Judd Apatow Teaches the Craft of Comedy: A New Online Course from MasterClass

FYI: If you sign up for a Mas­ter­Class course by click­ing on the affil­i­ate links in this post, Open Cul­ture will receive a small fee that helps sup­port our oper­a­tion.

School just got fun. And fun­ny. Days after announc­ing that New York­er author Mal­colm Glad­well will teach his first online course on writ­ing, Mas­ter­Class revealed that Judd Apa­tow, the direc­tor of umpteen fun­ny films (The 40-Year-Old Vir­gin, Knocked Up, This Is 40, etc.), will present his own course on com­e­dy, offer­ings lessons on how to “cre­ate hilar­i­ous sto­ry­lines, write great stand-up, and direct come­dies that leave audi­ences laugh­ing.”

In 32 video lessons, stu­dents will learn how to: find comedic inspi­ra­tion; mine your life for mate­r­i­al; out­line and struc­ture sto­ries for film and TV; write stand-up mate­r­i­al; write com­ic dia­logue; pitch projects to stu­dios and net­works; work with actors; and nav­i­gate the enter­tain­ment indus­try. Now open for enroll­ment, the course will offi­cial­ly get start­ed this spring. Any­one look­ing to study com­e­dy can also imme­di­ate­ly get start­ed with an exist­ing com­e­dy course taught by Steve Mar­tin.

Each Mas­ter­Class course costs $90. But, for $180, you can get an annu­al pass to every course in the Mas­ter­Class cat­a­logue.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Steve Mar­tin Make His First TV Appear­ance: The Smoth­ers Broth­ers Com­e­dy Hour (1968)

Bill Hicks’ 12 Prin­ci­ples of Com­e­dy

Steve Mar­tin & Robin Williams Riff on Math, Physics, Ein­stein & Picas­so in a Heady Com­e­dy Rou­tine (2002)