Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen

Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen PDF Author: Chris Head
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350155780
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
This accessible and engaging text covering sketch, sitcom and comedy drama, alongside improvisation and stand-up, brings together a panoply of tools and techniques for creating short and long-form comedy narratives for live performance, TV and online. Referencing a broad range of comedy from both sides of the Atlantic, spanning several decades and including material on contemporary internet sketches, it offers all kinds of useful advice on creating comic narratives for stage and screen: using life experience as raw material; constructing comedy worlds; creating comic characters, their relationships and interactions; structuring sketches, scenes and routines; and developing and plotting stories. The book's interviewees, from the UK and the USA, feature stand-ups, sketch comics, improvisers and TV comedy producers, and include Steve Kaplan, Hollywood comedy guru and author of The Hidden Tools of Comedy, Will Hines teacher and improviser from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Lucy Lumsden TV producer and former Controller of Comedy Commissioning for BBC. Written by “the ideal person to nurture new talent” (The Guardian), Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen includes material you won't find anywhere else and is a stimulating resource for comedy students and their teachers, with a range and a depth that will be appreciated by even the most eclectic and multi-hyphenated writers and performers.

Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen

Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage and Screen PDF Author: Chris Head
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350155780
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
This accessible and engaging text covering sketch, sitcom and comedy drama, alongside improvisation and stand-up, brings together a panoply of tools and techniques for creating short and long-form comedy narratives for live performance, TV and online. Referencing a broad range of comedy from both sides of the Atlantic, spanning several decades and including material on contemporary internet sketches, it offers all kinds of useful advice on creating comic narratives for stage and screen: using life experience as raw material; constructing comedy worlds; creating comic characters, their relationships and interactions; structuring sketches, scenes and routines; and developing and plotting stories. The book's interviewees, from the UK and the USA, feature stand-ups, sketch comics, improvisers and TV comedy producers, and include Steve Kaplan, Hollywood comedy guru and author of The Hidden Tools of Comedy, Will Hines teacher and improviser from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Lucy Lumsden TV producer and former Controller of Comedy Commissioning for BBC. Written by “the ideal person to nurture new talent” (The Guardian), Creating Comedy Narratives for Stage & Screen includes material you won't find anywhere else and is a stimulating resource for comedy students and their teachers, with a range and a depth that will be appreciated by even the most eclectic and multi-hyphenated writers and performers.

Writing Comedy

Writing Comedy PDF Author: John Byrne
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408151758
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Comedy has always been one of the most high-profile, glamorous and potentially lucrative markets for scriptwriters, but it is also perceived as one of the hardest. In the fourth edition of this highly regarded handbook, John Byrne breaks down the basics of writing comedy into simple steps and shows you how to make the most of your own comedy writing talent and - just as importantly - your ability to market that talent. Here is a wealth of practical advice both on how to get your career off the ground and how to keep developing it. Whether you are writing comedy routines, sketches or sitcoms, and aiming your work at the page, the stage or the ever-expanding world of broadcasting, you will find something in this book to encourage, inform and inspire you. As with any art form, the basics of good comedy never go out of fashion. While the easy steps in this book are illustrated with examples of work by classic comedians old and new, you will also find useful advice on developing and adapting your work for the twenty-first century market, whether your aim is to promote your work online or simply to keep your gags fresh and topical in a world where the news changes by the minute and gets flashed around the world in seconds.

The Comedian as Confidence Man

The Comedian as Confidence Man PDF Author: Will Kaufman
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814326572
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
In this lively and fascinating analysis of humorists and their work, Will Kaufman breaks new ground with his irony fatigue theory. The Comedian as Confidence Man examines the humorist's internal conflict between the social critic who demands to be taken seriously and the comedian who never can be: the irony fatigue condition. Concentrating on eight American literary and performing comedians from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, this study explores the irony fatigue affect that seems to pervade the work of comedians—those particular social observers who are obliged to promise, "Only kidding, folks," even when they may not be; in G. B. Shaw's words, they must "put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang them believe they are joking." If these social observers are obliged to become, in effect, confidence men, with irony as the satiric weapon that both attacks and diverts, then the implications are great for those social critics who above all wish to be heeded.

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar

A Comedian and an Activist Walk into a Bar PDF Author: Caty Borum Chattoo
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520299779
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Comedy is a powerful contemporary source of influence and information. In the still-evolving digital era, the opportunity to consume and share comedy has never been as available. And yet, despite its vast cultural imprint, comedy is a little-understood vehicle for serious public engagement in urgent social justice issues – even though humor offers frames of hope and optimism that can encourage participation in social problems. Moreover, in the midst of a merger of entertainment and news in the contemporary information ecology, and a decline in perceptions of trust in government and traditional media institutions, comedy may be a unique force for change in pressing social justice challenges. Comedians who say something serious about the world while they make us laugh are capable of mobilizing the masses, focusing a critical lens on injustices, and injecting hope and optimism into seemingly hopeless problems. By combining communication and social justice frameworks with contemporary comedy examples, authors Caty Borum Chattoo and Lauren Feldman show us how comedy can help to serve as a vehicle of change. Through rich case studies, audience research, and interviews with comedians and social justice leaders and strategists, A Comedian and an Activist Walk Into a Bar: The Serious Role of Comedy in Social Justice explains how comedy – both in the entertainment marketplace and as cultural strategy – can engage audiences with issues such as global poverty, climate change, immigration, and sexual assault, and how activists work with comedy to reach and empower publics in the networked, participatory digital media age.

