CARY!!! :)

I’ve taken this class three times and each time I’ve come up with a fresh five minutes that everyone I perform for has enjoyed. I’ve seen Cary help every kind of comic from the squeaky clean to the downright filthy. On the first day of class, he explains a very practical structure for joke telling that anyone can use and then each week will help you develop your bits into a cohesive act. If you’re already an experienced comic and simply need help working on a piece of material, I recommend booking a one-​on-​one private with Cary. He’s a guy I’ll be going back to time and again when I get stuck.

Cary told us we would all be doing stand up and loving it by the end of the class cycle and I did not believe. him. He completely delivered. He guided us through the whole process and the result was a very funny magical night with everyone succeeding beautifully. If you want to try stand up he will make sure you do not fail! A gifted teacher!

Cary is a fantastic teacher and an amazing comedian, and I highly recommend taking his class! He is hilarious, smart, encouraging, and genuinely cares about each student’s progress and success. The class is a very supportive, fun environment, and each student receives very detailed, individual attention. I’ve taken this class twice and will be taking it again!

Cary is an excellent teacher and an incredible comedian! I’ve taken this class twice and it just gets better and more fun. He takes his teaching seriously, well you know what I mean, and he helped me write/​create sets that I didn’t think I could do.
Icing on the cake — Performing at the Hollywood Improv.
Rhory

I can’t say enough great things about this workshop and Cary as a teacher. He’s patient, encouraging, and has a knack for really getting to know and understanding an individual’s sense of humour. Whether you’re a newbie to comedy who is just wanting to try out stand up for fun or a seasoned professional looking to polish a new set… this is a great workshop. I highly recommend it.

The Short: The Standup Workshop provided an incredibly safe and nurturing environment, taught by a successful, intelligent, and always accessible comic, Cary Odes. Cary will absorb your many fears and self destructive complaints, with a kind and knowing smile, and tend to each person’s unique needs and abilities, until they have a fully formed and realized set, to perform on stage.
You will leave his class with not only a full recorded act, that you get to perform at one of the world’s most renowned venues, but a whole new group of friends to support you in your new endeavours. Do it. You will find confidence in yourself and your abilities, that you never knew you were capable of.
The Long: In only 7 weeks, you are stood on the stage at the Hollywood Improv with what feels like the entire world hanging on every syllable that spills from your mouth. Time stops, your stomach turns, and your tongue feels like you’ve been licking the tarmac at LAX, on a particularly blistering afternoon.
Having done it, I can say that I know of nothing more terrifying in the civilized world than the first time you address a room full of strangers, with the sole intention of making them laugh. You look down at a sea of expectant faces, it feels like the words may never come, and even if they did, they will be as horrible as all of your worst nightmares combined.
Then you open your mouth, mumble the first few lines of your act, and a few brief moments/​eternities pass, and then just as you are about to dive head first into the conveniently placed grand piano, a nice elderly couple in the front giggles, a frat bro to the right guffaws, a group of Latin women in their 40’s to the left, whom you were certain would hate everything you would ever have to say about anything, start cackling in unison. You did it! People are laughing. WITH YOU.
It’s finally clear. After all the self loathing and misery you placed on your work, in the weeks leading up to the performance, you are in fact a well oiled machine, confident in your material, your delivery, and best of all, yourself.
Cary withstood every complaint, whimper, moan, whine, and excuse myself or my classmates could ever conjur up, and never once responded with anything but the most comforting support and wisdom. He has been doing this a long time, at every major club, and seen every bizarre thing, and dealt with every unruly heckler imaginable. He knows exactly what you are going through, and exactly how to respond to your insecurities.
And best of all, Cary will not let you get away with half assing it. He will keep on you relentlessly, but positively, until you have done the work and done it well. When I spoke to a friend who was a comedian about starting out, he said to just get up there and do it, but after experiencing this warm, happy, creative environment, where you are surrounded by nothing but support from day one, I can’t think of any other way I would want to do it.
I have performed a few times since, and truly look forward to seeing where this wonderful new passion will take me…

I was very pleasantly surprised at this fantastic workshop. Cary was very supportive, encouraging and instructive. i didn’t know what to expect and in a few weeks he taught our small class how to do stand-​up comedy. I found myself on stage at the Improv in Hollywood 7 weeks into the class with a really terrific group of people I now call friends.
Los Angeles has very people who actually want to make other’s lives better and Cary is one of those people. This class is great.

Cary Odes is a professional comedian and a terrific teacher. I’ve taken other stand-​up comedy classes, which were good; but this one goes above and beyond. Why? He really spends time with students, helping them hone their act. He tells you the anatomy of a joke. He gives you exercises to help you brainstorm your jokes. He encourages other class members to give input. He coaches you on your delivery. And the last class is after the show (which is at the Improv), where the class watches a video of the show and he evaluates each act. He’s very positive about everything he does, which makes it a blast to go to class. In short, this guy is serious about comedy. And I gave my best performance yet, after having performed at The Improv and The Comedy Store several times.