Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Phaedra: The Influence And History Of A Dramaturgical Mystery, Kierstan K. Conway

The Downtown Review

Many have debated the possible performance of Seneca's plays. Theatre Historians have polarizing opinions on whether Seneca wrote them intending to perform for Roman Audiences. A comparative study of Euripides' Hippolyte, Seneca's Phaedra, and Sara Kane's Phaedra's Love demonstrates the flexibility of this story and its translation to different historical audiences. This further historical analysis illuminates clues within Seneca's text and proves the possibility of staging, offering a new take on plays previously thought of as "closet dramas."

Under New Direction: Using Theatre To Combat The Climate Crisis, Brian Kirsch

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The Earth is growing unsuitable for human society as we know it at an unprecedented rate. Among the latest in a set of increasingly grim statistics, the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide concentration is now a staggering 150% of its value for most of human history (Stein). This has triggered global warming on track to meet or exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, which comes with extreme and irreversible changes to the planet (Jackson). However, this information fails to both command its merited attention and spark the urgent action needed to preserve our way of life. Less than half of American voters consider climate …

"Why This Post Now?" : Dramaturging Politics And Social Media, Kennedy Kemmerer

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Political events have always been influenced by the media, but social media has provided a much stronger influence than the typical newspaper or radio. Users of social media accounts (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) have the opportunity to share whatever they want, to whoever they want, whenever they want. While social media has given immense opportunity for artists and creators alike, it has also given way for creators to participate in uninformed performance, whether intended or not, with their content. Are social media consumers considering whether content, specifically political content, is actually true or are they accepting it at face …

Asexual Dramaturgies: Reading For Asexuality In The Western Theatrical Canon, Anna Maria Ruffino Broussard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Asexuality has recently gained recognition and visibility as a legitimate sexual orientation and identity standpoint that is usually defined as lacking sexual desire for any gender. Popular culture and the academy have both seen the emergence of a robust conversation about the definition and import of asexuality, recognizing the term as an umbrella concept covering an ever-diversifying array of identities. Within the nascent critical discourse on asexuality, theorists have sought to identify asexuality as a sexual orientation, to rethink our society’s sexual normativity, and to question compulsory sexuality, or the assumption that sexual desire is intrinsic to all people, thus …

[Title Of Show] (November 16-19, 2022), Hunter Bell

Student Theatre Programs

Program for [title of show].

To view the photos from this production of [title of show], please click here.

Girls From The Heights: From Mexican Spitfire To Maddy Perez, Gabi Martinez

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The stereotype of the “Spicy Latina” is as prevalent today as it was in the early days of film, and tracing its origins leads to the discovery of a complicated root system of prejudice and stereotype. From the days of Lupe Velez and the film Mexican Spitfire, to the TV shows Modern Family and Jane the Virgin, Hollywood has never seemed to know how to portray Latinas in all of their complexity. This paper investigates how the white male gaze has shaped the perception of Latinas in the media, and how even the modern, more diverse media landscape contributes …

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.

On The Razzle (October 27-29, 2022), Tom Stoppard

Student Theatre Programs

Program for On the Razzle.

Fall Playfest (September 28-30, & October 1, 2022), Lindenwood University

Student Theatre Programs

Program for Fall Playfest.

Plays included:

• Jack and Jill
• The Other Woman
• The Lesson
• Ten Minutes Left
• About What Matters
• Swagger

Be The Light: Creating A Space For The Next Generation Of Lighting Designers, Destiny Hyman

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This presentation will highlight my departmental honors thesis. During the fall and spring semester I researched, programmed, and assisted in the installation of the light lab in the Theatre Design and Technology Studio. This presentation will go over the first stages where I researched different intelligent lighting fixtures to find their different properties and ways to install. This presentation then visits the process where I programed the lighting fixtures into a computer software for them to be used and assist in the system installation of the lighting fixtures in the space. This presentation will show examples of lighting paperwork made …

Judged By The Cover, Jay Froio

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Decolonizing Toronto Theatre, Hanna Shore

