Stand-Up 101

Stand-Up Comedy 101

Everyone's been told they're funny at some point. This class is where you find out what happens when you say it into a microphone.

Over six weeks, you'll go from a blank page to a finished five-minute set. We start with how jokes work: the setup, the punch line, tags, callbacks, and the rewrite that turns a decent joke into a strong one. We'll dig into why people laugh, whether it's surprise, relief, or recognition, and use that to find material that sounds like you. You'll also train the performance side: timing, pacing, mic handling, and what to do when a joke gets silence.

Every session, you'll write, get on stage, and get direct notes from the instructor and the group. After the final class, we cap it off with a 2-hour live showcase where you perform your set for an audience of friends, family, and the public.

Guarantee: You will leave with five minutes of stand-up that you wrote and performed on a real stage.

What we cover

• Joke structure: setups, punch lines, tags, callbacks, and rewriting
• Humor theory and finding your comedic point of view
• Performance skills: timing, stage presence, mic technique, and recovering from a bomb
• Building and ordering a five-minute set
• A 2-hour final showcase

Details

• Instructor: Kerry Smith
• Sundays, 3-6pm
• Dates: 1/03, 1/10, 1/17, 1/24, 1/31, 2/07
• 6 sessions, 3 hours each, plus a 2-hour showcase on Sunday Feb 21  (20 hours total, Time is TBD)
• This is a class for beginners or experienced comedians who want to brush up on the basics. No experience needed.

Kerry Smith is a 13 year veteran of the Dallas-Fort Worth stand-up comedy scene. A regular feature at local comedy clubs, she’s performed everywhere from theaters and established clubs to independent shows and questionable Texas bars; the traditional proving grounds of a working comic. Her comedy blends sharp storytelling, memorable characters, and an unapologetically honest perspective.

Kerry believes there’s no single formula for being funny or creative. Her teaching style centers on a self-led process of discovery within a practical framework, helping students uncover the creative process that works uniquely for them. By identifying what sparks ideas in everyday life, students learn to develop a repeatable process for turning those sparks into material that feels authentic, original, and distinctly their own.