Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

The Importance Of True Friendship As Exemplified Within Shakespearean Plays, Gretchen Eckert

Senior Honors Theses

Friendship is a valuable, important relationship, because a friend possesses great influence over a person’s life. For this reason, a good friend with a positive character is indispensable. In the Bible, God defined a true friend as selfless, generous, loyal, and honest. William Shakespeare valued the influence of a loyal friend, and his plays include a broad range of friendships that illustrate the impact of a friend’s characteristics. In Macbeth, Banquo proves to be a true, supportive friend who points Macbeth towards God. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hermia and Helena struggle with the selfishness that injures their …

Too Young Or Too Old? Age And The Politics Of Performing King Lear - Successfully!, Jim B. Wallace

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

“It is sometimes said that the problem with the part of Lear is that by the time you are old enough to play it, you are too old to play it.” (Jonathan Bate)

Theatre critics rarely see an outstanding performance of King Lear. The thesis of this paper is that it is possible to successfully perform the role of Lear however it takes much more than excellent acting skills to do so. To successfully play Lear requires a visceral understanding of the profound psychological and physical changes that generally begin around age sixty-five. This paper demonstrates that what one learns …

Directing Nocturne, Trevor Belt

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 Directing. It is a detailed account of author Trevor Belt’s artistic process in directing Nocturne as a part of Minnesota State University, Mankato’s studio theatre season in the fall of 2019. The thesis chronicles the director’s artistic process from pre-production through performances in five chapters: a preproduction analysis, an historical and critical perspective, a rehearsal and performance journal, a post-production analysis and a process development analysis. Appendices and works cited are included.

แนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมในการสร้างสรรค์ละครชาตรีร่วมสมัย : กรณีศึกษาการกำกับการแสดงเรื่อง พายุพิโรธ, ชาคร ชะม้าย

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้ศึกษาการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเรื่องพายุพิโรธผ่านแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรม ผู้วิจัยในฐานะผู้กำกับการแสดง ศึกษาการสร้างสรรค์จากบทละครเรื่องพายุพิโรธ แปลจาก The Tempest ของ วิลเลียม เชกสเปียร์ (William Shakespeare) และละครชาตรี เพื่อค้นหาแก่นความคิดหลัก(Theme) และวิธีการนำเสนอ(Style) ที่สามารถสื่อสารหลัก(Message) จากบทละครควบคู่กับอัตลักษณ์ละครชาตรี เพื่อแสดงให้เห็นว่าการแสดงจากต่างวัฒนธรรมสามารถนำมาสร้างสรรค์ร่วมกันได้ ผู้วิจัยศึกษาแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมและการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเพื่อสร้างแนวทางกำกับ ก่อนนำเข้าสู่กระบวนการสร้างและจัดแสดง ผลการศึกษาผู้วิจัยพบว่ากระบวนการกำกับการแสดงด้วยแนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมหลักสำคัญคือ การกำหนดแก่นความคิดหลักของผู้กำกับการแสดงที่มีความเป็นสากล(Universality) เพื่อผสานอัตลักษณ์การแสดงจากทั้งสองวัฒนธรรม ทั้งในแง่ความคิดและรูปแบบที่จะส่งผลต่อทุกองค์ประกอบการแสดง ในทุกกระบวนการสร้างสรรค์จะต้องตระหนักถึงการแลกเปลี่ยนระหว่างวัฒนธรรม(Cultural exchange) บนพื้นฐานความเคารพอย่างจริงใจต่ออัตลักษณ์และรากเหง้าวัฒนธรรม(Cultural Source) ส่งผลให้การพิจารณาบริบทสังคมและประเด็นร่วมสมัยของการแสดงนั้น ก็เพื่อมองหาศักยภาพในการสร้างสรรค์ร่วมกันของทั้งสองการแสดง เพื่อให้เกิดนิเวศการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรม(Intercultural performative ecology) ที่ผลักดันการปะทะสังสรรค์ร่วมกันอย่างเป็นธรรมชาติ ผู้วิจัยได้ข้อสรุปว่าการกำกับการแสดงละครชาตรีร่วมสมัยเรื่องพายุพิโรธ เริ่มต้นจากวัตถุดิบการแสดง ทั้งบทละครพายุพิโรธและละครชาตรีว่าสร้างแรงบันดาลใจอย่างไรแก่ผู้กำกับในฐานะศิลปิน ซึ่งไม่มีหลักการตายตัว ข้อถกเถียงในประเด็นการรักษาสมดุลระหว่างการอนุรักษ์หรือพัฒนาจึงไม่ควรจะต้องแบ่งแยกประเภทเพราะขึ้นอยู่กับเป้าหมายของศิลปิน แนวคิดการแสดงข้ามวัฒนธรรมจึงเป็นการสร้างการแสดงในกระแส โลกาภิวัตน์ที่ส่งผลให้ศิลปินทั่วทุกพื้นที่สามารถเชื่อมต่อและแลกเปลี่ยนการแสดงจากต่างวัฒนธรรม เพื่อนำมาสร้างสรรค์บนบริบทการแสดงร่วมสมัยที่เปิดโอกาสให้นำเอาอัตลักษณ์การแสดงจากทุกพื้นที่วัฒนธรรมมาใช้สร้างสรรค์ ซึ่งเป็นปรากฏการณ์การแสดงที่ยังคงดำเนินต่อไป

