Make Me Funny, Funnyman!

WHEN I HEAR comedians talking about having figured out what works and why, I suspect they're finished. I was finished in comedy for five years. Then about two years ago, I started teaching it. Now I don't think I know as much as I used to think I knew and yet, I'm back on stage.

I have a brand-new sketch group called Big Flux made up of my own workshop's grads. A couple weeks ago, a bunch of my current workshoppers came to see us perform.

"You settle for shocks too often," my students tell me. "Your twists are too extreme."

As another described it: "Here's a typical Kevin sketch. A straight man walks into a situation. Another guy's supposed to be in control. But once the guy in control starts talking, it's clear he's completely nuts."

It's not easy to hear that sort of thing from your students, but to my surprise, it's also a relief. Being a decent teacher makes you grateful when teaching comes back at you. When you spend so much time in front of people grasping for what you know or don't know, you don't mind some enlightenment in return.

I was first asked to lead a sketch workshop in 2002, and figured it should be about 10 weeks of pitching pieces and then a performance or two of the best. I'd never taught anyone anything and hadn't done sketch in years. But the school knew they'd be able to advertise that "Kevin Allison of The State on MTV will make you funny!" There were still plenty of college grads around who'd watched the show from '92 through '96, and I thought it would be a nice diversion.

That first night, about 10 of us sat around a big table, awkwardly trying to think of what to say, making desperate stabs at jokes. Then a young lady whizzed in about a half hour late, sat down in a huff and insisted she'd better not read the sketch she brought. I had none of it.

"We'll be supportive, whatever it is. If it bombs, we'll fix it! You can't not read that sketch."

I was determined to be the most encouraging teacher ever. Then she read something only someone familiar with the furniture in her apartment and the private life of P. Diddy would get. It was baffling. It bombed big.

"Hold on a minute." I said solemnly. "What in the hell did you read that for?"

Everyone laughed in that manner of the sleep-deprived. It went on and on. We couldn't do a damn thing with that sketch, but at least we were sharing a good loud laugh. The author took it all in stride and went on to create sketches and roles that killed. That's a workshop that's working.

There's always a running obsession. That first group had a love affair with the word "taint." The next had midget porn. Right now it's "singlets," the uniforms wrestlers wear. Throw singlets in a conversation and you've got "comic copper," a new student taught us. I've learned that every class becomes a sketch troupe of its own. That mysterious factor called chemistry, the collective personality of a group in action, is beyond anyone's control, and as the teacher, you've got to go with their flow. Some groups had a childlike silliness; others were more ferocious. One class was morbidly serious and fixated on freaks on the margins-ventriloquists, the senile, the brainwashed.

Having once been in a fiercely cutthroat sketch group-and one whose social Darwinism was a working formula for success-I didn't realize how different things could be. Teaching group after group has made clear to me little things I never really grasped about collaboration-about adding my voice to a chorus of new and differing ones. It's okay to bomb, it's okay to lose an argument, it's okay to be upstaged-it's all okay. If you establish from the start that what is funniest is what matters over any ego issue-and you mean it and believe it-you can become quite resilient and flexible.

When I was younger, a critique on "a typical Kevin sketch" from a peer might have left me destroyed for a week. Now it's just good food for thought. When someone has a great idea, I'm thrilled that the many-headed workshop monster is on the loose. Back in the day, I'd be more upset that I hadn't been the one to come up with that idea. Having so many successful shows with such random assortments of people has made me more mellow, more trusting in my own ability. In teaching, I've begun (I doubt I'll ever finish, but I've begun) to leave behind all the neurotic angst that typically comes with making comedy.

I've taught the class five times now, and every time ended up with a group of folks who had once been total strangers bringing houses down.

But the truth is, there's only so much curricula you can teach about sketch comedy. You can blow hot air about formulas for days, but nothing compares to an inexplicably silly idea heading right for a group of folks like a foul ball into the stands. What works in sketch is often surprisingly different than what you're accustomed to; what kills in one sketch could bomb in another. You look at some of the most successful practitioners in the last few years-Will Ferrell, Dave Chappelle-and you don't get the feeling they spend too much energy fretting over principles of craftsmanship. They've simply gotten comfortable taking leaps. In the end, I'm a better comedian today because of what my students and I have made those workshops about. It's all about the leaping. o