- "Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter."
Live performances that focus on humor, often including stand-up comedy, improv, and sketch comedy.
Comedy genres: Different styles of comedy, such as slapstick, satire, dark humor, and stand-up comedy.
Timing and delivery: The art of delivering a joke or a punchline, including pacing, rhythm, and inflection.
Body language and facial expressions: How to use physical gestures and facial expressions to convey humor and enhance comedic timing.
Improvisation: How to think on your feet and create comedy in the moment, often through collaborative exercises and games.
Writing comedy: Tips and techniques for crafting jokes, scripts, and comedic sketches, including setup and punchline, wordplay, and format.
Developing a comedic voice: How to cultivate your unique style, point of view, and persona as a comedian or comedic performer.
Working with an audience: Insights into how to engage and connect with an audience, read their reactions, and adjust your material accordingly.
Stagecraft and production: Practical considerations for delivering a comedy performance, such as blocking, lighting, and sound design.
- "The term originated in ancient Greece: In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters."
- "The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict."
- "Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a 'Society of Youth' and a 'Society of the Old'."
- "A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes."
- "In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter."
- "Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor."
- "Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them."
- "Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters."
- "Black comedy is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature."
- "Similarly, scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways."
- "A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members."
- "Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love."
- "In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters."
- "The youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter."
- "Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt."
- "Screwball comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters."
- "Black comedy is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature."
- "A comedy of manners uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members."
- "Romantic comedy focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love."