GSA Curriculum

Course Overview

This isn't a class about telling jokes. It's a class about finding your voice, trusting your perspective, and learning how to make a room full of people laugh — without relying on shock value, profanity, or cheap tricks.

Over eight weeks, students at Gutty's School For The Arts go from blank page to stage-ready, building a polished five-minute stand-up set — their Tight 5 — that they'll perform live at the GSA Comedy Showcase.

Every lesson draws from How to Write Jokes: The Art and Science of Making People Laugh, the official GSA comedy writing text, combined with hands-on exercises, in-class writing, weekly homework, and performance practice. By the end, students won't just know how comedy works — they'll have proof they can do it.

What Students Learn

Week by week, the course builds one skill on top of the last:

• Week 1 — Why We Laugh: Understanding the psychology and science behind humor. Students start their Comedy Journal and learn why the brain finds things funny.
• Week 2 — Anatomy of a Joke: Breaking down the setup, tension, and punchline structure. Learning misdirection, the Rule of Three, and how to trim every joke to its sharpest version.
• Week 3 — Finding Your Voice: Developing a unique comedic perspective and persona. Discovering what kind of comedian you naturally are — and learning to lean into it.
• Week 4 — Wordplay & Self-Awareness: The craft of clever language — puns, double meanings, unexpected word choices — plus the power of self-deprecating humor to instantly connect with an audience.
• Week 5 — Storytelling in Comedy: How to turn a real experience into a 90-second comedic story with built-in laughs, escalating tension, and a strong closing punchline.
• Week 6 — Clean Comedy & Your Audience: Why clean comedy is a discipline, not a limitation. Learning to read a room, adapt material, and find laughs without shock value — including what it means to perform for a Gutty's all-ages audience.
• Week 7 — Building Your Tight 5: Putting it all together. Students draft their first complete five-minute set using a professional structure: opener, bit one, transition, bit two, closer, and callback.
• Week 8 — Polish, Perform & Showcase: Final edits, delivery coaching, and performance. Students take the stage at the GSA Comedy Showcase with their finished Tight 5.

By The End Of This Course, Students Will:

• Understand how humor works — psychologically and structurally
• Have a clear sense of their own comedic voice and persona
• Know how to write a complete joke from scratch
• Be able to craft a comedic story with multiple laugh moments
• Have a full, performance-ready five-minute stand-up set
• Have performed live in front of a real audience

Who This Course Is For

This course is built for students who love to make people laugh — or who've always wanted to try. No experience required. Whether you're naturally funny or you've never written a single joke, this class meets you where you are and takes you somewhere you didn't expect to go.

Clean comedy means the whole family can come to your showcase. That's not a restriction — that's the challenge. And the students who rise to it are the ones who discover they have more to say than they realized.

Ages 13 and up. All skill levels welcome.

The Showcase

Every session ends with the GSA Comedy Showcase — a live performance where students deliver their Tight 5 in front of a real audience. It's not a recital. It's a show. Friends, family, and the community come out to watch, laugh, and celebrate what these students built from nothing over eight weeks.

Course Details

• Duration: 8 Weeks
• Format: In-person, weekly sessions
• Includes: Student workbook with all lesson notes, in-class exercises, homework assignments, and Final Tight 5 script pages
• Culminates in: GSA Comedy Showcase (live performance)
• Prerequisite: None