Comedy

In an annual rite known as Upfront Week, NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and the CW just presented their lineups for the 2012-13 TV season to advertisers in New York. The ceremonies took place in some of the city's most august concert Halls (Carnegie, Avery Fisher, Radio City Music) over four days. The broadcast companies introduced only 20 new series for the fall (down from 27 last season). NBC led the pack with six new shows. Fox and the CW had half that many. Like it or not, an awful lot of familiar faces will be returning in the fall.

UPDATE, 4 p.m. Monday, May 14, 2012: On Monday, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt announced that next season would, after all, be the last for "30 Rock," apparently contradicting what he'd told reporters only the day before.   SO MAYBE NEXT season won't be the last for NBC's "30 Rock," after all? Following days of online reports that the network had given the sitcom created by and starring Upper Darby's Tina Fey 13 episodes to wrap things up, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said Sunday that "we haven't definitively said that" to the people at "30 Rock" or to those at "The Office" or "Community," both of which will also return.

IN DAVID MAMET'S vastly entertaining comedy "State and Main" (VHS: priced for rental; DVD: $24.99), new to video this week, a Hollywood film crew arrives at a small Vermont town and proceeds to turn everyone's life upside-down. William H. Macy is splendid as the cool-headed director trying to maintain control of curious onlookers, self-centered stars, ego-bruised writers and acts of God. The end result? Lots of laughs, an acerbic peek inside the moviemaking process, and, finally, a finished film.

I WANT TO start off by saying that I'm not a Bush basher - he is in fact my 43rd favorite president! I find it ironic that while he is filling coffins today, he's thinking about filling his coffers tomorrow. There should be a law passed, if you voted for W in 2000 and 2004 - and STILL think he is doing a "heck of a job" - you lose your right to vote in 2008. Tom Martin, Haddonfield, N.J.

THEATER Fresh off a defining performance as Feste in Pig Iron Theatre's spectacular "Twelfth Night," Scott Greer heads to the reliably hilarious 1812 Productions, which kicks off its season with "Mistakes Were Made. " In a role originated last year by the wonderfully wacky Michael Shannon, Greer is Felix Artifex, an off-Broadway producer who is simultaneously trying to mount his first Broadway show (an epic about the French Revolution), reconcile with his estranged wife and avoid charges of foreign sheep-trafficking.

Peter Liguori has a message for the town's comedy writers: Think January. The Fox entertainment president and his development staff are in the thick of an unusually aggressive summer hunt for new comedy projects that can be whipped up in time to take advantage of the golden launch platform offered when "American Idol" returns for a sixth edition in January. The network has 10 blind script deals in place and has been actively seeking pitches for new projects, Liguori said. "We have the best time slot on television to launch a show," he said.

Always happy to see Andy Griffith, whether as the charismatic demagogue in A Face in the Crowd, the wise county sheriff Andy Taylor in his self-titled TV show, or the crusty septuagenarian in Waitress . So I was looking forward to his role as the grieving widower in the intergenerational comedy Play the Game , in which a grandson (Paul Campbell) teaches Gramps (Griffith) how to score with "chicks. " Alas, the conceit of a double-dating Grandson and Gramps does not produce a great many laughs in this cringeworthy film costarring Doris Roberts and Marla Sokoloff as the comely Granny and Granddaughter in their sights.

"Life Is Beautiful" is a genre of one. It is a comedy about the Holocaust - a subject usually approached with the utmost delicacy by filmmakers, mindful of the danger of trivializing or diminishing events that best speak for themselves. Even in today's anything-goes movie climate - when a movie like "Happiness" can deliver a dispassionate portrait of a child molester - when the industry operates without apparent discretion, exploitation of the Holocaust looms as the last inviolable taboo.

Hollywood would consider Mike Leigh's method of making a movie to be utter madness. But no one can quarrel with results as winning and invigorating as Life Is Sweet. Leigh is an innovator whose system calls for casting a movie before it is written. He gathers his actors and discusses a character in general terms. Then, over months of rehearsals and wrangling, each performer develops his or her part - right down to a detailed life history of the character. Leigh then sits and writes a script.

