Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ecodrama And Sustainable Theatre: A Handbook For Creating Remarkable Change, Gigi Buddie

Pomona Senior Theses

The climate crisis is not new to us, nor are the art forms that have taken shape as vital components of the many activist movements that seek to save the planet. Yet, for the first time at Pomona College, a play about environmental devastation and our hand in it finally graced the stage of this progressive institution this past year. This mini handbook is a call-to-action (of sorts), one that stems from the idea that this should not be the last ecodrama performed at Pomona College. These chapters are structured and supported by both experience and research – formulated from …

Ouachita's All Night Theatre Festival To Be Held March 12, Abigail Blankenship, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Theatre Arts will present its 22nd annual All-Night Theatre: A 10-Minute Play Festival on Saturday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Verser Theatre. The festival, hosted by Ouachita’s chapter of Alpha Psi Omega national theatre honor society, is run entirely by students. Performances are free and open to the public.

The festival showcases what students can achieve through a unique, collaborative process. First, student playwrights may submit original works no more than 10 minutes in length to be considered for the festival. A panel of anonymous faculty, staff and students judge the submissions, and those …

Ouachita Theatre Department Presents Musical By Senior Sammy Campione From Feb. 16-21, Felley Lawson, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

The Department of Theatre Arts at Ouachita Baptist University will present “Tanglewood,” a musical written and directed by senior Sammy Campione, from Feb. 16-21 in Verser Theatre, 409 Ouachita Street. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 16-17; Saturday, Feb. 19; and Monday, Feb. 21. A matinee is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 20, at 2:30 p.m.

“Tanglewood” was selected for the department’s annual Muse Project, which allows students majoring in theatre, musical theatre or theatre education to create works based on what most inspires them and then bring those works to the stage.

Pivoting Rural Community-Based Fine Arts Programs For Youth Due To A Global Pandemic, Heather Olson Beal, Cc Conn, Lauren Burrow, Amber Wagnon, Chrissy Cross Ph.D.

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

This personal experience essay features five women professors who, as engaged scholars, seek to continuously respond to the needs of their local community by volunteering their time and expertise to offer educational programs that focus on creative arts and academic assistance for K–12 students. This piece explores the opportunities and obstacles we experienced in using virtual platforms, during the 2020 global pandemic, in order to re-envision our civic responsibilities to engage communities beyond our previous place-based programs.

Book Review Of The Routledge Companion To Theatre Of The Oppressed, Amy Phillips

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

In my review of The Routledge Companion to Theatre of the Oppressed by Boal, J., Howe, K., and Soerio, J., eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 2019), I compare the book’s call for Theatre of the Oppressed to embrace a nuanced investigation of social problems with its response: the international movements detailed in its chapters. While demonstrating that the first-hand accounts provide a measured answer to contradictions inherent in a system which Augusto Boal developed in response to a specific political climate, I emphasize the beauty of theory and practice sitting side by side, in paradox, and encourage scholar and …

Taking Youth Voices Seriously: Theatre, Storytelling, And Empowerment With Refugee Youth In Memphis, Tn, Taylor St. John

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This project report documents the most recent play-turned-podcast in a multi-year partnership between the Orpheum Theatre Group and the Refugee Empowerment Program in Memphis, TN. Youth from the program have been engaging in From Where I Stand, a theatrical storytelling program that weaves first-person narratives into theatrical performances that are presented for the community. While our third performance entitled, Refugee Portraits, was postponed due to the pandemic, it was given new life in the form of a podcast. This report will explore the process of creating the live theatrical performance, pivoting that performance to a podcast, and reflect on …

Ouachita To Present One Act Play Festival April 29-30, Meagan A. Woodard, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Theatre Arts will present its biannual, student directed One Act Play Festival on Thursday, April 29, and Friday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m. in Verser Theatre. Due to health guidelines, limited seating is available only to Ouachita students, faculty and staff; Friday’s show will be available for the public to attend and watch via simulcast in Jones Performing Arts Center. Tickets are free and available at www.obu.edu/boxoffice.

The One Act Play Festival features a variety of short plays produced by seniors for their end-of-semester project in Ouachita’s directing class; the performances highlight what the …

Ouachita's School Of Fine Arts Announces Adjusted Spring Events, Mandy Halbert, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s School of Fine Arts has adjusted its Spring 2021 events, including concerts, theatre productions and art galleries, to allow students to continue their performance education as well as provide safe viewing for audiences following COVID-19 guidelines from the Arkansas Department of Health and Ouachita’s Health Monitoring and Action Team.

Live events for the spring semester will follow the same protocols that were introduced last semester, with attendance limited to the Ouachita campus community and reduced seating in order to follow social distancing guidelines. Most performances will be available to audiences to view for free at www.livestream.com/obu, …

Ouachita To Present One Act Play Festival For On-Campus Audiences Nov. 19-20, Meagan A. Woodard, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Theatre Arts will present its biannual, student directed One Act Play Festival on Thursday, Nov. 19, and Friday, Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in Verser Theatre. Due to health guidelines, limited seating is available only to Ouachita students, faculty and staff. Tickets are free and available at www.obu.edu/boxoffice.

