Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Manifesting The End Of Amerikkkan Theatre: Black Theatre’S Healing Power To Eradicate Anti-Blackness, R'Myni Watson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the potential of Black Theatre as a catalyst for healing anti-Blackness within American theatre. Acknowledging the limitations of systemic change, this study advocates for incremental shifts within communities to combat ingrained racial biases through narrative change and theatrical exploration. Grounded in the theory of Black Theatre's energy force, Nommo, the study proposes the framework of Acknowledge, Dismantle, Re-Educate to address and eradicate anti-Blackness. Through directing the production of Blood at the Root, incorporating Black Theatre methodologies atop eurocentric foundations, this research documents the healing experienced by participants and audiences. Key findings reveal increased community engagement, support, awareness, …

‘Faults To Make Us Men’: Shakespeare In The Prison System, Hannah Boyle

Honors Projects

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the positive impact of Shakespeare in prison programs on incarcerated individuals, utilizing empirical data, anecdotal evidence, and scholarly insights. It underscores the educational benefits of engaging with literature and performance arts within prison settings, as well as the various social-emotional learning opportunities, especially the ability to reduce recidivism rates and enhance incarcerated individuals' quality of life.

Drawing on the experience and narrative of many practitioners of theatre in prison and Shakespeare in prisons programs, this paper works to show Shakespeare's unique capacity to connect incarcerated populations with those who have gone through the …

Introduction To Theatre Oer Course, Carmen R. Meyers

Open Educational Resources

Study of theatre and performance throughout history and across cultures including an examination of European, Carribean, and North and South American theatrical styles and genres.

This course is organized for a hybrid/asynchronous format. Our class meets on-campus every week for 75 minutes and the other 75 minutes will be completed asynchronously with weekly learning modules on Blackboard.

The first half of the course focuses on the history of theatre from Ancient Greece through Modern Realism. The second half of the course, students engage in the procedures of professional theatre artists through writing and refining a dramatic text; enacting a performance; …

Puppy Love And [Information] Play: An Intersection Of Theatre, Queer Kink, And Consent, Emily Kitchens

Faculty and Research Publications

This note from the field centers on a nexus of queer kink subcultures and consent-based intimacy work in theatre. I report, investigate and wrangle with the process of incorporating queer kink aesthetics into the production of Love and Information by Caryl Churchill I directed at KSU February 2023. What I have learned and hope to demonstrate throughout the paper, is that queer kink subcultures are often paradigmatic examples of communities built on consent, and we as performing arts practitioners can more visibly expand the margins of our cultural competency dialogues to not only include them but look to them as …

Behind The Scenes: Shining A Spotlight On Veiled Theatre Workers, Ariel Bradshaw

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

My thesis aims to highlight traditionally underrepresented theatre artists. I wish to dive deeply into the many backstage, or “veiled” workers, who continue to go unacknowledged. Why is there an aspect of “veiled” theatre created to stay hidden? Even in technical theatre, some specialties receive more credit or recognition than others. For example, the Tony Awards offer categories for direction, sound, light, costume, and scenic design, yet no award for stage management. How are institutions working to create more representation in an intentionally hidden space? This project will specifically focus on the representation of stage managers, arguably the most invisible …

Gerontology In Bryony Lavery’S A Wedding Story (2000) And Sebastian Barry’S Hinterland (2002), Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

Old age is perceived as a narrative of decline, recently, an alternative perspective was introduced known as positive aging or Gerotranscendance. This paper examines ageing in Bryony Lavery’s A Wedding Story (2000) and Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland (2002) through the theory of gerontology. Gerontology in British and Irish modern theatre, according to Giovanna Tallone (2020) and Heather Ingman (2018), is a new category in literary studies and theory. The paper aims to examine the challenges of retaining agency in old age in comparison to the notion of aging as a process of inner harmony further proving that despite the process of …

