During this week we will approach comedy in the theatre through various exercises and games. Starting mainly from improvisations, we will study the mechanisms that lead to comedy: rhythm, contrasts, characters, clowning, quiproquo, expectations and surprises, mixing tragic context and comic elements, etc. We will also take a look at certain scenes from the repertoire (Chekhov, Shakespeare, Molière, and perhaps even more modern ones) that everyone will be able to read in their own language, in order to draw inspiration from them and understand their comic structure, and then be able to use them for their own improvisations during the course. Depending on our discoveries during the week, we may end up creating our own comedy scene in groups or alone.

Patrice Bussy 

Patrice Bussy is a Franco-Swiss actor, writer and director who trained at the Conservatoire régional de Paris and the Accademia Dimitri. Based in Lausanne, he works mainly between Switzerland and Italy, occasionally in France and Germany. As well as performing with various companies and theatres in the above-mentioned countries, he writes for the theatre. In 2020, he wrote and performed the play "Au Commencement", which won the Prix FriScènes "de la relève romande" 2021, and in 2023, "Gloire et Cailloux", a monologue for the street. Patrice also works for the screen as an actor, producer and scriptwriter, notably with DratepPictures, with whom he has been producing short films since 2020. He has recently started training in fencing and stage combat. In 2024, he directed Circolino Pipistrello with Domenico Doronzo.