Shtick

Common card · No. 303773

A shtick is a comic theme or gimmick. The word is borrowed from the Yiddish term שטיק (shtik), making it related to German Stück, Polish sztuka, and Russian штука (štúka), all ultimately from Proto-Germanic: *stukkiją, all meaning 'piece', 'thing', or 'theatre play'. Compare Theaterstück is the German word for 'play' (and is a synonym of Schauspiel, lit. 'viewing play', in contrast to Singspiel).‍ The English word piece is sometimes used in a similar context: for example, "a musical piece". In a stand-up comedy context, a near-equivalent term is a "bit". Another variant is "bits of business" or just "bits". Shtick may refer to an adopted persona, usually for comedy performances, that is maintained consistently (though not necessarily exclusively) across the performer's career. In this usage, the recurring personalities adopted by Laurel and Hardy through all of their many comedy films—although they often played characters with different names and occupations—would qualify as their shtick...

Read on Wikipedia