The Comedian as Critic

The Comedian as Critic PDF Author: Matthew Wright
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780933460
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Some of the best evidence for the early development of literary criticism before Plato and Aristotle comes from Athenian Old Comedy. Playwrights such as Eupolis, Cratinus, Aristophanes and others wrote numerous comedies on literary themes, commented on their own poetry and that of their rivals, and played around with ideas and theories from the contemporary intellectual scene. How can we make use of the evidence of comedy? Why were the comic poets so preoccupied with questions of poetics? What criteria emerge from comedy for the evaluation of literature? What do the ancient comedians' jokes say about their own literary tastes and those of their audience? How do different types of readers in antiquity evaluate texts, and what are the similarities and differences between 'popular' and 'professional' literary criticism? Does Greek comedy have anything serious to say about the authors and texts it criticizes? How can the comedians be related to the later literary-critical tradition represented by Plato, Aristotle and subsequent writers? This book attempts to answer these questions by examining comedy in its social and intellectual context, and by using approaches from modern literary theory to cast light on the ancient material.

In Praise of Comedy

In Praise of Comedy PDF Author: James Feibleman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000579239
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
First published in 1939, the original blurb reads: We have learned much lately concerning theories of laughter, yet laughter is only what we do about comedy. What is comedy itself? In this work the history of comic instances is combed in the search for the truth about comedy. Today, when laughter is stifled in so many countries, an exposition of comedy shows it to have a universal and necessary character. Comedy, as its natures reveals, is one criterion of the state of human culture; it is highly contemporary and requires freedom – but freedom for adventure, not for routine. After a chapter devoted to the explanation of a logical theory of comedy, the modern comedians are examined, and the humour of every one, from the Marx Brothers to surrealism, from Gertrude Stein to Mickey Mouse, from James Joyce to Charlie Chaplin, is shown to be a constant, inherent in the same set of unchanging conditions.

A Companion to Aristophanes

A Companion to Aristophanes PDF Author: Matthew C. Farmer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119622883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
Provides a comprehensive and systematic treatment of the life and work of Aristophanes A Companion to Aristophanes provides an invaluable set of foundational resources for undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars alike. More than a basic reference text, this innovative volume situates each of Aristophanes' surviving plays within discussion of key themes relevant to the study of the Aristophanic corpus. Throughout the Companion, an international panel of contributors incorporates material culture and performance context, offers methodological and theoretical insights into the study of Aristophanes, demonstrates the relevance of Aristophanes to modern life, and more. Each chapter focused on a particular play is paired with a theme that is exemplified by that play, such as gender, sexuality, religion, ritual, and satire. With an emphasis on understanding Greek comedy and its ancient Athenian context, the text includes approaches to Aristophanes through criticism, performance, translation, and teaching to encourage and inform future work on Greek comedy. Illustrating the vitality of contemporary engagement with one of the world's great literary figures, this comprehensive volume: Helps new readers and teachers of Aristophanes appreciate the broader importance of each play within the study of antiquity Offers sophisticated analyses of the Aristophanic corpus and its place in literary and cultural history Includes chapters focused on teaching Aristophanes, including one emphasizing performance Provides detailed syllabi and lesson plans for integrating the material into high school and college curricula A Companion to Aristophanes is an essential resource for advanced students and instructors in Classics, Ancient Literature, Comparative Literature, and Ancient Drama and Theater. It is also a must-have reference for academic scholars, university libraries, non-specialist Classicists and other literary critics researching ancient drama, and sophisticated general readers interested in Aristophanes, Greek drama, classical Athens, or the ancient Mediterranean world.

The Art of Humour in the Teatro Breve and Comedias of Calderón de la Barca

The Art of Humour in the Teatro Breve and Comedias of Calderón de la Barca PDF Author: Ted Lars Lennard Bergman
Publisher: Tamesis Books
ISBN: 9781855660960
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Frantic and popular characters and situations from the entremes tradition, thought by many as opposing the comedias' main features, are instead shown to join and often dominate these features through the introduction of absurd figuras, slapstick, and burlas."--BOOK JACKET.

Role-Play and the World as Stage in the Comedia

Role-Play and the World as Stage in the Comedia PDF Author: Jonathan Thacker
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1781388296
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The theatrum mundi metaphor was well-known in the Golden Age, and was often employed, notably by Calderón in his religious theatre. However, little account has been given of the everyday exploitation of the idea of the world as stage in the mainstream drama of the Golden Age. This study examines how and why playwrights of the period time and again created characters who dramatise themselves, who re-invent themselves by performing new roles and inventing new plots within the larger frame of the play. The prevalence of metatheatrical techniques among Golden Age dramatists, including Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, Calderón de la Barca and Guillén de Castro, reveals a fascination with role-playing and its implications. Thacker argues that in comedy, these playwrights saw role-playing as a means by which they could comment on and criticise the society in which they lived, and he reveals a drama far less supportive of the social status quo in Golden Age Spain than has been traditionally thought to be the case.

Comedy at the Edge

Comedy at the Edge PDF Author: Richard Zoglin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1582346259
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Surveys the stand-up comedy of the 1970s, citing the contributions of celebrity comics, from George Carlin and Richard Pryor to Robin Williams and Andy Kaufman, in an account that also evaluates the roles played by such clubs as Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, and the Comedy Store.