Short answers, pulled from the story.
Stand-up comedy is an art form in which a stand-up comic performs on a stage and delivers humorous and satirical monologues directly to an audience. These performances are typically built from tightly crafted sets that include one-liners, stories, observations, or shticks, and they often feature live crowd interaction known as crowdwork.
Charles Farrar Browne, who performed under the nom de plume Artemus Ward, is considered by comedian historians to be America's first stand-up comedian. He was born on the 26th of April 1834 and died on the 6th of March 1867.
Stand-up comedy originated in various traditions of popular entertainment in the late 19th century. These include vaudeville, minstrel-show stump speeches, dime museums, concert saloons, freak shows, variety shows, medicine shows, American burlesque, English music halls, circus clown antics, Chautauqua, and humorist monologues like Mark Twain's 1866 touring show Our Fellow Savages of the Sandwich Islands.
The common genres of stand-up comedy include alternative comedy, anecdotal, character, deadpan, impressionist, insult, musical, observational, satire, topical, wordplay, and self-deprecating comedy. Each has its own format, such as deadpan's emotional neutrality or wordplay's reliance on puns and one-liners.
A tight five is a five-minute routine that is well-rehearsed and made up of a comedian's best material that reliably gets laughs. It is often used for auditions and serves as a stepping stone to getting a paid spot.
In a typical stand-up show, the host, compere, or emcee warms up the audience and introduces the performers, followed by the opener, the feature, and then the headliner. At smaller shows the host may also act as the opener.
Ricky Gervais set a Guinness World Record for the highest gross from a single stand-up performance with his tour Armageddon. The show at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, on the 6th of May 2023, garnered £1,410,000, equal to $1,790,206.50.