A textbook for actors and acting students seeking to learn how to be funny onstage.

Analysing why we laugh and what we laugh at, and describing how performers can elicit this response from their audience, this book enables actors to create memorable – and hilarious – performances. Rooted in performance and performance criticism, Sidney Homan and Brian Rhinehart provide a detailed explanation of how comedy works, along with advice on how to communicate comedy from the point of view of both the performer and the audience. Combining theory and performance, the authors analyse a variety of plays, both modern and classic. Playwrights featured include Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Christopher Durang, and Michael Frayn. Acting in Shakespeare's comedies is also covered in depth.

"Useful advice and practical tips are spread throughout the volume. Summing Up: Recommended." - CHOICE

"If "dying is easy and comedy is hard," then Sidney Homan and Brian Rhinehart, accomplish a death-defying feat in bringing, with ease: the science, the practices and the dangers of being truly funny on stage." - Dexter Bullard, The Theatre School at DePaul University, Broadway Director and Alumni of the second City Chicago, USA