The pre-eminence of the actor in renaissance context: subverting the social order / Form and freedom: between scenario and stage / Parallel processing: two playwrights: Scala and Shakespeare / The Commedia dell'Arte acting companies / You must have heard of Harlequin ... / Pantalone and il dottore: the old men of commedia / The young lovers / Reading and interpreting the capitano's multiple mask-shapes / Le Servette in Commedia dell'Arte / Carnival, comedy and the Commedia: a case study of the mask of Scaramouche / Official recognition of Pulcinella: the one who saved the Commedia from extinction by securing its continuity to the present day / The many faces of Brighella: the knave we love to hate / A mask maker's journey / New roles for the mask in twentieth century theatre / Grommelot / Lazzi / Principles of comedy for Commedia dell'Arte / Slapstick and comic violence in Commedia dell'Arte / Aristocratic archeology: Greco-Roman roots / The rise of Commedia dell'Arte in Italy: a historical perspective / The great Ruzante / The coming together / Staging and staging practices in early Commedia dell'Arte / Celestial sirens of the Commedia dell'Arte stage / Incidental music in Commedia dell'arte performances / Meetings on Naxos: opera and Commedia dell'Arte / Classical ballet and Commedia dell'Arte: Influences / Images of the Commedia dell'Arte / The old man's spectacles: commedia and Shakespeare / Shakespeare's clown connection: hybridizing commedia's Zanni / Writing for the elite: Molière, Marivaux, and Beaumarchais / Goldoni and Gozzi: reformers with separate agendas / Commedia dell'Arte as grotesque dance: decline or evolution? / The myth of Pierrot / Speechless spectacles: Commedia pantomime in France, England, and the Americas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries / From Meyerhold to Eisenstein: Commedia dell'Arte in Russia / Giorgio Strehler's Arte: a commedia master directs Shakespeare / Giovanni Poli: the missing link / Arlecchino Appleseed: or how Carlo Mazzone-Clementi brought commedia to the new world / Despite everything, Commedia dell'Arte is alive in Italy. Long live commedia! / Dario Fo and the Commedia dell'Arte / Carlo Boso: fear and laughter in popular theatre / Antonio Fava / Happy bedfellows: Commedia dell'Arte, politics, and the San Francisco Mime Troupe / Commedia in Gloucestershire: rural contexts (2004 to 2010) / I Sebastiani: commedia geeks / Commedia women on stage -- and in the wings / Commedia counterparts: Middle Eastern and Asian connections / Commedia for contemporary theatre maker / Roots and routes: One Man, Two Guvnors / Commedia in a new world context: the comedy and poetry of survival