What are different types of comedy?

Depending on how you want to divide it, here are a few distinctions: * Tragedy vs. Comedy - as with straight plays, musicals tend to be either quite happy, or rather depressing. Some, such as Into the Woods, are cut in half; in our example, the 1st Act is quite happy/funny (ie a Comedy), whereas the 2nd Act is depressing and everybody dies (a Tragedy). * Operatic vs. Distinct Songs - some musicals, such as Les Miserables, literally have zero non-singing lines. A play with distinct songs has spoken lines and even entire scenes in between songs. * Dance-Heavy vs. Static - musicals like A Chorus Line or Smokey Joe's Cafe require a great deal of (quite difficult) dancing. A show like Fiddler on the Roof, although requiring much complicated blocking, has next to no dancing (other than the bar scene, which is often cut down). * Period vs. Modern - musicals which take place before the 1950's (like Anything Goes) are considered "Period" or "Historical" by most directors. Anything from 1950 to the present (like Hairspray) is considered a Modern time period. Hope I helped. :D