All the Tricks of the Trade

A must for actors, writers, and directors! All the Tricks of the Trade: Everything You Need to Know about Comedy is an indispensable handbook and practical performance manual, which lives up to its title. It provides a detailed guide to performing all genres of all periods, from ancient Greece to the twenty-first century, including comedy of manners, farce, the comic film, and the television sitcom. It gives actors, directors and writers all the details of how to create comedic characters using the Stanislavsky system. Actors and directors will constantly consult chapter 1, with its compendium of all the comedic tools and techniques (how to tell jokes, the different takes, deadpan, double-talk, etc.), and its summary of lazzi and physical comedy techniques (different kinds of falls, dealing with props, faked injuries, and so forth). The section in the Introduction to part 2 on the age-old comedy plots is an invaluable resource for writers as well as for actors and directors. The Introduction to part 4 (Comedy on Camera) includes a complete guide to working on camera. And chapter 14, with its tips and lessons from the great film and television comedians, is a concise summary of how they created memorable laughs. For easy reference, and as a guide to further reading, there are three appendixes: first, an annotated list of the major European and American comedy writers of all eras; second an annotated list of major comedy film directors; and third, a glossary of comedy terms.