Comedy Is Student’s Calling

College is something students are almost ubiquitously expected to do once they finish high school. So says Claire Kunzeman, who has no intention of going to college.

But that doesn’t mean she isn’t going places.

In fact, she already goes pretty far — namely, to New York City’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. That’s where Claire, a 17-year-old senior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, has been taking sketch comedy and improvisation classes at least twice per week for the last year and a half. She is one of the youngest students to have enrolled in the comedy school, having begun studying there at 16, whereas it normally takes students who are at least 18.

“I had to get a permission slip to make sure I wasn’t a runaway child, but they were all so cool with me being there,” Claire said recently.

The theater’s training program was established in 1997 by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh, a heavy-hitting, long-form sketch comedy quartet hailing from Chicago. They call themselves the Upright Citizens Brigade. Since then, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre has fed the comedy industry a fresh supply of funny people, with directors, casting agents, and producers tapping its talent on a fairly regular basis. Ed Helms (“The Hangover,” “The Office”), Kate McKinnon (“Saturday Night Live”), Rob Corddry (“The Daily Show,” “Hot Tub Time Machine”), and Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Recreation”) all trained or performed with the theater early in their careers.

Claire wants in. She loves shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “Broad City,” and writes down ideas for original sketch scenes all the time. To be accepted into the theater’s training program, she had to submit a few original scenes for evaluation. Claire has completed the first and second levels of improvisation and the first level of sketch writing, and will begin the second level of sketch writing in a few weeks. She said her style has been described as “simple, stupid-funny, and relatable.” She is undecided, however, whether she wants to be a behind-the-scenes comedy writer or a performer on the stage or screen.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she said. “I like performing. I always thought I would be a writer but I don’t know now. And I have time to figure it out.”

Jackie Jennings, who teaches at Upright Citizens, said Claire has excellent comedic instincts and has grown a lot since she started. She said it is unusual for the theater to accept a student at such a young age.

“Claire is a great student,” Ms. Jennings said. “I was pretty blown away that she was only 16 when she started taking classes. It’s crazy to be very funny and as talented as people who are trained actors twice her age. Also, to have the initiative to be taking classes is very impressive.”

Claire plans to move to New York City after high school. She hopes to use her experiences baby-sitting, teaching swimming lessons and lifeguarding, and working as a Hayground summer camp counselor to get a job as a nanny, which would allow her to continue studying at the theater. Still, telling people she does not plan to go to college was difficult at first.

“It made me crumble. I was so embarrassed,” Claire said. “I never could see myself in college, but I thought everybody goes because that’s what you do after high school. When it became very clear that I couldn’t see myself in college, it scared me a lot. But when I told people what I was doing, they said, ‘I could see you doing that. That makes sense.’ It did for me, too.”