Five Saturdays, June 1st-29th, 2-4:30 pm
$215 members/$245 others Berkeley
Has anyone ever told you that you’re funny and that “You should write that stuff down?” No? Then maybe you shouldn’t take this class. But if the answer is “Yes,” or you’re convinced you’re surrounded by humorless numbskulls who wouldn’t recognize a punch line if it hit them in the ‘nads, then come on down!
In this class you’ll learn how to come up with funny premises “on demand,” where to get humorous ideas (I have the secret email address), how to inject humor in “serious” pieces, a half-dozen formulas for writing jokes, and how to apply these tools whether you’re writing for a magazine, blog, or making a YouTube video.
Each week you’ll bring in an assignment for critique (and hopefully laughs). You’ll get feedback on what works and why, what doesn’t, concrete tips on how to improve it, and where to market it.
Former students of Stan have gone on to become columnists, bloggers and book authors. There is more opportunity than ever to make a living writing comedy. As the old Chinese proverb goes, “Make your friends laugh, and you still have to work at a stupid day job. Learn how to write funny and you can make everybody laugh, while sitting around your house in your underwear.”
Stan Sinberg has taken turns as an award-winning humor columnist for the Marin Independent Journal and Pacific Sun, a satiric commentator on KFOG (“Take a Stan”) , the co-creator of the hit musical-comedy revue “For Whom the Bridge Tolls,” a regular contributor to MAD, and a “reporter” for the now-defunct gonzo supermarket tabloid, “Weekly World News” (“Rapper Has Reverse Tourette’s Syndrome: Every Time He Tries To Curse He Says Something Nice – And It’s Killing His Career.”) He currently blogs for article-3.com and the “fake news site” www.newsmakeup.com. When he was young and told his mother he wanted to write comedy for a living, she said, “Don’t make me laugh.”