Bucket List: Learn stand-up comedy on Long Island

A teacher and a rabbi walk into a bar — and seven weeks later, they’re stand-up comedians.

Sounds like a joke, but at one Long Island comedy club, it’s reality.

Stand-Up University, based at The Brokerage comedy club in Bellmore, is one of several schools on the Island where anyone who has ever wanted to make a roomful of people laugh can achieve their dream.

Founders Rich Walker and Peter Bales, both professional comedians, lead a series of classes throughout the year to help aspiring comics learn the craft. The instructors assist students in finding and working on their stage persona, which is based on “who you are and what makes you tick,” Walker said.

Walker said students develop a five-to-seven-minute set, which they perform at the club in front of family and friends. The seventh and final class consists of a video review of the show and advice on open mics and networking.

The program’s graduates range in age from 11 to 88 and have included lawyers, doctors and a Vietnam War veteran, Walker said.

“There’s a lot of funny people out there, and they have that burning desire since they were young to get up there and do it,” said Walker, who himself was a comedy-loving insurance adjuster before giving stand-up a shot in the '90s.

Just ask Claudia Bonavita, a retired teacher from West Babylon, who took the class in 2019.

On the night of her show, Bonavita, 58, said, “I was like a horse waiting to run a race. Hearing those laughs from the audience was amazing.”

Bonavita said she has gone on to book gigs in Chicago, Dallas and Connecticut. She also performed at the Ladies Room Comedy Festival in Manhattan.

“I’m just living my dream in retirement!” she said.

Rabbi Levi Welton, 40, of Hewlett, is currently enrolled in the class. A chaplain in the Air Force, he’s no stranger to public speaking, but he said for a long time he was afraid to try stand-up.

“It took me decades to get the courage to finally say, ‘You know what? I gotta do this,’ ” said Welton, who grew up in awe of comics like Robin Williams and Chris Rock. “And when I got up there and they laughed at my jokes, it was like, ‘Wow, I’m connecting, this is working, this is validating.’ ”