Smokebox: Writing Into Embarrassment, Julia Storch

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Engaging with theoretical concepts and dramaturgical tools, this essay follows my journey through The Dramatic Writing MFA program at the University of New Mexico, focusing on the production of my thesis play, Smokebox. In Part I, I give the background and development of my journey as a playwright, exploring the obstacles I faced and overcame through my engagement with coursework and staged readings. I map out the development of Smokebox, from its humble beginnings as a class assignment, to its transformation through workshop, and finally its realization through an intense rehearsal and production process. In Part II, I …

Living As Past In The Present, Grace Taylor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I will be discussing how I used my nine roles in A Christmas Carol at TheatreSquared to practice getting out of my head onstage and into the hearts of each character. I will also include the script of my original play, GORILLA, the composition and performance of which were some of the greatest challenges of my artistic career thus far. Additionally, I am including my artistic statement, show posters, program, photos, website link, headshot & resume, and proofs of permission for use of media.

Allegedly In Love: A Theatrical Production, Leah Christenson

Theatre Undergraduate Honors Theses

Allegedly in Love: A Theatrical Production details the process of producing and costume designing a fully-realized performance run of an original piece by Madelyn Marks.

Iterative Performance: Resistance And Opportunity In The Rhythm Of Returns, Jillian Jetton

Theatre Thesis - Written Thesis

This paper defines iterative performance as a live, time-based project in which multiple returns to the same framework (score, prompt, location, group) at regular intervals fundamentally shapes the dramaturgy of the work. The author asserts that the rhythm of regular returns inherent to iterative performance offers an alternative temporality that resists dominant, capitalist and heteronormative modes of living and making art, and creates the conditions for distinct artistic possibilities. Chapter 1 outlines the theoretical frameworks for this argument and introduces three key ways in which iterative performance is able to achieve the aforementioned goals. Chapter 2 explores three case studies …

A Survey Of The Staged Cyborg, Zee Hanna

Theatre Thesis - Written Thesis

The development of technology to enhance the performance of the human body is motivated by the desire to go beyond the limitations of the physical form, creating new possibilities for bodily expression while also raising questions about the boundaries of the self and the impact of technology on the body and society. In this paper I will explore many of the techniques performing artists have used to merge their bodies with technology, and observe the questions asked and answered by those methods.

“The Urgent Necessity For More Original Creative Works By Transgender And Gender Expansive Artists" Is Not The Title Of My Thesis., Alicia Fireel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a mix of personal reflection, academic research, and an examination of The Girl Crazy Queer and Other Fairy Tales, a play I wrote and performed in October of 2023, co-produced by The University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts and Pandora Productions, a Louisville-based theatre company dedicated to Queer theatre. This thesis and the play mirror each other; both contemplate Queer experiences, Queer histories, Queer trauma, and Queer stories. In the thesis I accomplish this through examining four subjects: myself, my play, the connection between modes of storytelling and aspects of transgender Queerness, and the perils that …

Working For Yourself: A Guide For Performers With Learning Difference., Sa'id "Nxttime" Kelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Working For Yourself a Guide For Performers with Learning Differences is a combination of advice and tips that are intended to help performers especially those living with learning differences. The thesis helps performers find ways to work with their true selves on stage as well as in preparation for a role. There is no final result to this process, just multiple ways to be more confident with the choice you’ll make while performing and preparing for a role.

Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice In Theatre Education., Sarah Elston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice in Theatre Education aims to harness the holistic benefits of theatre as a discipline and create an intentional restorative practice for performers. This thesis serves as a proposal; an attempt to prioritize restorative and self-care practices within the theatre industry, specifically pre-professional training programs. This proposal takes the form of a curriculum that builds upon the current model of theatre training (Voice, Movement, Acting) with the addition of Regeneration. Regeneration provides theatre artists with specific areas of study to offer the psychosocial support a theatre artist may need during their pre-professional training. This thesis will discuss …

Playing George Et Al. In Nickel And Dimed, Oscar León

Student Research Submissions

This website explores Oscar León's experience playing George and Others in Nickel and Dimed, UMW Theatre's first main stage production after COVID-19. This project documents the analysis made for seven characters. It includes research on their backgrounds based on the script of the play, the book it was based on, and actor decisions. The second half of this project is composed of daily journal entries. These document the work done throughout the rehearsal process, with aims to exhibit character work and growth through the documentation of rehearsal notes and production goals.

