Leadership Studies Commons^™

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 …

Taking Student Artists And Audiences To The West Side: Exploring The Value Of Creative Adaptation In An Arts Context Through A Case Study Of “West Side Story”, Rebecca G. Bateson-Brown

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the practical application and conceptual acceptance of deliberate creative adaptation within the purview of the performing arts and arts education. More specifically, it centers this conversation around stagings of the iconic musical West Side Story, as my role as a choreographer and arts educator is used to further explore, examine, and emphasize these topics through the documentation of my production planning process, choreographic creation, and ultimate execution of performance material for a local high school production of the show. As such, this project builds with greater specificity off of my previous investigations of “adaptation” as …

Critically And Creatively Engaging With Trauma-Informed Mental Health Research And Treatment Of Lgbtqia+ Communities As Expressive Arts Therapists: A Literature Review, Kelli Lavallee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Expressive Arts Therapists are uniquely situated as both artists and mental health counselors working in psychological pedagogy rooted in systems of oppression. Given the arts-based approaches to the therapeutic relationship, it can be unethical to offer these approaches without acknowledgement of the ways in which the arts intersect with social justice, and justice is only viable if practitioners critically review the clinical mental health education they are consuming from the institutions they learn in, specifically trauma-informed mental health research assimilation and treatment approaches for Expressive Arts Therapists in training, practice, and education. A review of the literature in this paper …

From Gaza City To The Golden Gate A Call To The International Theatre Community To Join The Struggle For Cultural Justice, Jessica Litwak

Student Articles, Chapters, Presentations, Learning Objects

On 9 August 2018, Gaza theatremaker Hossam Madhoun was chatting with friends a little more than fifty yards from the city’s Al Mishal Cultural Centre. One friend, who had just returned to the area, asked where his theatre and performance could be produced in town. The beautiful and well-equipped Red Crescent Society, perhaps? Madhoun had to remind him it had been bombed by the Israeli Army during the military offensive on Gaza in 2008. The friend then asked about the theatre at Holst Cultural Center.

“When was the last time you visited Gaza?” Madhoun asked. “Hamas turned the Holst into …

Cross(Ing) The Line: Leadership In Devised Theatre, Monica Furman

Honors Papers and Posters

“Traditional" (Western) theatre focuses on the relationship between the playwright and the director. Devised theatre is a reaction to the dominant ideology; it is ensemble-created original work. A group of artists collaborate and create a play with no script and, sometimes, no initial theme or message. They use various different art forms as well as interviews and narratives to create a theatrical experience.

My Heart Is In The East: Exploring Theater As A Vehicle For Change, Inspired By The Poetic Performances Of Ancient Andalucía, Jessica Litwak

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study addresses the research question “How Do I Inspire Personal and Social Change Through My Theater Practice?” I implement the theory and practice of H.E.A.T., a fusion theater system, combining use of theater arts as healing practice, educational asset, activist tool, and an art form.I research different ways that theater can affect change, focusing specifically on the use of history in performance.I dramatically interpret a period of history where performance and poetry contributed to change.I utilize qualitative methods including performance ethnography, auto ethnography, arts-based research, and historical research.I describe the fieldwork in conflict zones in the Middle East, which …

Adjusting The Margins: Building Bridges Between Deaf And Hearing Cultures Through Performance Arts, Luane Ruth Davis Haggerty

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study addresses a gap in scholarship on leadership styles in the Deaf community. There is an invisible style of leadership differing from the mainstream culture not previously addressed in the literature at any depth. My study is composed of three interlocking parts; the practice of anthropology: fieldwork, analysis, and presentation. The foundation for my fieldwork, is an "archeology of the structure of the perceived world" (Merleau-Ponty), using the holding environment of the rehearsal process and the structural process of an acting technique called Del-Sign. Del-Sign is a fusion acting style created by combining American Sign Language and the Delsarte …