Session #16
16.12 How to Write Comedy Like Mike Birbiglia
Course Objectives
Instructor:
Jerry Corley
Lesson Information
🎭 16.12 How to Write Comedy Like Mike Birbiglia
Mike Birbiglia can make a story feel as though he is discovering it alongside the audience. Under that conversational delivery is a carefully shaped sequence of scenes, mistaken beliefs, repeated patterns, and realizations. In this A La Carte lesson, you’ll study how to give a personal memory the structure it needs to work onstage.
You’ll begin with a central question or conflict, then place yourself in a specific moment with a clear desire and emotional state. From there, you’ll look for the gap between what you understood at the time and what the audience can already see. That gap can generate laughter without interrupting the story for a conventional punchline. You’ll also explore how analogies express a feeling, how understated delivery can sharpen high stakes, and how reflection and callbacks move a story toward its ending.
The lesson includes a short story-writing exercise and a first-draft example that shows the brainstorming process, including ideas that did not become the story. By the end, you’ll have a practical way to shape a one-to-three-minute story around confusion, a clash of perspectives, repeated evidence, and a revealing final turn.
Start a Conversation
This lesson doesn’t have to end when the video does. Use the comment section below to put what you’ve learned into practice and keep the conversation going.
Post your:
Questions — If something isn’t clear, ask. Chances are other students are wondering the same thing.
Homework & Exercises — When the lesson includes an exercise or bonus assignment, post your work below.
Jokes & Premises — Try out what you’ve written using the techniques from this lesson.
Observations & Discoveries — Spot this technique being used by another comedian? Share what you noticed.
Feedback — Feel free to respond to other students’ work. Be constructive and help each other get better.
Don’t just watch the lesson—use it. Comedy writing is a skill, and skills improve through repetition, experimentation, feedback, and practice.
So jump in. Write something. Try something. Ask something!
Talk about accents & voices. If you liked this class, DON'T MISS THIS ONE!
Write Unique Comedy Like Maria Bamford
Maria Bamford is a master of character voices, dialects, act-outs, polyvocality, and diegetic interruptions—often shifting dynamics without ever leaving the microphone.
In this deep-dive course, you'll break down the techniques behind Bamford's uniquely layered comedy and learn how to use character, voice, point of view, subtext, and unexpected shifts to make your own material more dynamic, distinctive, and engaging.
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