Theatre Arts I students at PHS were having a great time with Commedia Dell’Arte recently. While studying improvisation, they delved into this classic art form. The students had to choose a stock character, study its physical attributes, and then get comfortable with moving with those attributes. It was fun seeing students trying to change their posture so they could move with their nose, chin or elbows leading them. But they weren’t done with just movement. They also had to make the classic Commedia mask for their character. These masks are well known to us visually (we see them in masquerade ball and Mardi Gras images often), but their roots are not. So, when students learned about the characters that went with the mask, the strange appearance of the masks started to make much more sense. Students created their own face-molded masks from scratch for their final performances. It was a great experience for everyone, and each student now has a personal mask to remind them of what they learned.

FYI – Commedia Dell’Arte is the ancestor of today’s improvisational theatre and the television sitcom. TV shows, like the newly restarted Whose Line is it Anyway? and countless improv troupes around the country (did you know that Asheville has over 5 improv troupes), owe their livelihood to this classic art form. But that’s not all. Stemming from 1500’s in Italy, Commedia Dell’Arte uses stock characters to play out various spontaneous situations for an audience. We don’t see much of this type of improvisation today because we have scripted TV sitcoms that use these stock characters in many situations. Everything from Friends to The Big Bang Theory to Gray’s Anatomy owes Commedia for their well-developed character archetypes.

Submitted by:  Tabitha Judy, Pisgah High School