As we reach the end of 2025, we’re looking back over the past year at everything we’ve accomplished as the Stomping Ground Comedy community. Our mission is to educate, entertain, and empower the community, connecting people through comedy. We do this through our Improv for Life program, our comedy training center, youth improv teams and summer camps, and the shows we produce and perform almost every Friday and Saturday night of the year. But beyond that, we do this by creating a place where people from all over the DFW metroplex can come together and discover a shared moment, a special night, a hidden talent, or new home. Hundreds of people have shared hilarious moments, big and small, together in our theater over the course of the year, and we’re so grateful for every minute of it.
In 2025, we’ve…
- Educated our community through 94 Improv for Life classes and workshops and 74 comedy training center classes and workshops.
- Entertained at 237 total comedy shows in our theater and over 25 unofficial Wednesday karaoke nights!
- Empowered our community by raising over $18,500 for our Scholarship Fund during North Texas Giving Day and over $30,000 for our operations during the 48-Hour Laugh-A-Thon.
Our founders, Lindsay Goldapp and Andrea Baum, want to say thank you to everyone who made this possible:
And each of those numbers represents individual people who’ve been deeply impacted by their time at Stomping Ground Comedy in 2025. We asked our students, performers, and instructors to share what makes Stomping Ground Comedy so special to them, and here’s what they had to say:
I absolutely love the magic that we create on stage at Stomping Ground Comedy Theater. It’s a comedy show, but it’s also a nice escape from the fast paced judgemental world that exists outside of it. For a little while, the performers and the audience members get to immerse themselves in a silly little slice of life where the only thing that matters is having fun and laughing about that silly world outside of the theater. We spend so much of our days taking things so seriously and working so hard to accomplish so many things, and it leaves us exhausted. But just one show at SG can fill you up with enough joy and happiness to shed the weight of those days. We all need to laugh more, and that’s why I have fallen in love with what we do at SG. It’s also why I’m always encouraging my friends and family to stop by and see shows.
-John
Musical Improv shows have always looked like sorcery to me and felt like an unattainable goal. This year, I reeeeally steeled myself and signed up for a class. I was so nervous and anxious about it, but it’s been such a delight! Musical Improv has definitely helped me even more to get out of my shell and out of my head as I continue my improv journey.
-Bertha
What I love about Stomping Ground is how it brought me together with some of the funniest, weirdest, most interesting people I’ve ever met. Improv trained me to jump into any moment, even when I have no idea what I’m about to say. Somehow, it works! Every class from Level 1 to Level 6 made an impact, especially getting to perform with my final group, Back Alley Possums. Sidescroll and narrative improv helped me figure out how to build stories on the fly, and organic improv kind of ripped the training wheels off. Then clown class just launched me into space. But in a gentle, floaty way… no burning re-entry or anything. And don’t get me started on what it was like to be the show puppet for Midnight Vault. My mind disassembled and reassembled in a higher dimension. Why am I even talking to you humans?!
-Mike
If I were to try and give a comprehensive list of the things Stomping Ground has given me, I’d be talking for hours. Stomping Ground is a place where you can go to learn how to socialize and make new friends. Stomping Ground is a place where someone can enter so anxious they can’t even speak and, just seven weeks later, exit with their head held high while confidently chatting with strangers. Stomping Ground is a place where creatives and non-creatives alike can connect and feel safe enough to express their true selves. Most importantly though, Stomping Ground holds the biggest collection of amazing, loving, passionate, and selfless people I’ve ever met. In a time where it feels like cynicism and corruption reign supreme, I can always count on Stomping Ground to be a place where I can find humanity at its best. And I haven’t even started talking about improv…
-Tyler
I’ve always wanted to become a creative director, but wasn’t allowed to take theater class in high school and didn’t pursue theater until I was in my late 20s. Stomping Ground has not only allowed me opportunities to build my skills as a performer, but as a creator as well! This year, I produced three shows and created a methodology for clown based on SG’s principals and mission!
-Stephanie