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"Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, the late night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she's long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. But when Sally's friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the...
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A history of the uniquely American art form of improv, from its beginnings during the McCarthy Era through the rise of such institutions as Second City, the Groundlings, and the Upright Citizens Brigade and such performers as Tina Fey, Steve Carell, and Bill Murray.
"From the best-selling author of Fosse, a sweeping yet intimate--and often hilarious--history of a uniquely American art form that has never been more popular. At the height of the McCarthy...
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Close friends Valentine and Proteus become rivals for the hand of Silvia, daughter of the Duke of Milan, who has promised her to the foolish coward Thurio. Proteus has Valentine banished, but Silvia escapes to the forest to join him. Proteus follows with Julia, who dotes on him. After a confrontation, the Duke eventually allows Valentine and Silvia to wed, and Proteus marries Julia.
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Algernon is a gentlemen from a wealthy family. Algernon's close friend Jack, has a ward, Cecily. Both Algernon and Jack have created alter egos to make life more interesting. Algernon arrives for a weekend visit in the country posing as Earnest. Having heard of Earnest's misadventures, Cicely has developed an infatuation with the rogue, and Algernon's impersonation of him works famously on Cicely. Meanwhile, Algernon's cousin, Gwendolyn, arrives for...
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First performed in 1773, "She Stoops to Conquer" is the timeless comedic drama by Anglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith. The play depicts the story of Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man who is promised in marriage to a woman, Kate Hardcastle that he has never met. While he is eager to meet her and is travelling to her home with his friend, George Hastings, Charles is quite shy in the company of women of wealth. He prefers those of a lower class and...
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Shakespeare loved to use the device of mistaken identity, and nowhere does he use this convention more skilfully than in Twelfth Night. Viola, surviving a shipwreck, walks ashore at Illyria, and immediately embarks on a gambit to allow her to make her way in a world of men. Dressed as a man, Viola, now Cesario, insinuates herself into the service of the Duke of Illyria, Orsino. Orsino longs for the love of a neighbouring countess, Olivia , who as...
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"The lost twin sons of the old merchant Egeon--both named Antipholus--find themselves in Ephesus, without either one even knowing of the other's existence. Meanwhile, Egeon has arrived in search of the son he thinks is still alive--and has been sentenced to death for the "crime" of being from Syracuse. To add to the confusion, the two Antipholuses have twin servants, both named Dromio. As the four men unwittingly encounter each other, the play is...
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"This edition of All's Well That Ends Well provides, a clear and authoritative text, detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text, a full introduction discussing the critical and historical background to the play and appendices presenting sources and relevant extracts."--Arden Shakespeare
10) As you like it
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When Rosalind is banished by her uncle, who has usurped her father's throne, she flees to the forest of Arden where her exiled father holds court. There, dressed as a boy to avoid discovery, she encounters the man she loves now a fellow exile and resolves to remain in disguise to test his feelings for her. A gloriously sunny comedy, As You Like It is an exuberant combination of concealed identities and verbal jousting, reconciliations and multiple...
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"This entertaining and sharply written guide--for both beginners breaking into comedy and professionals seeking to improve their sets and advance their careers--examines the work of great comedians such as Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Izzard, Moms Mabley, Hannibal Buress, Sarah Silverman, Richard Pryor, and more as a means of illsutrating the most important techniques of performing and writing stand-up. Here, Stephen Rosenfield lays out a clear...
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A satire directed against intellectual pride and pedantry. The King of Navarre and three of his lords vow to spend three years in study and not to see any women. But when the Princess of France arrives with her three ladies, the men break their vow and fall in love with them.
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a"When up-and-coming screenwriter Beatrix and an A-list actor—and the man who had once jilted her—get into a car accident right outside the famed Roxy Theater, they are transported back to 1999 where they must work together to correct their old mistakes without altering their future selves"--|cProvided by publisher
15) The real thing
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"...The play opens with Max and Charlotte, a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse. Charlotte, it is revealed, is actually an actress who is appearing in a play written by her husband, Henry. Max, who plays Charlotte's husband in the piece, is also married to an actress, Annie. Both marriage are at the point of rupture because Henry and Annie have fallen in love. But is it the real thing? Tom Stoppard combines his characteristic wordplay...
16) Arcadia
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"In a large country house in Derbyshire in April 1809 sit Lady Thomasina Coverly, aged thirteen, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge. Through the window may be seen some of the '500 acres inclusive of lake' where Capability Brown's idealized landscape is about to give way to the 'picturesque' Gothic style: 'everything but vampires', as the garden historian Hannah Jarvis remarks to Bernard Nightingale when they stand in the same room 180 years later. Bernard...
17) The clouds
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"The Clouds" vigorously bares the folly of the old and new morality and ends hilariously with Strepsiades thrashed by his newly educated son -- while the old god Hermes has the last word. The play is set in the Athens of the 5th century B.C., where men have forgotten the gods and turned to rhetoric and dreams. Aristophanes ridicules the degenerate old order as well as the Sophistic new. -- From publisher's description
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"The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key. With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, their story takes you on an illuminating look at all facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and ascension of comedy...
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"Stepping out of her comfort zone with her former best friend Beat Dawkins to convince their mothers to perform one last concert on Christmas Eve, Melody Gallard, the daughter of music royalty, discovers a decades-old scandal threatens to wreck everything--the reunion, their relationships with their mothers and their newfound love."--
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Love and marriage are the concerns of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Lucentio's marriage to Bianca is prompted by his idealized love of an apparently ideal woman. Petruchio's wooing of Katherine, however, is free of idealism. Petruchio takes money from Bianca's suitors to woo her, since Katherine must marry before her sister by her father's decree; he also arranges the dowry with her father. Petruchio is then ready to marry Katherine, even...