This essay examines the origins and initial objectives of the Comedy Club—an after school comic theatre program that develops an original sketch comedy show annually at Colonel E. Brooke Lee Middle School in Wheaton, Maryland—along with the value of university-middle school collaborations. Throughout, I document administrative issues, some associated with university collaborations and others endemic to the public school system and the impact this collaboration had on my own research and teaching at the University of Maryland, College Park. Employing a feminist ethnography as my method, this discussion draws from interviews, participant-observation methods, and first-hand
involvement to examine how this program is efficacious for students, the school district, the university and community at large.
A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric