Comedic Improv Play

I selected this play mainly because I love the way Thornton Wilder chose to break the fourth wall. The fourth wall is the space that separates a performer or performance from an audience. The Skin of Our Teeth doesn’t just break the

Though its primary function is usually plot driven--as a source of humor and a means to effect changes in characters through disguise and deception—cross dressing is also a sociological motif involving gendered play. My earlier essay on the use of the motif in Shakespeare's plays pointed out that cross dressing has been discussed as a symptom of "a radical discontinuity in the meaning of the family" (Belsey 178), as cul-tural anxiety over the destabilization of the social hierarchy (Baker, Howard, Garber), as the means for a woman to be assertive without arousing hostility (Claiborne Park), and as homoerotic arousal (Jardine). This variety of interpretations suggests the multivoiced character of the motif, but

Since I have prior knowledge about this famous play, I did not have a hard time figuring out which actors played a specific character. When all the other characters came onto the stage, it was easy for someone to believe that they were the character stated in the program due to the costumes. The actors were attempting to make you believe they were the real characters, something that could have worked if the execution was better. If the actors practiced more and thoroughly knew their lines, making the character their own without losing the integrity of each character, the audience would be gripping out of their

There was a lot of breaking the fourth wall to keep to audience involved because the main priority of this play was to entertain not to tell a story, in fact a lot of the story was left out and left the audience’s imagination. In the climax of the play the villain is shot dead by a mysterious hand that you could see creep out of the curtain and shot him. His final words were “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CAST OF FOUR!” as all four actors were on stage so it couldn’t have been anyone the audience were aware of.

On the 12 of November, I attended the Nottingham Festival where I saw the Passado Action Theater. The Passado Action Theater had the Artistic Director, Dennis McLaughlin, the Co-Artistic Director, Ri Walton, the Instructor/Choreographer, Elly Calero, the other Instructor/Choreographer Nick Gregory and the last instructor/choreography, Frankie Macedo. All these actors performed The Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Pyramus and Thisbe.The stage was decorated by volunteers from the audience, such as a lantern, a wall and a dead guy. Each actor was wearing a costume according to the time which was a big shirts, a vest, boots and tights; when it came to play a guy they wore the tights, when it came for them to play a lady Elly Calero wore a long red skirt. Also to get more into character they had a sword belt to place their

Thrilling yet confusing, and even troublesome, Twelfth Night’s theme of identity is showed within the romantic comedy through many ways. As an essential subject establishing rich symbolism and imagery, it uses disguises and crafty characters’, which causes much confusion between the characters. Furthermore, the idea brings out the comical essence of the piece. It examines the gender roles in Twelfth Night relating to the history of Renaissance/Elizabethan Theatre; males played female roles—a male actor would play a female character (Viola) who disguises herself as a male (Cesario), for women were forbidden to act. Through What You Will, it proves one’s physical features, and how a person presents them self, possesses

We are being told the story by various narrators through song. The world of the play and the audience’s was never separated by a fourth wall. We were watching them tell us a story, but they knew we were watching. We were an audience to a real story. We were integrated into the plot. The audience did not have a major role. It was not as if the fourth wall was ever broken. The fourth wall in this play simply did not exist. Narrators are a very good way to make a play presentational without the audience having to be too involved. Every time a new story started or scene I suppose, we were introduced as the listeners. I like feeling like I am a part of what is going on onstage without having to act on stage. I actually prefer this type of presentational play over a representational play where I am being creepy looking in on the character’s

The actors started setting up the world before the play officially started. A couple minutes prior to 7:30 pm, the cast started appearing from the entrances and walking around embodying their characters. They were all committed to their parts and interacted with each other and sometimes the audience members as well. There were beggars asking for money, whores complaining about beggars, and fights breaking out in the isles. It was an interesting concept to have them interact with us and it was definitely a Brechtian technique. The actors continued using the idea of Brechtian theatre within the rest of the production as well. Several times, an actor would talk to the audience and acknowledge their presence as if they were also part of the world. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum even asked the audience to clap and waited for them to do so. The production became interactive and invited the audience to be its own character. The commitment from all of the characters to really go for it and not hold back was another pleasing feature of the production. An example of this, is when Polly Peachum is lying on the floor in her wedding dress and is violent moving her body and arms. It was strange to see, but also an interesting technique to convey

Comedy intends to create humor. In theatre there are many ways to provoke the audience to laugh. This project seeks to analyze the use of props and costumes throughout several theatrical plays in order to develop an understanding of the most common used comedic devices, and, from this knowledge, hope to observe a theme as to how props and costumes allow humor to be created in different theatrical styles. The project takes snapshots from the following plays: The Comedy About a Bank Robbery, The Play Were Everything Goes Wrong, Sh!t Faced Shakespeare, The Goat or Who's Sylvia, Romeo and Juliet, Nell Gwynn, Don Juan in Soho, and The Book of Mormon. In order to better understand the

his plays were performed from place to place for the poor, common and fickle minded people. those days people were so much indulged in the daily work, that they had no time for entertainment. Shakespeare begin writing and performing plays to bring entertainment for those people using sometimes slangs and fouly terms to make plays spicy.

Likewise, Miss Brill imagines herself in a different situation. "They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all" (740). In this story, the woman finds herself acting as if she is part of a play. She notes the

A. The plays that Shakespeare wrote were “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “Romeo & Juliet”, “Twelfth night”, “King Lear” and more.

In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines

Shakespeare has a difficult task entertaining the rowdy Elizabethan audience, especially during the exposition of the play, which sets up the entire plot. The audience needs to be engaged and invested in the play, otherwise many of the Elizabethan audience would throw food and furniture on stage or vandalize the theatre in response. Shakespeare employs a variety of techniques throughout the exposition of the play in order to do this, by creating tension between characters, introducing scandalous plots and unresolved issues right at the beginning of the play leaving the audience waiting for an answer. This essay will explore Shakespeare’s techniques and methods of engaging his Elizabethan audience.

The plays performed were  a “performance” for the audience, who knew the actors were aware of them. The acting itself was dramatic with grand gestures and personalities that were not considered realistic or natural. This is quite different from the realistic perspective, we expect from performances today to help us relate to the characters in a performance (Elizabethan Theater, 2015). There are many artistic choices that maintain the conventions of acting style in the Elizabethan Theater in the adapted performance of King Lear, directed by Andrew McCullough as well as the textual script written by William Shakespeare. The most important being the heightened speech patterns, dramatic gestures, and speech conventions addressing the