Shared comedic elements of three plays in modern American theater: "Six Degrees of Separation", "I'm Not Rappaport", and "Broadway Bound"

This thesis examines three successful American comedy plays which were produced within the last decade. The plays include Herb Gardner's I'm Not Rappaport, which won three Tony awards including best actor and best play for the 1985-86 Broadway season; Neil Simon's Broadway Bound, which premiered on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre in December of 1986 to strong reviews; and John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation which opened off-Broadway at the Lincoln Center and was named best new play of the 1990-91 season by the New York Drama Critics Circle; Each of these plays demonstrate both strong comedic and dramatic elements. This thesis analyzes the humorous side of that equation to determine what comic devices are used, and how well the humor serves each play as a whole. A prime factor in this analysis includes a consideration of the comedic style of each playwright and where each was in his career when he wrote his hit comedy; Letters and questions sent to each of the three playwrights were not returned.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Theatre Arts

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1992

Author dc:creator

• Terry, Paul S

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/221

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1220