Welcome to Summer Intensives 2025!
Each summer, we’re excited to offer week-long intensives in acting, improv, and stand-up! Spend a day in a comedy crash course or brush up your skills. Study from all of The PIT’s Award-Winning Improv Curriculum, as well as our Acting, Stand-Up, and Elective Programming!
Classes will be held Monday through Friday from 9am-4pm OR 11am-5:30pm with a break for lunch each day.
More Class InfoOur 2025 Schedule:
Week 1: Acting & Character
Level 1 Acting (11 AM-2 PM): Designed for actors with a solid foundation in acting basics who are eager to advance quickly, our intensive format ensures you’ll receive individualized training tailored to your unique strengths and areas for growth. The class will focus on scene work, imaginative exercises, improvised scenes, specialized character work, storytelling and various on-camera exercises (utilizing the iPhone). Whether you’re preparing for upcoming auditions, aiming to deepen your understanding of the craft, or seeking to refine your skills for professional work, this class will provide the guidance you need.
Business of Acting (2:30-5 PM): This class is for anyone who wishes to learn the strategies to present themselves to the industry as a professional actor, and the methods of reaching out and attracting an acting agent. In addition, we’ll also cover techniques to potentially secure a manager and go over the various ways you can build relationships with casting directors.
Improv to Character Elective (2:30-5 PM): This class will dive into how you can create characters using improv exercises to help pitch, write, and perform solo performance character pieces. Whether you are an improviser, writer or performer this workshop will add to your tool belt of using character acting to enhance your artistry in your work.
Week 2: Level 1 Improv (10 AM-1 PM)
In this class you will use scene work and group exercises to explore the joy of improvisation, be more confident, trusting and graceful on stage. Focus on positive choices to initiate scenes, real-life and character monologues grounded in TRUTH! Students will perform The Armando for their grad show, giving improvised monologues and performing scenes based off said monologues!
Week 3: Level 2 Improv (10 AM-1 PM)
In Level 2, you will continue to focus on strong listening and reacting without interrupting your scene partner. Making sure the beginning of your sentence doesn’t get in the way of the middle of theirs. You will reinforce saying “Yes, and…!” Until you have to say “no thank you”. You’ll also get a comprehensive understanding on how to edit your scenes as an improviser, in partnered and group scenes.
Week 4: Level 3 Improv (10 AM-1 PM)
In Level 3, you’ll learn how to “heighten and tighten” a scene organically glued in reality to create “win-win” fun scenes to play to entertain yourself and others while “treating your partner like a genius”. You’ll also be introduced to the most widely-known Improv show format–The Harold!
Week 5: Level 4 Improv & Level 1 Stand-Up
Level 4 Improv (9 AM-12 PM): You will continue working on The Harold, explore further means of editing, and deepen your knowledge and comfortability of the Game of the scene. You’ll also begin to be informed on other variations of form/game for Improv.
Level 1 Stand-Up (1-4 PM): You’ll get disciplined writing tools, informative personal feedback and important advice as you begin your stand up comedy journey. Whether you’re a beginner or experienced in other walks of comedy life, this class is for you. Class culminates in a stand-up show, where students present their first 3 minutes of material.
PRICING BREAKDOWN:
1-Week (Any SINGLE FULL WEEK): $569
1-Week Acting ONLY Intensive: $375
1-Week Stand Up Bootcamp: $299
3-Day Intensive (Character Creation): $199
2-Day Intensive (Business of Acting): $99
Bundle and Save!