The Future In The Instant: Time As The Essence Of Dramatic Tension In Shakespeare's Plays And Their Contemporary Stage Appropriations, Amalia Oswald

Theses and Dissertations

This project looks at the similarities and differences between three Shakespeare plays and their companion contemporary stage appropriations: Othello and Toni Morrisons’s Desdemona, The Winter’s Tale and Mary Elizabeth Hamilton’s 16 Winters or the Bear’s Tale, and Macbeth and Daivd Grieg’s Dunsinane. The specific lens used to examine these texts is the dramatic concept of time, taking the form of different variations throughout the work such as chronology, remembrance, fate, and futurity. This project argues that the multifaceted dramatic concept of time is the foundation for dramatic tension and the principal connecting motif between the three sets of early modern/contemporary …

On Voyeurism: Being Seen On The Modern Stage, Megan M. Mobley

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

At the end of the nineteenth century, playwrights grew more interested in exploring the ramifications of the gaze, looking and being looked at. For existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, the gaze causes a never-ending battle between our subjective selves, how we view ourselves, and our objective selves, or how others view us. The knowledge of the Other’s gaze allows us to self-reflect on our own existence. Sartre and Oscar Wilde each incorporate the gaze into their plays to explore the battle between our subjective and objective selves, gendered perception, differences in perception, and to undercut or demonstrates the dominant structures of seeing. …

The Performance Tradition Of The Medieval English University: The Works Of Thomas Chaundler, Thomas Meacham

Early Drama, Art, and Music

Contrary to previous scholarship, which has claimed that university drama did not occur at the English universities before the Tudor period, Meacham argues that there was a vibrant tradition of performance throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He suggests an earlier tradition has not been recognized because, in addition to the false assumption that medieval pedagogy cannot support such activity, the full range of medieval performance practices or "texts," beyond the traditional play text, have not been considered. This book takes as its focus one of the last medieval university plays, Thomas Chaundler’s Liber apologeticus de omni statu humanae naturae …

Symbolism In The Allegory: A Look At Apollo’S Lyre, Keri Meinert, Emily Keiner, Anne Bak

2019 Festscrift: Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo

This paper analyzes the symbolic meaning within Monteverdi’s operatic version of the fable of Orpheus, a demigod who has a talent for music. When Orpheus’ bride Eurydice died suddenly from a snake bite, he decides to seek her soul in the Underworld and bring her back to the land of the living. This task does not prove to be as easy for Orpheus as he initially thinks, when he finds himself losing her twice during the course of the five acts. To show how his journey unfolds, and the meaning behind each step, we will develop the symbolic meaning in …

Terrence Mcnally’S Universalizing Model: The Role Of Disability In Andre’S Mother; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; And Love! Valour! Compassion!, Alexa Burnstine

English (MA) Theses

In his works such as Andre’s Mother; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; and Love! Valour! Compassion!, playwright Terrence McNally utilizes categorically gay themes such as homophobia and living with HIV and AIDS in a time when little was understood about the illnesses. For these reasons, McNally critics customarily analyze McNally’s plays with a queer theory lens. This work examines those same topics and others, but with a critical disability lens. Inspired by Robert McRuer’s analytical partnership of queer, AIDS, and disabilities studies, this work assesses McNally’s use of various types of languages and finds the figures who are …

Greeks And Trojans On The Early Modern English Stage, Lisa Hopkins

Late Tudor and Stuart Drama

No story was more interesting to Shakespeare and his contemporaries than that of Troy, partly because the story of Troy was in a sense the story of England, since the Trojan prince Aeneas was supposedly the ancestor of the Tudors. This book explores the wide range of allusions to Greece and Troy in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, looking not only at plays actually set in Greece or Troy but also those which draw on characters and motifs from Greek mythology and the Trojan War. Texts covered include Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Hamlet, The Winter’s …

Healing Through Creativity And Creation: Drama Therapy As Treatment For Individuals With Eating Disorders, Hayley Werner