The One Act Play Festival features a variety of plays entirely produced by students for their end-of-semester project in Ouachita’s senior directing class. The performances highlight what students have learned in the course and in their years at Ouachita.

Joker Exchange Online - Meeting The Risks And Opportunities Of The Covid-19 Crisis, Uri Yitzchak Noy Meir, Anne Larcher

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

In this article, we narrate and analyse patterns of engagement and harvest key learning from the Joker Exchange Online (JEO) events on 11th April and May 2nd. We map the impact of these online events to inform future events as an effective collective response/strategy to global challenges. At the same time, we are Theatre of the Oppressed practitioners who attended/presented in the JEO, and this informs our research and engaged interest in theatre and community work on the margins of theatre, activism, and social change. The article has three parts: the first part look at the “triggers” for the Joker …

Theatre Of The Beat’S Restorative Justice Theatre Program: Highlights From The Baseline Evaluation, Karen Nelson, Keely Kavcic, Courtney Primeau, Kimberlee Walker

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This report highlights the findings from the evaluation of Theatre of the Beat’s (TOTB) Restorative Justice Theatre Program, which works with incarcerated persons at the Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVIW), a federal prison in Kitchener, Ontario. The project was conducted by the Research Shop, part of the Community Engaged Scholarship Institute (CESI) at the University of Guelph, in partnership with Theatre of the Beat (TOTB), a not-for-profit theatre company with a process rooted in restorative justice principles and a passion for promoting conversations around social justice.

Ouachita's Fall Concerts And Theatre Productions Available Online, Jessica Daniell, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s School of Fine Arts has made adjustments to its fall concert and theatre season to both allow students to continue their performance education and allow viewers to experience their art safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

With reduced seating available to allow for physical distancing, in-person attendance for many events will be limited to Ouachita students, faculty and staff only. However, streaming options will be available for most events for off-campus patrons or those who prefer the virtual option. Some events will be streamed live for free via Ouachita’s typical Livestream channel: www.livestream.com/obu. Others will require paid …

Capturing Quarantine: Student Pandemic Experience Journal, Taylor Koski

Public History Journals

Journal submitted from the first Public History 2020 summer session class at Columbia College Chicago reflecting on aspects of the global pandemic from the student perspective.

Capturing Quarantine: Student Pandemic Experience Journal, Peyton Cooper

Public History Journals

Journal submitted from the first Public History 2020 summer session class at Columbia College Chicago reflecting on aspects of the global pandemic from the student perspective.

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Theatre As An Intervention For Empathy Development Among Undergraduate Students, Jonathan Stewart

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Empathy is the ability feel into, or put oneself in the place of another. It is the ability to walk in someone else’s shoes. Studies have shown that this ability is decreasing among today’s college students and on the rise as a desired trait for today’s leaders. This dilemma provides an interesting opportunity to explore how institutions of higher education can help develop the leaders of tomorrow by increasing empathy among students. Specifically, this research explores theatre as an intervention for empathy development among college students.

Theatre, as a program of study, is unique within the college experience in that …

Ouachita’S Department Of Theatre Arts To Present “Junie B. Jones The Musical” Sept. 19-24, Samantha Pipkin, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Department of Theatre Arts will present its fall family play Junie B. Jones The Musical with the opening performance on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m. in Verser Theatre. Performances will continue Sept. 20-21 and Sept. 23-24 at 7 p.m., with a matinee on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for $10 each at OBU’s box office.

Identi-Tea Podcast: An Original Play, Karsyn Wilson

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Creative Works Winner for 2019:

Identi-Tea Podcast is an original play based on the word-for-word interviews of three LGBTQ+ students of color from UNLV who explore all the various facets of their identities formatted in the style of a podcast. In various moments during the play, audience members are prompted by the actors to critically engage with the ideas presented.

Learning Dramatically With Linfield Theatre, Calder Ifft

Student Engagement Posters

Calder Ifft discusses student engagement at Linfield College with regard to learning outside the classroom through participation in the Linfield Theatre program.

Fear Of Etiolation In The Age Of Professional Passion, Kathleen F. Mcconnell

Faculty Publications

Recent analysis of academia credits neoliberalism for its destabilization. Neoliberalism alone does not explain academics’ conflicted attachments to a precarious professional life or the tendency to embrace normative conceptions of passion and shun professional decline. The quarantine on decline is analogous to the exemption that J.L. Austin imposed on theatre: both deny constitutive power to certain statements and harbor a fear of queerness. Four essays published in Text & Performance Quarterly illustrate how academics quarantine professional fears and doubts. A fifth finds that the deterioration of professional accomplishments loosens normative associations to make space for other, queer relations.

Poetry Slammin’ In The Slammer: Questioning The Limits Of Arts-In-Corrections, Rivka Rocchio

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

Through the process of creating—specifically of shaping new worlds of possibility through poetry and the performance of it—the arts may offer gaps in the punishment of incarceration and attempt the reclamation or claiming of individual expression. But what are the limits of artistic expression in a highly monitored and surveilled location? This reflective essay explores a performance of slam poetry by ten inmates inside Arizona's Eyman State Prison for an audience of twenty-five prisoners. Using Keoni Watson’s winning poem as a frame, Rocchio questions the reported impacts of the slam and the larger culpability of arts-in-corrections in simultaneously supporting and …

Prison Is Not…But It Can Be…, Keoni K. Watson

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This poem is a clarion call to action to confront our perceptions about what prison is and what it can be. The poem asks the reader to explore how they experience the “prison industrial complex” in their own lives, and how they might shift their views through perspective-taking to create a more holistically integrative prison experience for themselves and others. The value of the poem lay within the context in which it was created: written by person-first prison inmate Keoni Watson—during a three month performative workshop facilitated by Rivka Roccio at an Arizona State Penitentiary—to be performed as a spoken …

Ouachita To Present "The Secret Garden" Musical Sept. 28-Oct. 2, Addy Goodman, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

The Ouachita Baptist University Department of Theatre Arts will present “The Secret Garden, the Spring Version,” an adaptation of Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman’s original Broadway musical, in Verser Theatre on campus Sept. 28-Oct. 2.

The show will be a shortened version of the full length 1991 musical based on the 1911 children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The show tells the story of orphan Mary Lennox and her journey to renewal after finding a locked garden.

“This show is definitely a crowd pleaser,” said Dr. Scott Holsclaw, chair of Ouachita’s Division of Applied Arts and director of the show. …

Visual Rhetoric And Semiotics In Scenic Design: A Pedagogical Analysis, Chris Guzzardo

Masters Theses

Scenic designers are professionals in theatre who design sets for the stage that communicate aspects of a performance, such as time of day, location, and era. Sets are supposed to lay a foundation to performances as they communicate information to audiences through visual design. Since visual rhetoric and semiotics play a big part in the successful completion of transmitting messages, knowledge of both concepts should be taught to scenic designers. This thesis provides a content analysis of ten popular books used by scenic designers and their respective education programs. The analysis provides a structured search for visual rhetoric and semiotic …

Staging Famine Irish Memories Of Migration And National Performance In Ireland And Québec, Jason King

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In "Staging Famine Irish Memories of Migration and National Performance in Ireland and Québec" Jason King examines recent community theater productions about the Irish Famine migration to Québec in 1847. King explores community-based and national ideas of performance and the role of remembrance in shaping and transmitting the diasporic identities of Québec's Irish cultural minority. While most of the plays re-enact French-Canadian adoptions of Famine orphans as spectacles of Irish integration in Québec, David Fennario's Joe Beef: (A History of Pointe Saint Charles) (1984, published 1991) rehearses the history of the Canadian/Québec nation in terms of recurrent labor exploitation epitomized …

Ouachita Theatre Arts To Present "Billy Blythe" Modern Folk Opera Nov. 17-20, Katie Smith, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

Ouachita Baptist University’s Division of Music will present “Billy Blythe,” a modern folk opera featuring music written by Bonnie Montgomery and libretto by Britt Barber, both Ouachita alumni. The opera will be performed Nov. 17-19 at 7:30 p.m. and Nov. 20 at 2:30 p.m. All performances will be held in Jones Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $10 each, and admission is open to the public. Tickets can be purchased at www.obu.edu/boxoffice.

Ouachita And Henderson Collaborate To Perform To Kill A Mockingbird Sept. 29-Oct. 10, Mattie Alexander, Ouachita News Bureau

Press Releases

The Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University theatre programs are partnering to produce and perform To Kill a Mockingbird. The play is adapted by Christopher Sergel from the classic novel by Harper Lee. The show will be performed Sept. 29-Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 2 at 2:30 p.m. in OBU’s Verser Theatre and Oct. 6-8 and Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. in HSU’s Arkansas Hall Studio Theatre.

Imaginative Acts Of Resistance: Dramatic Storytelling In An Elementary School Classroom, Shannon K. Mcmanimon

Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Journal

This critical ethnographic project draws upon literature on imagination, critical literacy, and theatre to explore a sixth-grade class’s participation in a critical literacy and creative drama program. Through examples from the storytelling practices of the Neighborhood Bridges program, I outline how students and teachers (including a teaching artist) imagined, co-created, and revised storylines in their classroom; this collaboration provides an alternative to the common narrative of the constrained urban public school classroom. The resulting imaginative acts of resistance: 1) encourage and empower urban elementary students to enact relevant, collaborative community in their classrooms; 2) engage meaningful—not just functional—literacies; 3) ask …

University Theatres Should Open People's Eyes To New Ideas, Heather Gibson

UCF Forum

Content guides and advisories, which list all of the parts of a production that a viewer might find offensive, are becoming commonplace with theatre companies.

Exposure To The Arts At Young Age Fosters Creativity In Children, Heather Gibson

UCF Forum

I recently ignored the cardinal rule of parenthood and kept my 2-year-old, Huck, awake during his normal naptime. I knew it was risky, but then, so is suggesting he wear a shirt that isn’t his favorite color orange, so I was willing to take my chances.