BREMERTON — Remember those high school friends who always told you how funny you were, and how you should be a comedian? Yeah, well, they were wrong.

Or maybe they weren’t, and you really are the next Jason Sudeikis or Amy Schumer. Only one way to find out.

For some, it was time to stand and deliver Sept. 22. To earn the privilege of climbing onstage and presenting yourself as an honest-to-goodness comedian, and getting paid to do it, you’ll need to pass muster with Pat Wilson, or someone like her.

Wilson has owned the Comedy West booking agency, based in Seattle, for 30 years. She has learned a few things about a nasty, bare-knuckle business for people who want to give the gift of laughter.

Wilson paid a visit to Bremerton on Thursday evening, Sept. 22, at the request of Mike “Smitty” Smith, the owner of Mobster Mike’s Comedy Club. The club, located on 4th Avenue in downtown Bremerton, is the only full-time comedy venue on the Kitsap Peninsula, and for a nationally-known booker and talent agent, this is an ode to a three-decade friendship.

“Pat has been a dear friend for 30 years,” Smith said. “My friendship with her is what allows me to book true headliners in here to perform.”

The fledgling comics understood the opportunity awaiting them, and took it very seriously. Owen Eardley, who frequently serves as MC for the Thursday night open-mike sessions, was unusually nervous on this evening, hunched intently over his notebook, scribbling furiously, cutting lines, muttering to himself, adding new lines and mentally envisioning himself delivering a line. Someone asked him how he was doing, and he shot a glance upward.

“I’m very nervous,” he admitted.

Wilson sat relaxed and chatted pleasantly with Smith and whoever else wandered by. Clearly, a high-strung diva she is not. She does, however, have a very clear message to anyone who feels that stage a’beckoning:

ν Write enough material to have a solid, 5-minute routine.

“If you’re a comedian, you need to be constantly writing,” she said. “The real headliners have a solid hour or more of good material.” That requires complete commitment to the craft, she added.

ν Have a plan.

“You’re not going to start out at one of the big comedy clubs or hotels or cruise ships,” she said. “You’ll need a plan to take you from where you are to where you want to be — which is to actually get paid to be a comedian.”

During a recent workshop, she told her students to answer a simple question on their lunch break: What is your plan?

“When they got back, not a single one of them had a plan,” she said, shaking her head.

ν Watch the best at their craft, and try to understand not just what but why they’re doing but why.

“Brad Upton, over in Seattle, makes me laugh,” she said. “These young people need to go over and watch him work.”

And now, it is showtime. Owen is the MC for the evening program and that, combined with possible nerves at having a famous booking agent seated a few feet away, gives his performance an edge.

“Please don’t throw things, and please don’t heckle,” he tells the audience. “Comics have a lot to work through, and they can’t afford therapy.” That gets a big laugh, but it clearly comes from the heart.

Another young comic, Kaarin Zoe Lee, gets up and performs the same X-rated routine that fell dead flat for her one week ago. Over the course of the week, she practiced, and wrote, and edited, and this time she got a satisfying laugh.

“I don’t know why it worked this week,” she admitted.

Then a good-looking young comic named Richie Aflejey climbs on stage, and Pat Wilson’s demeanor changes. He has quick, smiling eyes, a thick, well-groomed black beard, which leads to a crack about how, yes, he knew that he resembled an Islamic terrorist so much that “When I go outside, I want to kill myself,” which drew solid, if slightly nervous, laughter. Wilson leaned forward in her chair.

“He should have said, ‘I’d turn myself in to the FBI,’ ” she whispered. “He’s funny. He has a great stage presence.”

That was the highest compliment a comic would hear from her that night.

“Yes, I am hard on the younger comics, but I’m never insulting,” she said. “They just don’t give much thought to the business of being a comedian.”

When young comics attend her workshops, they usually want to talk about the art of comedy. She’s there to talk about the business side, and it often isn’t pretty.

Maybe it was the nervous energy of the night, when a contact who could make their career sits quietly and listens. Comics whose routines fell flat this week saw their material, and their audience, come alive on this night. Wilson offered a final word of advice to the next generation of hit comics (they hope):

“Show originality,” she said. “Do something, or say something, that makes you stand out. You want people to remember you.”