Networking Online with the SCA Commedia Community

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One of the key ingredients to starting up or improving your commedia experience is networking with like-minded folks. For those folks in the SCA or looking to recreate commedia dell’ arte in the style of pre-1620 Europe, these resources will help you connect online with other commedia practitioners.

 

The SCA commedia group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/scacommedia

The SCA commedia Yahoogroup (moderated): go to http://groups.yahoo.com  and search for “SCA Commedia”   (There are a number of regular SCA commedia practitioners who are not on Facebook but do get email through this group.)

 

The following is a list of SCA Commedia troupes and their web pages and/or Facebook group pages. This list is actually in order of establishment as much as I am aware. Please let me know if you know differently or can add other SCA troupes to this list that I’m not aware of yet:

  1. i Sebastiani (Boston, MA) http://www.isebastiani.com
  2. i Genesii (Pittsburgh, PA) http://tinyurl.com/ztfo885 (That’s the TinyURL for their Facebook group also available at this long link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1634775053461647 )
  3. Golden Stag Players (San Francisco, CA) http://www.goldenstag.net
  4. i Scandali (Cincinnati/Dayton, OH) http://tinyurl.com/jjgyx6e (That’s the TinyURL for their Facebook group also available at this long link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/52042945950 )
  5. i Verdi Confusi (Cleveland/Columbus) http://filer.case.edu/org/commedia
  6. i Firenzi (Raleigh, NC) http://ifirenzi.com
  7. Gli Zelanti (St. Louis, MO) https://www.facebook.com/groups/225194504212479/
  8. Vagando Stolti (Baltimore, MD) www.vagandostolti.com
  9. i Zanni Illuminati (Philadelphia, PA)
  10. Le Mezze Luna (Albany, NY)
  11. Il Titolo Provvisorio (Pennsic Youth Commedia Graduates) http://tinyurl.com/jjkbbxr (That’s the TinyURL for their Facebook group also available at this long link: https://www.facebook.com/IlTitoloProvvisorio )

 

There are other resources for supporting your commedia addiction *ahem* practice outside the SCA…. And remember much of the non-SCA production of commedia leans towards 17th and 18th century style of performance instead of 16th century which is what we study in the SCA. Learning the difference in styles depends a great deal on reading the literature, seeking out the imagery, and being very mindful of the publication dates. The bibliographies in the Compleat Anachronists #172 and #173 will help guide that study for you. Until you read all that, be mindful of the tendency for non-SCA commedia practitioners to be teaching post-SCA-period styles and enjoy the wide variety of artistic paths available to you. This is just a taste of the online resources available to you, and these are focused on connecting you with *PEOPLE*!  More to come on other literature and imagery sources.

  1. Commedia Unmasked – an Australian commedia professional conducts training with a commedia troupe, records it, and posts it up for free on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Commedia-Unmasked-626604920837036/
  2. Antonio Fava – One of the most famous, talented, successful and enjoyable commedia professionals in the world is still teaching workshops worldwide: http://www.antoniofava.com/commedia-dell-arte
  3. Commedia dell’ Arte Day – an international awareness holiday that celebrates Commedia dell’ Arte worldwide on February 25th . The Commedia dell’Arte Day is proclaimed by the Italian cultural association SAT as an action of the incommedia.it project in support of SAT’s appeal to the nation of Italy and to the United Nations (UNESCO) to recognize Commedia dell’Arte as an official piece of “Intangible Cultural Heritage”. One of our favorite commedia troupes in the US, Faction of Fools in Washington DC (http://www.factionoffools.org ) , has been organizing it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/179707377172

http://www.commediadellarteday.org/

16th Century Commedia

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This web page is a central spot for collecting and sharing resources for recreating Italian Commedia dell’ Arte in the style popular throughout Europe before 1620 CE. To share your materials and resources, please contact the Administrator by email using “capo AT ifirenzi DOT com.”

Picture credit: This is the cover art drawn by Dina Turnello / SCA: Lady Luceta DiCosimo used on the cover of her Complete Anachronist on Commedia, CA#172, “Characters and Scenarios of Early Commedia dell Arte” published in June 2016.

