Jay Raymond, BFA Digital Arts ’25, has a brash, laugh-out-loud sense of humor that would naturally lend itself to stand-up comedy. But before last fall, he had never actually tried it. Raymond did, however, get a feel for what it might be like while hosting Pratt’s annual drag show in 2023, where he had a chance to share jokes between performances. He found that experience exhilarating, so when he saw that Pratt’s Writing Department offered a stand-up comedy course open to all majors, he felt compelled to sign up.
Raymond was unsure what to expect when he arrived at Stand Up Comedy for Writers. What he found in the class was a supportive group of peers as inexperienced as he was, eager to take on this challenging art form. He also found a new passion for comedy and confidence in himself as an artist.
Pratt students know that standing in front of a classroom and presenting their work in critique is not easy—it is a learned skill. Still, as the course’s instructor, Department Manager of the Writing Department and Visiting Instructor Kath Barbadoro, says, public speaking “seems like child’s play after you’ve had to be funny while doing it.” Through weekly writers’ workshops, Raymond and his classmates worked together on developing the craft as well as the emotional sensitivity and thick skin of a stand-up comedian.
“I want to calm down, so I’m not always yelling at the audience,” Raymond shared with his classmates after one performance. “It’ll be more fun if I’m calm for some parts and ready to race at others.”
“I’m glad you want to slow down,” Barbadoro responded. “Let people be a little bit uncomfortable—so they’re on the edge of their seat waiting for the punchline.”
Barbadoro, who has worked evenings as a stand-up comedian and podcast host for over a decade, has also spent her days as department manager for Pratt’s Writing Department since 2021. When the department offered her the opportunity to combine these roles and teach comedy in the program, she immediately understood she would be teaching students more than just how to tell jokes to a crowd. Stand-up is about staying cool under pressure, improvising when necessary, and developing a keen observational eye—all “infinitely transferable skills” that are helpful in most professions, says Barbadoro.
Barbadoro also understood that a stand-up comedy course would involve just as much craft and technique as any writing workshop at Pratt. First, she compiled a reading and viewing list that included influential comics such as Wanda Sykes, Mitch Hedberg, and John Mulaney. She diagrammed those comedians’ jokes for their setups and punchlines and drew lessons from her experiences as a touring comedian. For homework, she would have students attend open mics across New York City’s comedy circuit.
Barbadoro knows that there “aren’t a whole lot of craft-based stand-up comedy classes taught at the college level,” she says, and that students might be surprised to see a full-credit comedy-writing-intensive course offered at Pratt. One of those students was Madds Dittmer, BFA Film ’27, who has been doing comedy since age 15. Dittmer had generally considered their peers a bit introverted. “I was anxious nobody was going to want to perform,” says Dittmer. Instead, they noticed a lively mix of comedic tastes and personalities from the first day. “Art school played a part in how wildly different everyone’s comedy is. It’s been amazing to see everyone grow in confidence and skill while developing their style.”
Public speaking “seems like child’s play after you’ve had to be funny while doing it,” says course instructor Kath Barbadoro (above, introducing the class’s final performance at Brooklyn Art Haus). Photo by Dahlia Dandashi
Over the semester, that confidence was sometimes challenged by what student Ben Tillinghast, BFA Film ’26, identified as “the trouble with telling the same jokes over and over again.”
“For me, when I did a joke enough times, I’d think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that again. I want to make a new joke now,’” says Tillinghast. “But the class would be like, ‘No, no. Just keep with it.’ You have to get comfortable with your own voice.”
Dittmer also faced this head-on during their weekly workshops, where many students aired their self-doubt and learned to commit to their artistic process. “It just doesn’t feel interesting,” Dittmer said during a workshop of their material. “I’ll have these observations I find funny, but I find myself getting bored of me.”
In moments like that one, classmates would offer feedback that was sometimes difficult, but always helpful. “I can see why you would be bored of you, because you’re living you,” classmate Flynn Rachford, BFA Digital Arts ’25, told Dittmer during that workshop. “But we don’t know these things about you until you tell them to us.”
Barbadoro agreed and empathized. “I’m not bored of you,” she said. “I feel the same about myself sometimes. But you have to remember that the audience is just meeting you.”
For Barbadoro, these group discussions held the class together and propelled it forward. “Feeling supported and safe with each other—even in failure—is crucial to the development of comedians,” she says. “This class has a good rapport with each other. [They have developed] mutual respect, assume good faith, and are encouraging.”
Halfway through the semester, the class staged a performance for their midterm—a mock comedy show held outdoors in Pratt’s Textile Dye Garden. That was a moment when Jay Raymond started to find himself with a larger-than-life stage persona, skewering themes from music streaming apps to overbearing Chihuahuas. Dittmer performed with a renewed confidence in their craft: “I really admire people who become stand-up comedians when they’re older,” they said during their set. “Because this was either the best decision of your life or things have seriously taken a turn for the worse.”
For most students, that midterm was the first time they had ever performed their jokes as an act. By the end of the semester, the group’s hard work and collaboration led to another event, an evening of stand-up comedy open to the public at Brooklyn Art Haus, a performance space and cafe in Williamsburg. That night, the efforts of their workshops and weeks of rehearsal culminated in a show filled with friends, family, and comedy lovers from throughout the city, coming together to laugh.
After his self-assured final performance, Raymond remembered how he would over-explain his jokes early on in the course, worried that no one would relate to his material. “But if I’m talking about something I feel passionate about, chances are someone else went through something similar,” Raymond said. “It turns out, we are all more similar than we would like to admit.”
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