3 Practical Tips for Delivering Comedy

Comedy doesn’t come from students trying to be funny. It comes from structure, clarity, and strong choices that give the audience permission to laugh. The good news? You don’t need stand-up training or extra rehearsal time to get big comedic wins—you just need a few reliable tools.

Here are three practical, teachable principles that help students deliver comedy with confidence.

1. The Rule of Three

Comedy loves patterns—and it loves breaking them.

The Rule of Three works because it trains the audience to expect one thing and then surprises them. The first moment sets the pattern. The second confirms it. The third breaks expectations.

This structure shows up everywhere in comedy because it’s easy for students to understand and easy for audiences to follow.

How to teach it:

Have students identify moments in the script where a behavior, phrase, or action repeats. Encourage them to play the first two moments clean and consistent, then let the third land differently—bigger, smaller, faster, slower, or unexpectedly sincere.

Why it works:

Students don’t have to invent humor. The structure does the work for them.

2. Use Contrast on Purpose

Comedy thrives on opposites. In Decisions, Decisions—a comedy sketch about an indecisive Fire Chief—the humor comes from contrast. Indecision is the last trait we expect from someone in charge of emergencies, which makes his endless vacillation over which firetruck to use inherently funny.

Sacred vs. ordinary.

Fast vs. slow.

Calm vs. chaotic.

Joyful vs. serious.

When two contrasting energies exist side by side, the audience instantly knows where the joke lives.

How to teach it:

Ask students to identify what their character is and what the situation is not. Then lean into that difference. A serious character in a silly moment, or a joyful character in a tense situation, naturally creates comedy without extra effort.

Why it works:

Contrast helps students stop mugging for laughs and start trusting the situation.

3. Play the Truth, Not the Joke

The funniest moments happen when characters believe they are right.

Students often miss laughs by signaling that they know something is funny. Comedy lands best when the character is completely sincere—even (and especially) when they’re wrong.

How to teach it:

Remind students: “Your character doesn’t know they’re in a comedy.”

Have them commit fully to the truth of the moment, no matter how ridiculous it feels from the outside.

Why it works:

When students play truth instead of humor, the audience does the laughing for them.

Final Thought

Great comedy isn’t about being clever—it’s about being clear. When students understand structure, use contrast intentionally, and commit to truth, comedy becomes accessible and repeatable.

These comedic strategies depend on selecting material that students can trust to do the comedic work. It’s hard to land a joke that isn’t very funny in the first place. With Finding the Funny as one of our core values, our repertoire is intentionally written to support students with clear, dependable comedy. Our sketches are one example of how this approach plays out in practice.

These tools don’t just create laughs; they build confidence. And confident students tell better stories—onstage and off.