At Kids ‘N Comedy, we grow hilarious children in test tubes, and then set them loose on New York to run amok and make neighboring states funnier and odder places to live!

JUST KIDDING.

There is no science involved- only hard work, strange brains, and big laughs! We teach our students how to write and perform stand-up comedy, while providing a nurturing community and a space where they can be themselves in all their smart, weird, edgy, baffling, adolescent glory.

Our staff is made of a group of New York writers and comedians that, as teens, had no access to a program such as this, and as a result, are trying to fill their various tragic voids by providing the comic experience to the youth of today.

Founded by Jo Ann Grossman and Stu Morden, KIDS ‘N COMEDY has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, NY Post, NY Daily News, New York Newsday, Time Out NY, Time Out Kids, Time Magazine for Kids, Disney Adventures, Bergen Record, Boston Globe, Variety, National Geographic World, Scholastic, and Contact Magazine. It has also been seen on NY1, The Early Show on WCBS-TV, Inside Edition, Fox Style News, This American Life on Showtime, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee, Biz Kids, Teen Kids News, Weekend Today show on NBC and Good Morning America on ABC.

Our Staff

David Smithyman
 Head Teacher / Producer

Failing to ever fulfill his true potential as an Australian child actor, David Smithyman moved to New York City in 2004 to try his delicate, uncalloused hands at stand-up comedy. Whilst at NYU, he was privileged to study joke writing from working writers whose credits included shows like Seinfeld, The Simpsons and Late Night With Conan ‘O Brien. Emerging from NYU with a degree in Television Writing and an award in comedy writing, David continued to perform at clubs and bars around the city, until his control issues kicked in, and he began co-hosting and producing his own monthly comedy show, We’re Nice People!, in the Lower East Side (now in it’s second year.) Currently, David divides his time between writing jokes, reading comic books, and teaching stand-up comedy to hilarious teenagers at Gotham Comedy Club. He also does an excellent Ian McKellen impression (but only if you ask him nicely.)


The Life of Emma Jane Gonzalez (Abridged Version)
Teachers Assistant or Sidekick

Emma was almost born in an airport. As a child, her family moved all over the country (running from the law!) ((just kidding)). She spent her moody teenage years in Chicago, then attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, with a B.F.A in Television Writing. She currently works as a nanny during the week, in order to support her addiction to expensive produce. She one day hopes to own a cat (maybe 2, but no more than 5- that's the point at which things get tragic) and write animated sitcoms. In her free time, she changes her hair color and reads vegan food blogs.


Karen Bergreen

Karen has been teaching comedy for over ten years. She is known to her audiences as clever, quirky and geeky. Lurking beneath her wimpy exterior is a Harvard graduate (See feature on Karen in January 2002 issue of Harvard Magazine), and dictatorial mother of two.

A regular on the New York comedy scene, Karen has been invited to perform at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, the Friars Club in New York City and The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. She has performed her stand up on television on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and New Joke City with Robert Klein. She was a comic panelist on the Oxygen Network’s nightly game show “Can You Tell?” She has been a guest comedian, correspondent and panelist on various television and radio programs in the U.S., Great Britain and Canada, including “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.”

Karen has been on staff to teach and host for Kids ‘N Comedy for over 10 years.

Her first novel Following Polly (St .Martin’s Press) will be out in the Spring of 2010.

“Bergreen has just the right mixture of sarcasm and shrugging befuddlement, keeping it real while showing a sharp intellect.”
Long Island Entertainment


Jane Condon

Jane Condon lives Greenwich, CT but she's still a nice person. She has two boys.Otherwise everything's fine. She won Audience Favorite--NY on NBC's "Last Comic Standing."She has also appeared on ABC's "The View" and Lifetime TV. She also won the Ladies of Laughter contest. The Associated Press calls her "an uppercrust Roseanne." The New York Times says, "Condon had the audience cackling, guffawing and in hysterics as she sliced through marriage, husband, kids, politics and other topics." Jane teaches workshops and emcees an occasional show for Kids ‘N Comedy. She also has taught the Kids ‘N Comedy classes at the Nantucket Comedy Festival 2008 and 2009.


Jo Ann Grossman

Jo Ann Grossman and her partner/husband Stu Morden founded Kids ‘N Comedy in 1996. Kids ‘N Comedy has been teaching kids to write and perform stand-up comedy for 13 years. Camp Kids ‘N Comedy is in it’s 6th summer at the Gotham Comedy Club. It is the only place that kids can take classes to learn to write their own personal stand-up comedy routine, improv and comedic acting in a two week intensive or in a nine week session of laughter, culminating in a hilarious graduation show. Jo Ann is the producer and director of Kids ‘N Comedy.


Stu Morden

Stu Morden is the senior managing director of Newmark Knight Frank, a retail leasing company in New York and on the side, for comic relief, teaches the advanced comedy workshops with a staff of professional comedians / teachers.

He got his masters in comedy growing up in the Bronx while rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and his doctorate running a chess house on the Upper West side for twelve years. He is considered by most people who know him as being interfering and meddlesome, which he claims are perfect traits for a good comedy teacher. Also, despite being very old, he never grew up.