A comedy troupe is a group of
comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing
Amusement is the state of experiencing humorous and entertaining events or situations while the person or a ...
s and associated
personnel
Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any othe ...
who work together to perform
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
as
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
. The term is often used interchangeably with comedy group, and the troupe may specialize in a specific
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
or style of comedy.
Some examples of comedy troupes include: the
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
,
the Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
,
the Second City
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the oldest ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre o ...
,
Kalabhavan
Kalabhavan ( lit. "The House of Arts"), also known as Cochin Kalabhavan, is a centre for learning performing arts in Kochi, India. ''Kalabhavan'' is notable and known for being the first organized performing mimicry group in Kerala and which p ...
,
the Firesign Theatre
The Firesign Theatre (also known as the Firesigns) was an American surreal comedy troupe who first appeared on November 17, 1966, in a live performance on the Los Angeles radio program ''Radio Free Oz'' on station KPFK FM. They continued ap ...
,
Monty Python,
the Kids in the Hall
The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy troupe formed in 1984, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney and Scott Thompson. Their eponymous television show ran from 1989 to 1995, on CBC, ...
,
the Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six-episode radio series, it has since spanned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three which aire ...
,
the Tenderloins
The Tenderloins are an American comedy troupe composed of James "Murr" Murray, Brian "Q" Quinn, and Sal Vulcano. The group stars in the television series ''Impractical Jokers'', which premiered on December 15, 2011. The program airs on truT ...
,
the Hollow Men
"The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot. Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post–World War I Europe under the Treaty of Versailles (which Eliot despised: compare " ...
,
Asperger's Are Us
Asperger's Are Us is an American comedy troupe. They are the first comedy troupe consisting entirely of people with Asperger syndrome, though their shows do not reference autism at all.
Biography
Asperger's Are Us formed on the North Shore of Ma ...
,
[ ]Kummeli
Kummeli is the name of a Finnish comedy crew formed by Heikki Silvennoinen, Timo Kahilainen and Heikki Hela from Tampere. They are also the heads of ''Porkkana Ryhmä'', the crew's production company. Other famous members have included Olli Keskin ...
,Senario
Senario is a Malaysian sketch comedy troupe responsible for their titular show (also called ''Senario'') that had aired on TV3 from June 1996 to 2013, in which due to its popularity has also spawned a franchise of comedy films featuring its ca ...
and Horrible Histories troupe
The ''Horrible Histories'' troupe is a group consisting of Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, and Ben Willbond.
They were originally in the TV show ''Horrible Histories'' and then also came tog ...
(known as The Six Idiots).
See also
*Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...
*Sketch comedy
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...
References
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