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

This research project, “Decolonizing Toronto Theatre,” examines how Soulpepper, a mainstream Toronto theatre company, and their collaboration with Native Earth Performing Arts are contributing to the equity, diversity, inclusion, and decolonization of Toronto theatre through their recent Indigenous productions: Kamloopa and Where the Blood Mixes. We watched, read, and analyzed both plays to explore how these two productions transform and redefine the intellectual, political, and artistic conventions of Anglo-Canadian theatre. Our analyses of these plays are informed by the various texts centred around Canadian Indigenous history and Indigenous theatre. We also used an ethnographic approach by talking to people …

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 …

Successful Post-Covid Theatre Recruitment And Retention Practices, Biliana Stoytcheva-Horissian, Kevork Horissian, Aaron Scully, Shawna Mefferd Kelty

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

In the past several years and especially after the COVID-19 outbreak, recruiting and retaining students has become more challenging than ever before. Even before the pandemic, there has been an increased pressure for colleges and universities to be able to demonstrate tangible educational benefits. This has been especially valid for liberal arts institutions and theatre programs since they are considered to be “less practical and useful.” Often students and their parents focus more on securing jobs rather than exploring interests and passions and seem unable to see the connection between theatre education and other careers.

The panel of presenters brings …

Pride And Prejudice: A Modern, Queer Retelling For The Stage, Kate Isabel Foley

Theater Summer Fellows

In the course of studying LGBTQ topics in a queer drama class, I noticed that there was a glaring omission in our readings: the “B.” However, this lack of bisexual representation wasn’t due to a poor syllabus, but to a dismaying lack of bisexual representation in theatre as a whole. This observation, as well as my own experience as a bisexual woman, motivated me to use my love of writing and theatre to fill the void. After performing in Pride and Prejudice at Ursinus, I knew that Jane Austen’s story was the key to me bringing visibility to an underserved, …

Panic At The Picture Show: Southern Movie Theatre Culture And The Struggle To Desegregate, Susannah L. Broun

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

This paper explores the complex desegregation process of movie theatres in the southern United States. Building off of historiography that investigates regulations of postwar teenage sexuality and recent scholarly work that acknowledges the link between sexuality and civil rights, I argue that movie theatres had a uniquely delayed desegregation process due to perceived sexual intrigue of the dark, private theatre space. Through analysis of drive-in and hardtop theatres, censorship of on-screen content, and youth involvement in desegregation, I contend that anxieties of interracial intimacy and unsupervised teenage sexuality produced this especially prolonged integration process.

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 …

Student Voice And Choice: Factors Influencing Student Participation In Secondary Arts Classes In An Urban Public School District, Alan D. Lambert Ed. D.

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

The purpose of this study was to capture the student voice regarding the value, importance, and relevance of visual and performing arts education in public schools. The host institution for the study was an urban school district in the southern central United States serving 75,000 students, with 55% students identified as Hispanic, and 52% of students experiencing poverty. Graduating seniors responded via questionnaires with forced choice and open-ended items regarding several topics, including what they do in their free time, how they perceive the value of arts classes at school, access to arts classes and the match of their interests …

Retelling Van Gogh: Adapting Vincent Van Gogh’S Biography Using Bertold Brecht’S Epic Theatre, Isabel Grace D. Kehyeng, Sharibelle Angelika S. Lao, Elyza Margarette U. Yap

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Vincent van Gogh is one of the most famous painters in the world. His paintings, such as the “Starry Night”, and his many self-portraits are among the most well-known in the world for its precise brushwork and use of vivid colors. However, Vincent is remembered not only for his paintings, but also for his tortured life, which included slicing off his ear and committing suicide while working before his easel near the end of his miserable, misunderstood life. With the usage of some of the elements of Bertold Brecht’s methods of Epic Theatre, Vincent van Gogh’s complicated life as an …

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 …

Multo: A Performance On The Representation Of Undocumented Filipino Migrants And Overseas Workers Through The Theatrical Form Of Devising, Rigel Cassandra V. Hechanova