What got left out of Compleat Anachronist #173?

by  on  in Compleat Anachronist • 0 Comments
  • online resources for all pre-1620 commedia especially networking with other commedia enthusiasts
  • research sources
  • scenarios
  • groups, leadership, succession and group dynamics in theater troupes
  • SCA guilds including a case study of the Known World Players
  • money management
  • copyright

 

These topics were written up in some cases, some not, but deemed worthy of publication and yet not for inclusion in the Compleat Anachronist #173 for reasons of space or scope. Watch this blog for publication of the material created on these topics.

Launching Earlycommedia.com!

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Earlycommedia.com is the solution to the 64 page space limit of the SCA’s Compleat Anachronist publication – at least for commedia fans.  My dear friend, Dina Ternullo (SCA: Lady Luceta di Cosimo), and I teamed up to write a 2-volume submission to the Compleat Anachronist about SCA period commedia dell’ arte and had WAY too much material to share!  Too much, at least for 2 issues of the Compleat Anachronist. So, this blog was born to provide a publication venue for all the material we had to cut from our Compleat Anachronist issues. That includes material that had to be cut for the sake of space and also some material that was not completely within the research scope of the Compleat Anachronist. The CA is the research branch of the SCA, and discussion about modern day issues like fundraising, paying taxes on money raised, leadership of creative groups, theater group behavior dynamics, modern options for technical theater support like signage were not encouraged as material to keep in the final drafts. What you will find on this blog includes material that had to be cut from the CAs due to space, modern references, color photographs, and more stuff we thought of after publication!

So, where to start?

Start with the Compleat Anachronist #172 written by Dina Ternullo and available for US$4.50plus shipping costs on the SCA Marketplace website here: https://members.sca.org/apps/#Store

Click on that link, and type “commedia” in the search box to find the right issue.

Dina’s CA#172, “Characters and Scenarios of Early Commedia dell’ Arte”, was published in June 2016. It was the beginning of a great amount of material for SCA period commedia getting compiled and published.  She helped me a great deal with the research and editing for the following Compleat Anachronist, #173, “Bring Sixteenth Century Commedia To Life” which was primarily written by myself with contributions from three other SCA artists and dear friends of mine:

  1. Drea Leed (SCA: Mistress Drea di Pellegrini) wrote the section on Challenging Costuming.
  2. Robert Schneider (SCA: The Honorable Lord Eoin Drake) wrote the section on making leather commedia masks.
  3. Philip Scott Dean (SCA: The Honorable Lord Manus MacDhai – and yes, he’s my awesome husband!) wrote the section on building the tech theater pieces of curtains & flats, footlights, and portable signs.
  4. Dina Ternullo (SCA: Lady Luceta di Cosimo) helped with research, editing, and helping me shape the whole thing. We are giving her the title of “Contributing Author” like Drea, Drake, and Manus,  although that doesn’t quite capture everything that she did to help bring CA#173 to life. It’s hard to give a title to the person who gets a call at midnight to hear “Which book do I use to cite commedia troupes parading around the marketplace before a show to gather a crowd?” or “How do I cite the author of the forward of the translation and do I use the little roman numeral numbers in the endnotes??” or listen to a tearful, stressed-out, deadline-pressured Sophie losing hope that this issue will ever be published. Her complete knowledge of the period resources appropriate for this research, clear headed vision, and ability to gently console and counsel me made her a powerful mentor for this project. I’m sure that without her, the CA#173 would have been a pathetic shadow of the issue actually getting published.

 

I’ll go into more detail in individual blog posts about the other sections. Stay tuned for posts from each of these contributing authors with more details and pictures on their individual topics. Also watch for posts on topics including:

  • online resources for all pre-1620 commedia especially networking with other commedia enthusiasts
  • research sources
  • scenarios
  • groups, leadership, succession and group dynamics in theater troupes
  • SCA guilds including a case study of the Known World Players
  • money management
  • copyright
  • and much more!

When I say “much more” I mean that  we will certainly get all the material posted that we had meant for the Compleat Anachronists, but that’s just the beginning for this blog! Earlycommedia.com is a place any SCA commedia enthusiast can post their material to share! If you want to post anything, just let me know.  We’ll figure out the best way to do it – you writing a blog post, you uploading files, or you sending me stuff to post/upload for you if  you don’t want to learn the ways of WordPress. 😉

 

Remember to subscribe via email to get an email every time something’s updated on Earlycommedia.com!

Stay tuned for more commedia awesomeness! 🙂

Sincerely yours,

Lady Sophia the Orange

Commedia Enthusiast, Capocomico of i Firenzi, Founder of i Scandali, Pennsic Commedia Track Co-lead