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

For those living with eating disorders, intervention and effective treatment can mean the difference between life and death. Conventional treatments, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, forms of talk therapy, and Nutritional Counseling, focus solely on the psychological patterns or nutritional science of eating disorders. Though these treatments are effective for some individuals, there is a gap in treatment options that address both the mind and body as one and appeal to the humanity of patients outside of their disorder(s). Herein lies the power and potential of integrating drama therapy as a widely available treatment. Drama therapy …

A Review Of Annika Mann, Reading Contagion, By Michael Edson, Michael Edson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

A review of Annika Mann, Reading Contagion, by Michael Edson

Review Of Novel Ventures: Fiction And Print Culture In England, 1690-1730 By Leah Orr, Susannah Sanford

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

A review of Novel Ventures: Fiction and Print Culture in England, 1690-1730 by Leah Orr by Susannah Sanford

The Power Of Modern Othello, Akasha Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.

Mini-Actors, Mega-Stages: Examining The Use Of Theatre Among Children And Youth In U.S. Evangelical Megachurches, Carla Elisha Lahey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

How do children and youth first encounter the performing arts? While schools may stand out as an obvious answer, a recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education shows that the percentage of public schools offering theatre classes dropped at both the primary and secondary level from 2000-2010 (Brenchley). Yet, even as arts offerings experience a decline in some public schools, many students are being introduced to performance through another venue – the evangelical megachurch.

Since the birth of the church growth movement in the 1970s, megachurches (defined as Protestant congregations that average at least 2,000 weekly attendees) have …

Bewitching Power: The Virtuosity Of Gender In Dekker And Massinger's The Virgin Martyr, Thomas Fish

Faculty Articles

This paper considers Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger’s play The Virgin Martyr (1622) in light of scientific notions of the female body circulating during the period to illustrate how the performance of martyrdom manifested a performance of gender virtuosity, elevating it to the status of the supernatural or divine. Like well-known female martyrs from the period, such as Anne Askew, the protagonist, Dorothea, takes on characteristically male attributes: she assumes the role of the soldier and defies scientific understanding of the female gender by sealing her phlegmatic “leaky” body and exuding divine heat that defies her cold, wet “nature." The …

Saving Pocahontas: A Conversation On Gender, Culture, And Power In The Storied Saving Moment, Claire Ehr

Undergraduate Honors Papers

Pocahontas is a figure with much cultural capital, even today, and her influence was historically important to Native and European agendas alike. Pocahontas as a person indeed had a life that seemed to influence political relations between Native and European (specifically Powhatan, specifically English). However, the storied construct of Pocahontas has had significantly more cultural sway, influencing (or at least representing changes in) everything from gendered power dynamics to the interplay between the European Colonizer and the Indigenous Other.¹ Pocahontas’ image has been re-appropriated over and over throughout time to further political agendas and to represent the female and …

2019 Cave Run Storytelling Festival Poster, Cave Run Storytelling Festival Committee (Morehead, Ky.), Morehead Tourism Commission (Morehead, Ky.)

Cave Run Storytelling Festival Posters

Promotional development poster for the Cave Run Storytelling Festival held on September 27 to September 28, 2019. Those performing included: Anne Rutherford, Diane Ferlatte, Dolores Hydock, Donald Davis, Josh Goforth, Kim Weitkamp, and Peter Cook.

Staging English Affairs In Early Modern Italy: History, Politics, Drama, Fabio Battista

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at the creation and dissemination of alternative versions of English history through the means of dramatic fiction, and contextualizes them in the panorama of the intellectual debates of seventeenth-century Italy. Staging English Affairs in Early Modern Italy studies the ways in which the reinvention of Tudor and Stuart affairs in dramatic literature mirrored the ambitions, fears, and fantasies of a century in disquieting transformation. This research documents how news and information from England entered the Italian states, how they were perceived, and what their repurposing can reveal about the potentialities of intercultural exchange. Anglo-inspired drama became a …

Love And Revolution: Queer Freedom, Tragedy, Belonging, And Decolonization, 1944 To 1970, Velina Manolova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines literary works by U.S. writers Lillian Smith, Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry written in the early part of the postwar period referred to as the “Protest Era” (1944-1970). Analyzing a major work by each author—Strange Fruit (1944), The Member of the Wedding (1946), Giovanni’s Room (1956), and Les Blancs (1970)—this project proposes that Smith, McCullers, Baldwin, and Hansberry were not only early theorists of intersectionality but also witnesses to the deeply problematic entanglements of subjectivities formed by differential privilege, which the author calls intersubjectivity or love. Through frameworks of queerness, racialization, performance/performativity, tragedy, and …