We Tried It: I Attempted Stand-Up for the First Time in Honor ofSNL's 50th Anniversary and Tapped Into My Inner Amy Poehler

Mar. 15, 2025

The Second City (left) and PEOPLE staffer Madeleine Janz.Photo:Timothy M. Schmidt; Catie Roback

Timothy M. Schmidt; Catie Roback

Standing up in front of a crowd of strangers trying to be funny didn’t originally sound like my version of a nightmare.

I’m always making my friends giggle, and I like to think I’m a funny person, butmaking people laughon command proved to be harder than I imagined when I tried stand-up for the first time. I decided to take on a stand-up class essentially because it made me a little nervous, and it felt like a good way to push out of my comfort zone.

The Stand-Up 1 class at the iconic Second City Training Stage (Stephen ColbertandAmy Poehlergot their starts at the original Chicago location!) was a crash course in writing, forming and performing jokes onstage.

With the 50th anniversary ofSaturday Night Livequickly approaching, I wanted to tap into the roots of some of my favorite comedians, likeCatherine O’Hara,Keegan-Michael KeyandAidy Bryant, who also all attended The Second City in Toronto, Detroit and Chicago, respectively. I knew it was hard work what they did week in and week out onSNLand in their comedy specials, but I was still in for a surprise when it came to how much I would need to commit to making my own five-minute set.

Banners of famous alum at The Second City.Timothy M. Schmidt

Timothy M. Schmidt

I quickly learned that being “the funny friend” isn’t the same as commanding a room or delivering punches in the right places. The six-week course plunged me right into the deep end on day one when I had to go in front of the class of around 15 students and talk about my background without any prep work. I hadn’t planned on saying much of anything in that first class but all of a sudden found myself standing behind a mic, feeling the pressure to make these strangers laugh.

To my surprise, that first bout went okay. I spoke about my childhood, culture shock, my high school and college experiences and what it’s like to work at PEOPLE, and the class actually laughed. Like, a lot. This ego boost primed me for a much quieter second class — I felt like my ideas were funny but the way I formed them didn’t quite work onstage.

EnterAdrian Smith, the brilliant teacher of Stand-Up 1 and a comic in his own right. Smith walked us through brief lessons in comedic structure, timing and stage presence in an approachable way, always stopping for questions, sharing his own jokes and being vulnerable with us in turn. It’s scary to stand up in front of strangers, or really anyone, and earnestly try to be funny, but Smith made it feel safe and productive.

For each class, we brought in 3-5 jokes to perform in front of the group, using a mic to simulate the onstage experience. Smith picked our order of performance randomly and alternated between men and women, meaning everyone had to stay ready — something Smith said was good preparation for being a real comic.

The Stand-Up 1 Classroom at Second City.Madeleine Janz

Madeleine Janz

After performing, Smith shared specific feedback on each joke, offered substitution suggestions and asked us to repeat certain jokes to continue workshopping. In lieu of trying to take copious notes during this process, each student recorded their whole set and the feedback time, amounting to around 15-20 minutes per student, per weekly class.

One of my very funny classmates, Olivia Macdonald, said she really appreciated this dedicated time for each comic and even found helpful insight from others' performances. We often chimed in during each other’s feedback time, offering punch lines or structuring ideas. One of my other hilarious classmates, Christian Hurtado, even gave me an edit that made it into my final set.

These recordings proved invaluable to the revision and joke-creation process. Hearing back how I overperformed a joke or undersold a punchline helped me not only improve my joke writing but my composure onstage. Smith also encouraged all of us to follow a part ofJulia Cameron’s famousArtist’s Waylifestylecalled Morning Pages. The practice involves writing three pages of train-of-conscious thinking in a journal each morning.

For our purposes, Smith asked us to write according to the week’s prompt, whether that was controversial material or jokes about ourselves. These “Morning Pages” helped me figure out what I had found funny from my day or week and got me to a good starting place from which I could write my material for the week. Smith also taught us basic joke structures, how to use the rule of three and why misdirects can be really, really funny.

Adrian Smith performing at the Broadway Comedy Club.Michael Gebhardt

Michael Gebhardt

Smith joined the teaching staff at The Second City in 2024 and says the role has “truly been a gift.”

“Not only do I get a chance to share so much about what I’ve learned while in comedy, I get the opportunity to watch people grow in real-time,” he told me. “It’s great because I feel my comedy family growing stronger and funnier. That brings us one laugh closer to healing the world.”

By week 3, I was pretty nervous, worried I wouldn’t get the response I wanted for the second time in a row. This anxiety did encourage me to over-prepare and share some of my jokes — which included a barb aboutmarathonsand a punch about my experience withDEI initiatives(can you tell it was controversial week?) — with one of my friends.

This all helped me to make my flow more casual and conversational, one of the key pieces of advice Smith gave us over and over again. It’s so easy for your jokes to sound written and rehearsed when that is exactly what they are. The trick is to make it sound like you’re just talking to a friend. I’ll never listen to stand-up the same way again after this class for many reasons, but this uncanny ability of the best comics to make it seem like these ideas just came to them instead of being meticulously thought out is one of the most impressive things I think a stand-up does.

Madeleine Janz in the Stand-Up 1 class at The Second City.Catie Roback

Catie Roback

When I performed during week 5, I felt more confident in my material. I was still pretty nervous but people connected with my jokes, and I felt like I was connecting with the audience. Smith was encouraging and let me know that the flow made sense, but some of the punches could be heightened. One of the biggest technical lessons I took away from the class is that you always want a punch, and a laugh, early.

The Second City bar.Timothy M. Schmidt

My final cut includes jokes about my childhood in central Africa, my work at PEOPLE, my disdain for marathons (that one was a winner!) and the crazy books people read on the train. I feel confident about my set and what I’m choosing to share about my life.

Joking about real things is a really vulnerable thing to do, but it’s also what makes comedy so cathartic. Connecting with a stranger over a relatable experience or a shared hatred for something brings us together and builds group trust, which we desperately need.

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Now, the show is coming up in less than a week, and while I’m nervous, I also feel prepared and excited to share everything I’ve learned with my loved ones in the audience and my very brave classmates.

At the end of the day, as Smith says, “It’s just comedy.”

source: people.com