This is going to be a response to the readings and videos you have just watched or read. Please type your answers. Your responses do not have to be lengthy–just short and sweet so that I can see that you have actually read and understood the material or watched the video. Please put these all on one document AND LABEL EACH ANSWER. No need to be formal or type an essay. This is just a series of responses.
1. Building a Play
What are the 3 tools a playwright has to use to establish the given circumstances of a play? What are the five W’s (questions) of those given circumstances? What are the two types of lines an actor may deliver?
2. Playwriting
Please carefully read the Dramatic Action Section of what each part of a play is comprised of and take notes. We will be using this in the next module. No need to respond to anything here.
3. Lin Manuel Miranda on Writing
Just list one cool thing that he says. (Your instructor thinks he is brilliant–).
4. How to Write Comedy
One of the key points of this video focuses on a theory of writing jokes called INCONGRUITY. As you will remember, this works by the element of surprise, people are not expecting the ending you give them. They describe this process as Zig–Zig–Zag. Something normal is described, then something normal is described again, then something gets flipped which is a surprise to the recipient. This makes it funny. It is also called THE RULE OF THREE in scripts.
So, I would like you to find a joke that uses this method and tell the joke!!!
5. Conan O’Brien
What are the three main principles of humor that Conan O’Brien uses to be funny?
6. Jerry Seinfeld
Describe his process when he writes. How does he go about it?
7. Second City
What are two of the key elements of Second City and how they operate?
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