1. Mrs. Abbott Theater Production
Summarize notes where you see the ketchup bottle 
The Comic Play
Mrs. Abbott
Theater Production

2. And they lived happily ever after…
What is a Comedy?
And they lived happily ever after…
Comedy is a word that to Greeks and Romans meant a stage-play with a happy ending.
As time passed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of entertainment intended to cause laughter.

3. Characteristics of a Comedy
Characteristics of comedy -- a way of looking at the world in which basic values are asserted but natural laws suspended -- to underscore human follies and foolishness -- sometimes wry, rueful, hilarious.
suspension of natural laws
contrast between social order and individual

4. Characteristics of a Comedy
comic premise: the idea or concept that turns the accepted notion of things upside down and makes it the basis of the play -- provides structural and thematic unity and can be a springboard for comic dialog, characters, and situations.
involves exaggeration and incongruity and contradictions--
Incongruity -- illogical, out of place surprise.

5. There is a whole world to deplore!
Comic Techniques
There is a whole world to deplore!
verbal humor
puns
Malapropisms: misusing wrong words in such a way that they sound similar but usually are strikingly different from the word intended.

6. Comic Techniques Exaggerated Characterizations
incongruity between the way characters see themselves or pretend to be, as opposed to the way they really are
lot complications -- especially in farce
mistaken identities – The Brothers Menaechmus

7. Kinds of Comedy
Farce: a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.
Physical comedy: "slapstick" -- physical action provokes the thought.
Satire: ridicule of public institutions and figures.
Domestic Comedy: home and hearth.
Comedy of Manners / Wit: similar to character and situation aristocratic and witty characters .

8. Kinds of Comedy
Parody: borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes to critique.
Black comedy: dark humor that makes light of so-called dark or evil elements in human nature.
Romantic comedy: depicts romance in humorous terms, and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.

9. Your Comedy Will center around one prop 2 characters 5-6 pages long
One location
One time period