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 used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke (or "bit")[1] while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation.[2] Sketch comedy is a genre within American television that includes a multitude of schemes and identities.
History
Sketch comedy has its origins in vaudeville and music hall, where many brief humorous acts were strung together to form a larger programme.
Since 1999, the growing sketch comedy scene has precipitated the development of sketch comedy festivals in cities all around North America. Noted festivals include:
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Sketch_comedy, and is written by contributors.
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