5-Week (ALL CLASSES) EARLY BIRD Bundle: $2499
5-Week (ALL CLASSES) LAST CALL Bundle: $2699
4-Week (ALL COMEDY) EARLY BIRD Bundle (7/8-8/2): $1799
4-Week (ALL COMEDY) LAST CALL Bundle (7/8-8/2): $1999
4-Week ALL IMPROV Bundle (7/8-8/2): $999
3-Week ALL SKETCH Bundle (7/8-7/25): $849
***Summer Early Bird Pricing ends after Memorial Day (Monday, 5/26/25)–sign up early and save!***
Calendar for SUMMER INTENSIVE 2025
11:00am The PIT Loft
New York, NY
Location
The PIT Loft
154 W. 29th St., New York, NY, 10001
Instructors
Joe Whelski is an award winning NYC Director, Writer, Producer, Instructor & SAG-AFTRA and Equity Actor. His feature indie comedy “Yellow Scare” (director and co-producer), won best “Best Comedy” at the Golden Door International Film Festival (NJ), and his darkly comedic web series “Mystery Mansion” (director and co-producer), won “Best TV Pilot” at the Hoboken International Film Festival. His original work has been featured on Funny or Die and the UK’s number one Star Wars fan site, JediNews. Joe directed the national commercial campaign for Unpakt.com, and created international commercials for The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Born Free USA, and DAVSS (featuring ‘Doctor Who’ number 4, Tom Baker). His latest national commercial for the Duke Lemur Center features the VO of John Cleese. Joe is a founding member and creative director for the Magnet Theater Video Lab. As an actor, Joe has played various characters on ABC’s “One Life to Live”, appeared on “SNL”, and has starred in over 30 stage productions in NYC, NJ & PA. He’s had the privilege of working for legendary directors Ridley Scott, Sydney Pollack, Anne Bogart, and David Hugh Jones. He is an alumni of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, The New School, The School for Film and Television, and earned his BFA in Communication Design from Kutztown University in PA (while also studying design at Buckinghamshire College, England).
Sydney Duncan is a New York-based comedian, improviser, writer, producer, and actor and is one of the newest cast members of Wild’NOut on vh1. She has trained extensively at UCB, The PIT, Magnet Theater, and Dallas Comedy House studying advanced improv, musical improv, and sketch. Before comedy, Sydney was a professional ballet dancer having trained at ABT, Alvin Ailey, Texas Ballet Theater, and Ballet West among others. Her credits include Regional Broadway shows such as Will Rogers Follies and Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Solange Knowles’s music video When I Get Home. She has been featured on Comedy Central’s IG and TikTok, and is a recipient of The SNL Scholarship Award. You can catch her regularly performing in Comedy Theaters all over NYC including her monthly character show at Brooklyn Comedy Collective, teaching improv at The PIT, her one-woman show at Union Hall, Understudying at Second City NY Mainstage, and UCB’s Maude & Betty Teams.
Originally trained in theater, Kimberly Alu has performed and written for venues across New Jersey and New York including Count Basie, Princeton University, The Player’s Club, and The Duke on 42nd Street. After moving to Los Angeles, Kimberly continued to write for several sketch comedy groups and has performed on countless improv teams including Sketch Time Strangers and Sweet Tweets, which was presented at The Second City Hollywood to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Additionally, her short play Jumper received best original play at the Manhattan Repertory Theater and the Midtown International Theater Festival. Her original full length play Carnival Games also won best play at The Thespis Theater Festival.
Since moving back to New York, Kimberly has immersed herself in the improv and sketch world, taking up work at The Peoples Improv Theater and Gotham Writers Workshop as well as starting her own digital improv network Socially Distant Improv when New York went into full lockdown mode in March of 2020. She has completed over 40 original sketch comedy pieces, a half hour comedy pilot, two docu-series, and countless plays. Kimberly has developed her own line of improv classes, Approach to Dramatic Improv and Advanced Dramatic Improv, directly inspired by her background in acting, for The Peoples Improv Theater. Most recently, she was responsible for creating and implementing the full comedy curriculum for Dallas Comedy Club and helped to curate a series of shows for their Mainstage, including her absolute favorite, The Family Funny Interactive Improv Show.
Chris was a regular host for TV Land’s “Prime Movies” and has made appearances on NBC’s “Blacklist”, Bravo, IFC, E Television, Hulu, Netflix, Starz and The Discovery Channel. He also was selected to represent New York on the TV show “World Cup Comedy” produced by Kelsey Grammar.
Chris has been featured in the feature films “The Co-Exist Comedy tour,” “Twenty Million People” “The Best Man” and “Generation Iron 2”.
He’s a regular standup around New York and you can catch him on Saturday nights at 8pm with the Pit’s longest running house team The Baldwins.
Listen below to hear more about Chris’ teaching style and improv philosophy, and learn more about The PIT in his discussion with PIT Founder Ali Farahnakian.