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Funny AF Academy

About

Comedy isn't magic. It's mechanics + humanity + reps.

FUNNYAF is a comedy school wrapped around a comedy laboratory, built by people who've eaten enough silence to know why it happens.

Don't die ordinary.

Improv troupe frozen mid-scene in front of a packed room
Arizona After Dark · Tempe
Host standing in the middle of the audience doing crowd work
Comedian laughing with a hand over his face after a joke lands sideways

This is the lab. It has a two-drink minimum.

The founders

A systems obsessive and an ensemble player walk into a brewery.

Meet the founders in full →

No joke, SNL hired us to write their jokes.

We've written for the show, bombed on stage, and spent years turning what we learned into a system anyone can train.

Live from the room

Everything here was tested in front of strangers.

We run Arizona After Dark, a monthly variety comedy show in Tempe — stand-up, sketch and improv in the same night. Every technique in the Encyclopedia has been dragged on stage there and either got a laugh or got cut.

Improv troupe playing a scene in front of a packed roomComedian wide-eyed mid-punchline on the micHost under the spotlight working the crowdAudience laughing in the front rows during a setComedian on stage in the brewery roomComedian on the mic under the blue neon glow
Comedian delivering a bit over the crowd
Comedian on the mic with the lineup reacting behind him
Host smiling at the mic stand
Comedian backstage under red lights
Host firing up the room in front of the LOL Beer banner
Host with arms wide introducing the next act

Our only rule

Have fun.

Google went looking for the perfect team in Project Aristotle — 180 teams, every variable they could measure. Seniority didn't predict greatness. Team size didn't. Extroversion didn't. One thing did: psychological safety — people feeling free to move before they're told to. Which is, word for word, what an improv troupe has been running on since 1963.

Performers cracking each other up walking off a scene

Am I having fun?

It's the cheapest diagnostic in the building. When the fun drops out of a set, a job, or a room, the needle is telling you you're over-controlling it. Fun is the cheapest performance enhancer you'll ever find — that's why nobody's selling it.

Adapted from Our Only Rule, our field guide on improv, teams and not dying ordinary.

see funnywrite funnybe funnyget funnier

That's not a slogan. It's the syllabus, the product roadmap, and the thing we ask you to do every day.

What we believe