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Undocumented Filipinos, often addressed to as “TNTs”, meaning “tago nang tago”, are people who resided in a foreign country against their established immigration laws. Although the matter of migrating and working overseas has been going on for a number of years, the matter regarding overseas illegitimacy has been rarely discussed through the Philippine art medium, specifically, the theatre arts. In line with this, the artist-researcher was inspired to create a multiple-act performance that provides representation to the lives of undocumented Filipino workers / migrants and their loved ones left behind through the theatrical form of Devising. In terms of the …

Meet And Run, Gia M. Binner

Theses and Dissertations

A defense for Gia Binner’s MFA Thesis, Meet and Run, argues that accessible art, known in this paper as commercial dance, is a meaningful vehicle for social change and that it has the ability to dismantle the outdated, European concert dance dominance by modeling the interdependency of both worlds.

Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea: An Exploration Of Scenic Design Process, Emma Laine Hoffbauer

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The purpose of this thesis is to provide research, supporting paperwork, production photographs, and other pertinent materials which document the scenic design for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln/Nebraska Repertory Theatre production of Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea by Nathan Alan Davis. This thesis contains the following: research images collected to develop and communicate ideas regarding location, shape, texture, scale, mood, and historical and architectural reference to the production team; preliminary sketches and digital renderings, and photographs of the 1⁄4” scale model; a full set of drafting plates and painter’s elevations used to communicate finished appearance of each scenic element, a list …

"To Control A Human Destiny:" Sound Design For Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Allison Bucher

Honors Theses

This undergraduate thesis details the sound design process for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Fall 2021 production of Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. Through analysis of the script style of the play, research of the playwright, and collaboration with the artistic team, this student created and implemented an effective sound design for this production.

Keywords: sound, design, theatre, Hedda Gabler, Ibsen

Selected Projects In Scenic Design, Sera Shearer

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

A selection of scenic design projects completed in fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in scenic design at Utah State University.

Spaces Of The Tragic: Modern Dramatic Tragedy And Contemporary Memorial Design, Shiloh Bemis

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Humans use narrative to understand the world around us. At early ages we are exposed to storytelling with variable intent, from cautionary tales to the inspirational and everything in between. The dialectic strength of narrative mediums is well-known and well-studied. Theatre is one of the world’s oldest enduring forms of storytelling and has a strong ability to reflect and adapt with cultures as they develop, as a means of commentary and cultural reflection.

Architecture shares theatre’s ancient roots and has always been an important method of communication and expression. However, its tactics have historically been less narrative-centric than theatre and …

Creating Controversy: An In-Depth Look At The Creation Of Redux, Alexandria Miles

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis will provide a detailed account of the process by which Redux, a devised play produced by The Radical Buffoons, was created. I will explain how I developed various original characters as well as the acting choices I made along the way. I will shed light on the social climate that inspired this piece and the historical implications that influenced our work. Redux was performed on January 28^th, 30^th, 31^st, and February 4^th, 6^th, and 7^th of 2022 at The Hotel Peter Paul in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Though She Be But Little She Is Fierce”: Playing Hermia On The Virtual Stage, Taylor Alleman

Honors Theses

This thesis displays an undergraduate theatre performance student’s process for portraying the character Hermia in the University of Southern Mississippi’s Spring 2021 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The student completed a detailed script and character analysis, practiced specific vocal and movement techniques, and explored various choices in rehearsals in order to create a profound character that best fit the production.

Keywords: Theatre, Analysis, Vocal, Movement, Performing, Shakespeare

Once In A Lifetime: Designing Hair And Makeup For The Era Of Sound, Olga Goupalova

Honors Theses

This thesis describes the design process of an undergraduate theatre student creating hair and makeup looks for a production of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s Once in a Lifetime, presented by the University of Southern Mississippi in the Fall of 2021. This thesis involved a detailed analysis of characters, the collection of primary research from the Roaring Twenties period, and constant communication with both the production team and the performers in order to achieve the most functional yet aesthetically pleasing hair and makeup designs possible.

Keywords: Hair, Makeup, Design, Theatre, Once in a Lifetime, Roaring Twenties, George S. …

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.