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The audience sits, anxious for the next comic to take the stage. They're there to split a gut, as the saying goes, but there's also the chance they'll see a comic bomb. Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, the comic listens and assesses the audience. Are they listening? Are they laughing?

"There were three comics in the show and I was the main guy. It was a really good audience and I was thinking to myself, this should be a lot of fun," recalls Greg Schwem.

Schwem is a Chicago comic who has appeared on Evening at the Improv and Catch a Rising Star in Las Vegas. He's even been the opening act for Celine Dion, Huey Lewis and the News and other well-known performers. Like the Dilbert of the stand-up circuit, Schwem makes people laugh about the computer age. It usually works.

Schwem gets up to the mike and starts his gig. Within minutes, it's apparent no one's laughing. He's sweating.

"There's gonna come that day when the pilot gets on the loudspeaker and says, 'Ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to be alarmed. But we're wondering if anybody in the main cabin knows how to run Windows?'" Nothing. It was looking like one of Schwem's worst nights in years.

Schwem withstood five excruciating minutes -- thinking he had 40 more to go. Then a big birthday cake showed up on stage. Turned out the joke was on Schwem. The club owner knew it was his birthday and convinced the audience to hold their giggles.

"You can't mess with a comic's mind like that," he laughs now.

With odd exceptions like that one, Schwem's clean act works well. "No one has ever refused me work because I'm too clean or tasteful. If you can make people laugh and not resort to profanities or cheap stuff, you're always going to find work."

Even so, political correctness does have its challenges. "Sometimes it seems like everybody gets offended. Every time I write something, I have to think, is there something in it that might offend some person?"

Schwem did a show for Hewlett-Packard. He made a joke about Toshiba products, only to get slammed by some of the salespeople who sold both Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. Oops. "I can't outguess a crowd," he says.

"I enjoy making people feel good. That's the thing about comedy. A lot of people get in, but not as many get out. It's very addicting. You stand before 50 or 4,000 people, and if you can get them to be quiet and listen to you, there's nothing better in the world," Schwem says. "That's what keeps people going."

Julie Donoahue is hooked on the sound of laughter. "When people are laughing, it's a wonderful position to be in," says Donoahue, who focuses her act on the trials and tribulation of the dating life.

"But you really have to have thick skin and be prepared to live a life of poverty. If you need stability, it's not the life for you."

The tough part for Donoahue is having the discipline necessary to keep writing new material. It's easy for comics to get lazy. They pull material together that works like a charm and, instead of running the risk and renewing it, they become stale. "When you write five minutes of speaking material and then you hone it down, you're lucky to get a minute out of that."

But the chance to make it big may have already come and gone for Donoahue. She got her break when she was asked to do the showcase for a club in California. And if the owner liked her, it could have made her career.

But luck wasn't with her. Just before she went on, Andrew Dice Clay, then at his peak, sauntered into the club. The MC invited him onstage. Clay went on for 20 minutes, and the club owner, who had seen him a dozen times or more, left.

Clay was an impossible act to follow. "People were rolling in the aisles when he was up there. You can't control a situation like that."