Schools
Finding the Funny Amid the Sacred and the Professed
September 8, 2010
From The New York Times
Can you say the word “breast” in a sermon? If so, how often?
When trying to keep a congregation’s attention during a long homily, how much disrobing in the pulpit is too much?
And what is the deal with communion tablecloths? Can they be used for anything besides communion—say, as props or costume accessories?
These were some of the questions of professional concern that emerged on Friday during an unusual workshop for divinity students and clergy at the Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan. The 30 students in the class dutifully wrote them down, between bursts of laughter, then took notes on the answers, all of which were funny, too. (Try, the teacher explained, to keep the word breast “in context.”)
School of knock-knocks: Comedy schools aren't all just for laughs
By Eddie Vega, ComedyBeat
NEW YORK - A sudden horror: the kind that sears itself into memory and resurfaces in recurring nightmares, the kind that wrecks nascent careers, the kind aspiring comic Bradley Moore experienced at age 6.