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Last week I had the pleasure of being one half of the performers of the classic Abbott and Costello sketch, “Who’s On First?”

I think it is the most perfect piece of comedy ever written—if your native language is English.

My colleague Adam Pisco and I performed it before an auditorium of our public international high school English Language Learner students, none who have English as their native language, and many who have come here with no English at all. They represent dozens of countries and languages.

So we were afraid we were taking a big risk, and we were afraid that the students might not be able to understand the sketch, and not be quite able to get the wordplay involved.

But I’m very happy to report, as you can see and hear by clicking on the video, that we were absolutely wrong.