Much Ado About Nothing, Stacey R. Stratton, Jonathan R. Sabo, Rebekah Priebe, Tim Phipps

Theatre Productions

Using themes of suspicion and loyalty, deception and honor, jealousy and true love, William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing weaves together the humorous story of how two couples find love — whether they want it or not. Condensed and adapted for an intimate staging, this comedy promises to leave audience’s wanting more of what the Bard has to offer.

Our Town, Diane C. Merchant, Jonathan R. Sabo, Rebekah Priebe, Tim Phipps

Theatre Productions

Our Town by Thornton Wilder is considered a classic of American theatre as it portrays life in small town Grover's Corners, New Hampshire at the turn of the last century. In scenes of daily life that capture the poetic beauty of the everyday, the play celebrates family, faith, and the daily miracles that happen all around us, if we are just attuned to see them.

Production Stage Management For A Christmas Carol, Jenna Atherton

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis is submitted in partial fulfillment of a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre Arts: Production and Stage Management at Minnesota State University, Mankato. This thesis contains a detailed account of Jenna M. Atherton’s stage management process and research for A Christmas Carol. The thesis gives a chronological overview of the manager’s process in four chapters; a pre-production analysis, a historical and critical perspective, a journal detailing the process, and a post-production analysis. The fifth and final chapter provides the process development of the manager's career before and during her time in graduate school. Appendices feature technical paperwork, …

The Creation Of Choreography For Disney's High School Musical, John Greer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in musical theatre. It is a detailed account of author John Greer’s artistic process of creating the choreography for Disney’s High School Musical as a part of Minnesota State University, Mankato’s mainstage theatre season in the fall of 2022. The thesis chronicles the choreographer’s artistic process from pre-production through performance in five chapters: a preproduction analysis, an historical and critical perspective, a rehearsal journal, a post-production analysis and a process development analysis. Appendices and works cited are included.

Ritual, Spectacle, And Theatre In Late Medieval Seville (Chapter 1), Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

From the fall of Islamic Išbīliya in 1248 to the conquest of the New World, Seville was a nexus of economic and religious power where interconfessional living among Christians, Jews, and Muslims was negotiated on public stages. From out of seemingly irreconcilable ideologies of faith, hybrid performance culture emerged in spectacles of miraculous transformation, disciplinary processionals, and representations of religious identity. Ritual, Spectacle, and Theatre in Late Medieval Seville reinvigorates the study of medieval Iberian theater by revealing the ways in which public expressions of devotion, penance, and power fostered cultural reciprocity, rehearsed religious difference, and ultimately helped establish Seville …

An Arbitrary Aesthetic: Cultural Reproduction And Hegemonic Canonical Formations In The Western Theatrical Academy, Sim C. Rivers

Theses and Dissertations

Theatre as an artistic practice has often been celebrated as an art of and for the people, being a modality that in theory the common person has access to learn, explore and experience. In recent years I have become preoccupied with the growing rarification and privileging of this art form, particularly in how it is cognized and taught in the academic world. As such, I set out to investigate the mechanisms at work at levels structural, artistic, and personal that determine how theatre is taught and understood within the western academy.

This thesis seeks to examine and unpack the perceived …

The Giver, Stacey R. Stratton, Jonathan R. Sabo, Rebekah Priebe, Tim Phipps

Theatre Productions

The Giver, adapted from Lois Lowry's 1994 Newbery Medal winning novel, is the haunting story centered on young Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the "Receiver of Memory" does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.

