Historical Comedy Project

Charles Busch often sets his plays in a variety of historical settings. While most of these are the 20th century, because of the distance from our own time period, these settings can be useful to create satire, parody, or burlesque. Click on these vocabulary words ("burlesque" particularly,) to learn about the word and term.

Brainstorm historical settings that you find interesting. From your list choose the one (or few) that you feel has the most creativity, the most relevance to our society today, or the one that most intrigues you.

Spend 10-15 minutes examining the internet for information about your historical period. Do this relatively quickly, but take notes and begin thinking of potential plots or significant events that happened at that place and time or people who lived during that time period. Use your notes and brainstorming to PLAN your story a bit before you just right in and write, then get stuck and bother your neighbor.

After your brainstorming period, decide on a few characters. Write brief descriptions of who these people might be. Start with the most interesting major character and work your way from there. Don't worry about incidental or minor characters yet.

Begin "Scene 1" - this should look and feel exactly like a 10-minute play. It should have a beginning, middle, and end all on its own. Write ONLY this first scene. We will work on other "scenes" next week. Try to complete Scene 1 today.

HOMEWORK: Please read either Red Scare on Sunset or The Lady in Question. Both of these comedies are set in a specific historical period. Pay close attention to how Busch creates his comedy. Recall what you know personally about the time period the play is set. Busch alludes to current events from these time periods. He also is a film buff, so the style he's often going for in his comedies comes from schlocky period films. You may try this technique out as well.

For example: If you set your scene in Rome, 24 A.D (C.E.) type in Ancient or Epic Roman films in Youtube and you'll see the sort of thing you might need.