Here's the funny thing about Art, Yasmina Reza's much-produced comic drama about three men and a painting: It's truly a matter of perspective. A director can go serious with it, or sharp, as Act II Playhouse's Bud Martin did earlier this season, or, as is the case with Hedgerow Theatre's Penelope Reed, she can blunt its edges and treat it as a light comedy. And it will still suit the room. It's handy that this script yields so willingly to a company's point of view. Translated from the original French by Christopher Hampton, its catalyst is a white-on-white canvas purchased for 200,000 francs that reflects all the colors and shades in the longtime friendship among three men: Marc (Tom Teti)

UPDATE, 4 p.m. Monday, May 14, 2012: On Monday, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt announced that next season would, after all, be the last for "30 Rock," apparently contradicting what he'd told reporters only the day before.   SO MAYBE NEXT season won't be the last for NBC's "30 Rock," after all? Following days of online reports that the network had given the sitcom created by and starring Upper Darby's Tina Fey 13 episodes to wrap things up, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said Sunday that "we haven't definitively said that" to the people at "30 Rock" or to those at "The Office" or "Community," both of which will also return.

Sunday Antic farm Shostakovich wrote three ballets from 1929 to 1935, each getting him deeper in trouble with the Soviet authorities, each banned shortly after it premiered, each eventually contributing to his falling out of favor with Stalin and the denunciation of his work in 1936. The finale of the trio, The Bright Stream, despite being set on a collective farm (and having a comic plot in which a troupe of sophisticated dancers are shown up by the bumpkin workers), was the subject of a pointed and threatening article in Pravda (even more to the point, one co-librettist, Adrian Piotrovsky, was sent to the gulag and disappeared)

Theater 1812 Productions: Boston Marriage David Mamet comedy about 2 women whose romantic entanglements lead to trouble. Closes 5/20. Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Pl.; 215-592-9560. www.1812productions.org . $20-$36. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum A slave in ancient Rome tries to win a beautiful courtesan's hand for his master. Closes 5/19. Ritz Theatre Company, 915 White Horse Pike, Oaklyn; 856-858-5230. $25-$35. A Grand Night for Singing Tribute to the composing team of Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Theatre Exile's dazzling production of A Behanding in Spokane is both hilarious and creepy - that signature Martin McDonagh combo. An evenly excellent cast, directed by Joe Canuso, convinced me that a play I thought was merely a star turn (Christopher Walken being that star when I saw it on Broadway in 2010) is stand-alone terrific. Carmichael (Pearce Bunting) sits grimly on the edge of a bed in a seedy hotel room somewhere in small-town America, proving, in case we needed telling, that there are peculiar people everywhere.

Comedy Central has a killers' row of new stand-up specials Saturday night with Daniel Tosh followed by Patton Oswalt and topped off with Paul F. Tompkins. How's it feel to be batting cleanup in that lineup, Paul? "I'm not sure how ratings work," says Tompkins, laughing. "I don't know if I'm headlining or sweeping up. " You can be pretty sure the comedian won't get lost in the shuffle. He's staked his life on it. Growing up as the second youngest in a raucous family of six in Mount Airy, Tompkins learned early that being funny was an ideal way to get noticed.

Don't Talk to the Actors marks the third time playwright Tom Dudzick visits Montgomery Theater's stage. This time, he's also in the wings, as the show's director. Following 2009's Over the Tavern- the company's all-time best-seller - and last season's Hail Mary!, both of which examined the lighter side of Catholicism, Don't Talk to the Actors is a strictly secular affair. However, if theater happens to be your religion, be aware, this backstage comedy depicts some desecration in the temple.

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney hit an off note when he told a "humorous" story about his father shutting down a factory. Robert De Niro managed to get both Newt Gingrich and the Obama campaign riled up when he joked at an Obama fund-raiser that America wasn't ready for a white first lady. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, still nursing wounds from his failed presidential campaign, did himself a world of good with his self-deprecating jokes at a recent Washington dinner. Done right, humor can be a huge asset for a politician.

NOW MIGHT BE a good time to rethink your lifetime ban on comic remakes of moldering TV cop shows. Because against all odds, "21 Jump Street" is actually pretty funny and lifts movie comedy out of its recent creative rut. A rut that's arisen from insular, too-chummy collaborations among the usual comedy suspects. "Jump Street" shakes things up, bringing in directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who directed the animated sleeper hit "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," a huge crowd-pleaser back in 2009.

WILLIAM SHATNER doesn't turn down roles. Not on TV or films. Not self-mocking commercials, a long-running game-show square or oft-maligned (though I do love some) musical recording sessions. Why, the man won't even turn down an interview when he's still getting over a stomach flu and should be saving strength for the evening performance of "Shatner's World: We Just Live In It," his one-man show landing tomorrow for a one-nighter at the Merriam Theater. "My life's been all about saying yes to opportunities, because you never know where that can take you," he explained in a kindly, grandfatherly, 80-year-old voice more Denny Crane than Captain Kirk or comedy roaster or aggressive pitchman for Priceline.com.