Forbidden Temporalities: The Wayward Aesthetics Of Punchdrunk’S Sleep No More, Thomas Fish

Faculty and Research Publications

Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More is an immersive theatrical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hitchcock’s Rebecca that has been staged in New York since 2011 with over 2000 performances. Sprawled over a hundred rooms within three intricately designed warehouses, the event offers a visceral exploration of a labyrinthine space and the potential for anonymous—even erotic—one-on-one encounters with a performer in the dark. This paper offers a new angle on Punchdrunk’s immersive style by considering the embodiment of temporality in performance and its concurrent aesthetic politics. Borrowing from queer theory’s temporal turn, it details how the company manipulates time in the space …

Staging Retro-Perspectives: Performing Age, Memory/Loss, And Queer Desire In The Later Works Of Split Britches (2009–2020), Benjamin Gillespie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project investigates the later works of the celebrated New York–based lesbian-feminist performance troupe Split Britches made up of founding members Peggy Shaw (b. 1944) and Lois Weaver (b. 1949). Revealing how the duo consciously interlaces aspects of aging and age-based identity into the very fabric of their later performances in both form and content, this project analyzes how Shaw and Weaver integrate an explicitly anti-ageist and overtly queer representation of aging on the experimental stage. Their later performances serve to challenge narratives of decline and debilitation that come with (hetero)normative representations of old age and the life course in …

People With Diverse Talents: Arts-Based Research Involving Persons With Disabilities Using Ricky Curry’S Workshop Approach, Janna Raquel D. Talampas, Matthew Ericsson L. Sy.

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Since Persons with Disabilities (PWD) encounters countless challenges such as distinct protection risks which include high risk of violence, exploitation, abuse, and high levels of stigma, the researchers made a documentation of the whole process of their study which consists of workshops, rehearsals, and interviews that were intended for people with disabilities. It aims to give an overview of the experiences of the participants throughout the study. This is to empower disabled people to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem, and to be involved in the community. The researchers gathered four participants to undergo workshops using Ricky Curry’s workshop approach which …

The Shape Of Things: A Theatrical Examination Of The Progression Of Emotional Manipulation, Kylee Lorio

Honors Projects

In Neil LaBute's work, The Shape of Things, graduate art student Evelyn Thompson meets security guard and future muse, Adam Sorenson, in an art museum during his late-night shift. Their meeting poses the question of just how far humans are willing to go for love. In less than two hours, LaBute’s insight regarding manipulation between intimate partners calls the integrity of our own interpersonal relationships into question. This project encapsulates the materials of Bridgewater College student Kylee Lorio while directing this production during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Serving As A Dramaturg To On Campus Productions: The Development And Execution Of Thea 6910: A Dramaturgy Of Three Plays, Megan Kimball

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

In the Fall of 2021, I served as the dramaturge for the Loyola Marymount campus productions of Anna Deavere's Smiths, "Twilight Los Angeles," Brandon Jacob Jenkins, "Everybody "and Melanie Marnich's "These Shining Lives." One can't ignore the distinct and separate story designs of these plays. "Twilight Los Angeles" is a verbatim theatre style, with an arrangement of monologues. "Everybody" is a modern-day morality play with a lottery. "These shining lives" is a period piece set as a docudrama. My process for this thesis will be a reflective and experiential study on performing the role of the dramaturg for these three …

Strengthening Adolescents With Anxiety Through Drama Therapy, Jeremy M. Moeller

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Strengthening Adolescents with Anxiety Through Drama Therapy

Jeremy Moeller

In recent years the issues associated with social anxiety have become increasingly common in adolescents. With these issues becoming more common it is important that they continue to be nurtured and helped. With so many forms of therapy though it may be hard for someone to find a practice that suits them. That is where drama therapy comes in. Drama therapy is a fairly new practice that helps these adolescents to become more expressive and engaging in their everyday lives, decrease their social anxieties, and build a new sense of confidence …

Directing With A Historical Perspective For The Current World, John Reynolds Jr.

Senior Theses

This paper charts the path of directing This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan, which ran from March 24-27. It will explore using the history of the play's setting, New York City in 1982, to keep the production relevant for today's audiences. It also details casting, collaboration with designers, and the rehearsal process. I also give a summary of feedback about keeping the overall environment positive. This experience showed that by leaning into the specific time of the play, the themes resonated strongly with the audiences. A positive environment was also essential to the success of the production.

A Trauma-Informed And Consent-Based Approach To Directing Undergraduate Student Actors: The Development And Execution Of Thea 351: Performance Practicum – The Revolutionists, Amanda Hallman

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.