Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Adapting For A New Audience: Ta'zieh-Between Two Rivers, Nikoo Mamdoohi

Masters Theses

This thesis is the written portion of my experience as a director, staging an adaptation of the traditional Iranian theater form, Ta’zieh, for my thesis project. I start with a brief description of our adapted performance, followed by the inspirations that led to the creation of the piece. I then trace the evolution of the idea from the initial stage to the final performance. I describe the adaptation process in three sections, the story, form, and practice. In each section, in a comparative manner, I write about the ways in which Ta’zieh is traditionally done and elaborate on our decisions …

Interpreting Dreams: Directing An Immersive Adaptation Of Strindberg's A Dream Play, Mary-Corinne Miller

Masters Theses

This written portion of my thesis documents how I, as director, conceptualized, devised and staged an immersive adaptation of August Strindberg’s A Dream Play, with the support of a large team of collaborators including: assistant directors, dramaturgs, designers, stage managers, and actors. In this document I attempt to synthesize the discoveries I made in this process regarding the challenges and experience of directing immersive theater, including the importance of giving up directorial control and relying on my collaborators as partners in the creation of the production.

I begin with an introduction to the research I conducted into the field of …

Play In The Woods: The Role Of The Dramaturg In Facilitating A Holistic, Slow Theater-Making Process, Claudia Nolan

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I document the ideas behind and my process for Play in the Woods, an experiment in slow theater-making that serves as a model for how dramaturgs can facilitate sustainable, holistic methods of performance. This model is grounded in feminist theater practices and the aesthetic of poor theater. In creating the performance of Play in the Woods, I as dramaturg invited participants to serve as co-creators, individually crafting pieces that examined fairytales and the role those stories have played on their lives. The performance was held out of doors at the Amethyst Brook Conservation Area on …

Queer Temporality And Aesthetics In Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge: A Dramaturgical Exploration Of The Play At Umass Amherst, Gaven D. Trinidad

Masters Theses

This master’s thesis documents the dramaturgical exploration of the spring 2018 University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater’s production of gender non-conforming performance artist Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge. The thesis is separated into two parts. The first half focuses on my dramaturgical analysis of Mac’s play and its exploration of queer temporality and queer embodiment, asserting the importance of queer aesthetics in American drama and its vital role in shaping the future of LGBTQIA+ politics in the United States. The second half includes reflections on rehearsal processes and performances, giving readers and fellow artists examples of the potential …

Motion As Music: Hypermetrical Schemas In Eighteenth-Century Contredanses, Alison N. Stevens

Masters Theses

An important part of the recent growth in scholarship on meter focuses on reconstructing 18th-century listening practices. Danuta Mirka (2009) studies contemporary accounts of meter in theory treatises to build a model of 18th-century metric listening, while Stefan Love (2016) takes a corpus studies approach, arguing that surveying repertoire provides a more accurate view of meter than 18th-century theorists. But despite the known debt that much 18th-century art music owes to dance and dance music, Mirka and Love only briefly mention dance. In touching so lightly on dance, these and other authors overlook the more fundamental connection between meter and …

The Lily's Revenge: Staging Love And Community In The Style Of The Ridiculous, Jennifer Onopa

Masters Theses

This written portion of my thesis documents my process as a director in staging Taylor Mac’s play The Lily’s Revenge in collaboration with a creative team of designers, dramaturgs, and performers.

I share with the reader my processes toward fostering cohesion and collaboration among a team while working on a complex play that departs from many theatrical conventions. I discuss significant learnings from several areas of dramaturgical and performance research that dovetail within the play: queer performance practice, Theater of the Ridiculous, and Noh theater, and how I used this research to support the communication with my design collaborators to …

Asian American Heritage Seeking: Personal Narrative Performances Of Ancestral Return, Porntip Israsena Twishime

Masters Theses

Asian American belongings, migration patterns, and transnational identities are largely constructed in the United States as static, unidirectional, and invisible. Asian Americans complicate these constructions through the practice of ancestral return. In this thesis, “ancestral return” is constituted through one’s participation in a university study abroad program to a specific place to where one traces her heritage. I use “return” not necessarily to account for a form of reverse migration; rather “return” here names the multiple, sometimes contradictory kinds of return, including “return” to a place that one has not yet been. This project examines how Asian American identities are …

How The Light Gets In: A Reflection On The Costume Design Process For Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge, Christina Beam

Masters Theses

A reflection on the costume design process for the theatrical production of Taylor Mac’s The Lily's Revenge: A Flowergory Manifold, with book and lyrics by Taylor Mac and music by Rachelle Garniez. The production was directed by Jen Onopa. Performed at the Fine Arts Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, April 20th to April 29th, 2018.

The Lily’s Revenge is a piece of queer durational theater that tells the story of a Lily who falls in love with a bride and goes on a journey to become a man, so she can marry her. Along the way she faces challenges …

Infants Of The Spring: Disrupting The Narrative, Ifa Bayeza

Masters Theses

This written portion of my thesis will document and codify how I as dramaturg, writer and director adapted and staged the classic Harlem Renaissance novel Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman. I walk the reader through how seeing as a director influenced my creative choices through key aspects of production: script development, design, and building the ensemble. The thesis will conclude with a post-production reflection and summary.