Cuing is hinting to the audience that they are supposed to laugh now.

Effects

Depending on the audience, cuing can get a forced laugh ("ah, thank you, now I know what I'm supposed to laugh at") or kill a line that otherwise would have been funny ("ecch, you just killed the reality and now you expect me to signal approval by laughing?").

Cuing is essential to Bozo The Clown Humor, and usually undermines humor at an adult level. Adults--people of any age who make their own judgements--reserve the right to laugh spontaneously or not, as the spirit moves them, not because someone indicated that they're supposed to laugh.

Ways that people cue

Here are some common ways that performers cue the audience to laugh (or beg the audience to laugh, depending on how you want to put it):

•	Winking at the audience (literally or figuratively), or pausing a moment to establish eye contact with the audience before delivering your line.

•	Talking in a forced, loud, goofy voice, as if to say, "Look everybody, I'm being FUNNY now!!!!!!! Yuk yuk yuk!!!!!"

•	Very subtly: a certain tone of voice that says, "I don't really mean what I'm saying now. You (the audience) and I are in on the joke." A bit like a sarcastic tone of voice, but more subtle.

•	Giving a silent look to the audience immediately after delivering a line, to communicate the same message: "That wasn't me who just spoke, that was a joke, you see." Sometimes the look just says, "Get it?"

•	Laughing at your own line. This one is done much more commonly in informal conversation than on stage. On stage, this form of cuing is so blatant that few are tempted. The other forms of cuing spoil on-stage performance just as laughing at your own jokes spoils informal conversation.

Lead me not to temptation

So how can you avoid cuing? Virtually everyone wants to look clever and funny on stage, so virtually everyone is tempted to cue.

The simple answer is: ignore the audience. Just build the scene. Listen to what's happening on stage, and just play without regard for whether the audience likes it.

Easier said than done, of course.