Stand-up comedy class cracks jokes
OLYMPIC HIGH SCHOOL An “X”marks the spot in the center of Kristin Hensley’s fourth period class where Jennifer Cagle stands carrying a notepad in one hand, the other moving wildly about as the high school senior digs deep and speaks about her goals.
“I wish I could be a TV personality,”Cagle, a student at Olympic High School, said.“Hell, I would sell old lady clothing on QVC!”
Her audience — roughly 20 students in Room 2 — chuckles. Cagle flashes a smile, clearly pleased she was able to draw laughter from her peers. It was after all, a session on stand-up comedy.
For the past five weeks, the students in Hensley’s drama course has learned the fundamentals of stand-up comedy, thanks to a program in which professional comedians with the Eamon Cannon Comedy Fund come into the classroom twice a week to teach students the empowering nature of laughter. The program is funded through the Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation.
The comedy fund was started last year after its namesake, Eamon Cannon, a graduate of the New Roads School, died at the age of 20 last year. His mentor, Susanna Spies, who met Cannon while she was teaching comedy at New Roads through a program called “Laughlinks,” founded the program with the purpose of spreading Cannon’s message to high school students.
After graduating from high school, Cannon went on to pursue a professional career in stand-up comedy.
The purpose of the fund is to bring stand-up comedy into the classroom, empowering and inspiring students through the performing art, instilling confidence through building public speaking skills, Spies, who co-founded the fund, said on Wednesday.
Many high school students are like Cannon, who in fact hated school, said Eve Gordon, who serves on the board of the comedy fund.
“We find for kids who are disadvantaged or struggling, it’s a lifeline,” Gordon, who is friends with Cannon’s mother, said on Wednesday.
While the curriculum for the program, which launched at Olympic High School this semester, will be catered toward each individual school, it essentially teaches the same principles of stand-up comedy. The students learn to establish their point of view and derive their comedic material from their opinions, which was the subject of the class this past Wednesday.
“I’m not teaching them how to be comedians, I’m teaching them how to share, to be themselves,” Spies said.
Many of the students say the stand-up comedy portion of the drama class inspires them to come to school.
For some, like self-proclaimed jokester Chauncey Ridgeway, stand-up comedy seems to come naturally.
“I’m a jokester in my own little world,” Ridgeway said.
For others, like Brittney Lutz, the class has helped the student come out of her shell.
“It helps you develop public speaking skills,” Lutz, a senior, said. “I used to be a lot more shy.”
Donnie Davis said he signed up for the program because it gave him a chance to be himself, making it permissible for the Olympic senior to act a bit more loose in class.
“It’s a chance to be goofy in school,” Davis said.
The approximately one-hour course on Wednesday required students to reveal something interesting about themselves to the class, forcing them to get out of their seats and onto the “stage” — an “X” taped onto the carpet.
“Hi, I’m a little bit frustrated and OCD,” one student remarked.
With each student, Spies drew bits and pieces out of each presentation and asked the student to focus further on that issue. For the student that claimed to have obsessive compulsive disorder, Spies asked him to place an emphasis on his tendencies to worry.
“It’s not about being funny, it’s about sharing our opinion and a lot of times when you share your opinion, there’s comedy,” Spies told the class.
In the past month of the program, Hensley said she has seen her students mature, coming into the class at the beginning of the semester with a lack of energy, now having a renewed sense of purpose.
As a result of the program and its lingering effects in drawing students to the classroom, the students’ writing has also improved, Hensley said.
“They jump at the chance to be on stage,” Hensley said. “They just dig it.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 1, 2008. Read the original PDF.