“FINDING THE FUNNY”: COMEDY FROM UNEXPECTED SOURCES
Ages 16-29
Spring 2023, Johns Hopkins Homewood
In this performance and storytelling workshop, student fellows will “find the funny” in ordinary objects, people, spaces, and situations, and create short performance pieces grounded in their discoveries. These might be monologues, skits, comic songs, or whatever they dream up to share on a stage and on video. They’ll start by choosing subject matter “out of the hat,” at random, challenging themselves to find comedy in surprising places. They’ll then choose personally meaningful subject matter from their day-to-day: what puzzles, frustrates, or delights them, from confusing instructions to uncooperative devices and tools to people whose motivations or actions are inexplicable. In “riffing sessions” with the instructor and group, they’ll mine the comic possibilities, learning how professional comedy writers and performers develop material, pushing boundaries, finding unique twists. Fellows will experiment with several routines, ultimately choosing one to polish and bring to the stage. Final projects will be 1-2 minute performances, and will be filmed to screen at a public program event. Fellow work will also be shared on the program website. Limited to 10 student fellows.
Marc Unger's career as an actor, writer, comedian, and filmmaker spans nearly 30 years. He's headlined many of the top comedy clubs in the country and guest-starred on the Emmy winning TV shows Friends and Veep. His latest project is the award-winning series Thespian, available on Amazon and YouTube.
Murtaza Hathiyari is pursuing a graduate degree in robotics at Johns Hopkins. An experimentalist who believes in the power of expression, he is certain everything has an intriguing story behind it to dig into.
