In Palmerston North there are workshops to develop comedians' skills. The Comedy Hub runs open mic sessions every two weeks at Bubbles and regular shows at the Globe Theatre.
Whitehouse's performances are videoed and he treats watching them back as a learning experience, looking at what people like and when he lost people.
New Zealand stand-up audiences are different to New York ones as here no one is booing or rooting against you.
"If you do bad no one laughs, it's just dead," he says.
The worst that can happen is six minutes of silence.
Last weekend, Whitehouse was in Rotorua performing in the show Level Heads: A Flat-Earth Podcast. As a character comic he has a flat-earth believer character and how-to-get-rich entrepreneur.
He finds it easier to get people to laugh at him rather than with him. But as he doesn't want the audience to laugh at him he develops characters as a barrier. No one is judging you, Whitehouse says, rather they are judging the character you have made for people to laugh at.
"You are not being vulnerable then because it's what you wanted and it's not you."
Asked what he thinks about Palmy, Whitehouse says "people s*** on it but it's not that bad".
The city has a "pretty decent" arts community; it's not true there is nothing to do, it's just some people are not putting any effort into finding something to do.
American entertainment consumers rely on word-of-mouth recommendations or what they've seen on YouTube. They trust their own taste and are more risky with their entertainment choices, Whitehouse says. They like the idea of being into stuff other people are not.
Kiwis tend to rely more on the as-seen-on-TV stamp even if they haven't seen the TV show themselves before going to the live gig.
He would like to see tertiary students more involved in the arts, in fact more involved in the community.
New Zealanders want vibrant arts and culture but are often not willing to do the leg work.
Whitehouse started as a production assistant for Arka Gupta's short film Distancing, which premiered earlier this month, and ended up writing some of the music.
He took some music theory courses for his undergraduate degree and piano and violin lessons as a child, but he's learnt much of his craft from watching YouTube.
With Justin Ngai, Whitehouse has written a script for a short horror film set in a factory. Filming is to start in May and he will build on the experience he gained working on Distancing. He plans to write all the music for the film with the working title, There Are Always Three, but first he has to get to grips with blood packets.
For more information on live comedy, see The Comedy Hub Facebook page.
