Comedic play for class of mostly lower income urban students
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So, I am teaching this class that is your typical freshman comp class in a community college, and I am trying to balance inflicting Hamlet on them with some really good contemporary comedic plays. I don't know comedies well at all, frankly, and would love some recommendations. Looking for fast-paced mixture of low and high comedy, especially plays that are less white America and more urban. I would need to be able to find them on Amazon. I won't know 'til class starts, but typically the class consists of a handful of ESL students, a handful of students from four-year universities who are getting some credits in over the summer, and a handful of students who are returning to get their degree after getting laid off or whatever. I've had success with Glenngary Glenn Ross, but I tend to get really blank stares with Hamlet. That is of course perhaps my limitations as a teacher, but I do find that my students overall respond to contemporary stuff with a lot more engagement than they do say, Poe. So, any ideas? Thanks so much in advance!
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Answer:
Semi-related: a http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/218/act-v.
angrycat at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source
Other answers
Romeo + Juliet is kind of this.
oceanjesse
I taught Hamlet to a group of ninth and tenth graders a while back, and I took the liberty of adding Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to the curriculum. They got a huge kick out of it.
valkyryn
Show them the movie 10 Things I Hate About You and then teach The Taming of the Shrew.
erst
I love David Ives, especially the All in the Timing short plays, if you want to try something pretty light.
mlle valentine
If there is a way to get enough copies of Sherman Alexie's http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0786883928/ref=, I would HIGHLY recommend it for this group.
hurdy gurdy girl
Seek ye the plays of Christopher Durang.
wittgenstein
The motherfucker with the hat? A story of addicts in love. Not as much a comedy as a dramedy, and fairly new. You could introduce it as the Chris Rock play - he was a sponsor of one of the addicts in the broadway version
Suffocating Kitty
I've recently (as in, within the last few years) changed my teaching approach so that students read as much of the play out loud in class as possible. As several people mentioned above, plays are really not meant to be read on one's own like a novel; they are meant to be performed. I know you are probably a little strapped for time if you are teaching a first year comp class, but I encourage you to have the students take turns reading at least one act out loud together. Something else I do with my students is have them get in groups and decide how they would physically stage a scene (and then they perform it). It's interesting for the whole class to see the choices each group makes and then have the individual student actors explain why they chose a particular way to deliver a line, or why the group arranged the set or blocked the scene the way they did. Doing this often helps them better understand the characters and the play as a whole. One of my lit professors did this with our class and it was a great learning experience--I still remember it over 20 years later.
hurdy gurdy girl
My theater director boyfriend suggested Suburbia by Eric Bogosian and The Foreigner by Larry Shue (both available on Amazon), as well as The Motherfucker with the Hat as mentioned above.
Neely O'Hara
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