Let The People Speak: How Verbatim Theater Allows Historically Marginalized Groups Tell Their Stories,
2022
Macalester College
Let The People Speak: How Verbatim Theater Allows Historically Marginalized Groups Tell Their Stories, Kalala C. Kiwanuka-Woernle
Theatre and Dance Honors Projects
motherhood: the good, bad, and ugly was born out of my research of Verbatim Theater, specifically the practices of Anna Deavere Smith, The Tectonic Theater Project, and Eve Ensler; and the lack of fully fleshed out mother characters represented in theatre. In my research, I focused on how these different playwrights crafted their plays, identified the topic or event they wanted to explore, and the selection of their subjects. During the pandemic, I had the idea to create a theater piece that would tell the good, the bad, and the ugly of motherhood because in the media especially in the …
Beneath The Surface: A Memory Play On Asperger's Syndrome,
2022
Liberty University
Beneath The Surface: A Memory Play On Asperger's Syndrome, Conner Case
Senior Honors Theses
While academic, formal research proves to give readers an intellectual understanding of Asperger’s syndrome, this thesis serves as an approach to understanding the psychology of an Aspie on an emotional level. Through both research from peer-reviewed studies and the personal perception of an Aspie writer, a playwright develops a script inspired by the psychological aspects of Tennessee Williams’ memory play, The Glass Menagerie, to create an informative, yet engaging story about an Aspie protagonist. The playwright seeks to express that Aspies, despite their stereotypically cold exteriors, are emotionally complex individuals beneath the surface.
Postcolonialism And The Missionary Experience In The Book Of Mormon,
2022
James Madison University
Postcolonialism And The Missionary Experience In The Book Of Mormon, Diana Witt
James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)
In their irreverent 2011 musical, The Book of Mormon, writer-composers Matt Stone, Trey Parker, and Robert Lopez satirize the work of Mormon missionaries. This paper analyzes the musical's book and lyrics, its cultural context and reception, and postcolonial scholarship. The paper argues that while The Book of Mormon operates as a postcolonialist text by critiquing cultural hegemony, it also reinforces stereotypes and practices present in colonization like othering and cultural colonialism.
A Festival Of Form: Score,
2022
Southern Methodist University
A Festival Of Form: Score, Anthony Elia
Bridwell Library Research
"A Festival of Form" was both an event at Bridwell and Perkins School of Theology and a conceptual piece of music that lasted several days. In this rendering, the "piece of music" was articulated in a fluid combination of activities that included works by other composers, including John Cage. The activities involved--from lectures, conversations, and meals to actual performances of both short works and especially the world-record breaking rendition of "Organ2/ASLSP" played by Christopher Anderson--comprise the entirety of "A Festival of Form" as performance piece. The challenge of this work is that unlike nearly any other music, it is purposely …
Sweet Fooling: Ethical Humor In King Lear And Levinas,
2022
Chapman University
Sweet Fooling: Ethical Humor In King Lear And Levinas, Kent R. Lehnhof
English Faculty Articles and Research
"In recent years, scholars have increasingly put the works of William Shakespeare (1564-1623) in dialogue with the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995)... The majority of these Shakespearean references are to Hamlet and Macbeth, but contemporary critics working in the vein of Levinas have tended to favor King Lear. No Shakespearean play has been subjected to Levinasian analysis more fully or more frequently.5 This critical proclivity is not unwarranted, for Shakespeare's tragic play and Levinas's ethical writings tell the same basic story: that of the egoist who heedlessly pursues his own interests until he is until he …
Two, Pair: A Modern Menaechmi,
2022
CUNY Hunter College
Two, Pair: A Modern Menaechmi, Jacob L. Horn
Theses and Dissertations
Combining tools of faithful translation and liberal adaptation, I have modernized Plautus’s Menaechmi with the aim of recreating the spirit of Plautine comedy for a present-day viewer, focusing on playability. This dramaturgical process is documented in an introductory essay and text annotations, revealing key choices, theoretical considerations, and conceptual concerns.
Fun With Palamon And Arcite: Rationale And Strategies For Teaching The Two Noble Kinsmen As The Culmination Of The Shakespearean Canon,
2022
Jacksonville State University
Fun With Palamon And Arcite: Rationale And Strategies For Teaching The Two Noble Kinsmen As The Culmination Of The Shakespearean Canon, Joanne E. Gates
Presentations, Proceedings & Performances
Hardly noticed in the reception of Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human several years ago was his hint that not The Tempest but The Two Noble Kinsmen makes an appropriate final accomplishment. On one level, the play is merely a stage adaptation of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, with a rather crude couple of subplots thrown in, perhaps to please the commoners. In an undergraduate forum, I am less inclined to evaluate Fletcher's contribution as distinct from Shakespeare, but I do think the play important for how it is representative of many of the co-authored English Renaissance plays …
Shakespeare As Opera In English: Britten's Dream And Adès' The Tempest,
2022
Jacksonville State University
Shakespeare As Opera In English: Britten's Dream And Adès' The Tempest, Joanne E. Gates
Presentations, Proceedings & Performances
I assert that we learn Shakespeare better when we study him against the adaptation. Some of the adaptation choices made by opera composers and librettists-- and especially by stage designers in recent productions-- provoke us to critique a production concept for its innovative staging, forcing us to learn more about Shakespeare's original. The recent Metropolitan's The Tempest conveys the 2004 Thomas Adès Tempest as if an 18th century impresario Prospero had conjured or appropriated the contents of the Milan opera house to his island. Meredith Oakes's libretto simplifies much of Shakespearean language to efficient rhyming couplets, yet this opera eloquently …
Musicals, Murders, And Motivation: A View On The Audience And Their Support Towards Musical Murderers Through Maslow,
2022
University of Central Florida
Musicals, Murders, And Motivation: A View On The Audience And Their Support Towards Musical Murderers Through Maslow, Lesly Nuñez
Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-
Audiences relay morbid support towards the enjoyment of horrific entertainment. Such examples are the success and long-standing allure spectators hold towards musicals such as Phantom of the Opera, Spring Awakening, Heathers, and more. These are shows that include themes of death, darkness, and tragedy which are presented. Using Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Motivation, The Jungian Archetype of Shadow, and Catharsis I will show how audiences are supportive of protagonists who portray actions resulting in death, darkness, and murder despite the societal pressure to find such subject matter as offensive, vile, repugnant, or obscene. By referencing the characters found …
“Subverting” The Neoclassic Constraints: The Presence Of Magic In Early Commedia Dell’Arte,
2022
Binghamton University
“Subverting” The Neoclassic Constraints: The Presence Of Magic In Early Commedia Dell’Arte, Yangzhou Bian
Theatre Student Scholarship
The project is an initiating discussion about the dramatic function and social-ideological implication of magic and magical elements in the surviving corpus of the Italian improvisational theater commedia dell’arte scenarios from the early seventeenth century. The essay begins with a cursory exploration of the position of commedia dell'arte amongst other notable theatrical forms blossoming across the European continent in the late renaissance. The study then focuses on eight plays selected from the 1611 Scala Collection to further examine the use of magic by commedia performers, followed by individual analysis of plot construct and dramaturgical theories. Finally, observations and connections made …
Mei Lan-Fang: The Masculinist Idealization Of Femininity,
2022
Binghamton University
Mei Lan-Fang: The Masculinist Idealization Of Femininity, Yangzhou Bian
Theatre Student Scholarship
Mei Lan-fang was the most well-known Beijing Opera practitioner specializing in the impersonation of historical and mythological female characters. His captivating performance style is known as “The School of Mei”. It balances the external stage presence and internal precision and attends to the minutiae. His performances were drawn predominantly from the classic repertoire, and they have won him the position that “no other Chinese actor attained and retained” (Scott ii). Despite the general perception of Mei’s contribution to the emancipation of women through his work and his self-assertion of sympathy towards their suffering, the underlying motivation may not be as …
Fluchtpunkt Magdeburg: Dokumentation Eines Integrationsorientierten Theaterprojekts Aus Theaterpädagogischer Und Sprachdidaktischer Perspektive,
2022
Syracuse University
Fluchtpunkt Magdeburg: Dokumentation Eines Integrationsorientierten Theaterprojekts Aus Theaterpädagogischer Und Sprachdidaktischer Perspektive, Mona Eikel-Pohen, Sarah Dolbier
Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship
Macht, Prozess und Poetik/Sprache das theaterpädagogische Modellprojekt Fluchtpunkt Magdeburg 2015 bis2019, an dem dort lebende Jugendliche mit und ohne Fluchterfahrungen unter tanz- und theaterpädagogischer Leitung drei Theaterstücke und einen Film entwickelten mit dem prononcierten Ziel, soziale und sprachliche Integration zu fördern. Ziel dieser Dokumentation ist es, das Projekt systematisch zu beschreiben und gelungene Elemente herauszuarbeiten, die zukünftige Projekte nachhaltig und langfristig plan- und durchführbar gestalten
Internalized Misogyny As Displayed By Aunt March In Little Women,
2022
Belmont University
Internalized Misogyny As Displayed By Aunt March In Little Women, Sydney Lofton
Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)
It seems that more women fight against each other than for one another. Women have developed a reputation for gossiping to disparage the reputation of each other, leveraging terms like “floozie,” “bimbo,” and “slut” against one another. While women will rage against men who support the patriarchy, women are often some of the strictest enforcers of its standards. In Kate Hamill’s playscript Little Women, an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, it is Aunt March, not a man, who places pressure on Jo to assimilate to society’s expectation of women. This push of conformity may reflect Aunt March’s own …
Considering Queerness - Actor Training's Issues And Alternatives,
2022
Virginia Commonwealth University
Considering Queerness - Actor Training's Issues And Alternatives, Jacob Leblanc
Theses and Dissertations
Educators in academic theatre programs, whether queer or non-queer, trans or cisgender, may not intentionally consider queerness in their pedagogical practices. What follows is an examination of current issues in academia that can affect queer students negatively and disproportionately. Anecdotal evidence is provided to demonstrate different issues that may be present in the classroom experiences of queer students. The Stanislavski system is critiqued through a contemporary, queer lens to locate possible shortcomings in the acting technique when it is applied by queer performers. Queer alternatives to the Stanislavski system are vetted and offered to queer students who might seek something …
"In Loving Virtue": Staging The Virgin Body In Early Modern Drama,
2022
Bowdoin College
"In Loving Virtue": Staging The Virgin Body In Early Modern Drama, Miranda Viederman
Honors Projects
The aim of this Honors project is to investigate representations of female virginity in Renaissance English dramatic works. I view the period as one in which the womb became the site of a unique renewal of cultural anxieties surrounding the stability of the patriarchy and the inaccessibility of female sexual desire. I am most interested in virginity as a “bodily narrative” dependent on the construction and maintenance of performance. I analyze representations of virginity in female characters from four works of drama originating in the Jacobean period of the English Renaissance, during and after the end of the reign of …
Literature, Pandemic, And The Insufficiency Of Survival: Boccaccio’S Decameron And Emily St. John Mandel’S Station Eleven,
2022
University of Richmond
Literature, Pandemic, And The Insufficiency Of Survival: Boccaccio’S Decameron And Emily St. John Mandel’S Station Eleven, Anthony P. Russell
Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies
The question of literature’s utility in relation to the “real world” has been asked since at least the time of Plato. This essay examines an extreme instance of this problem by investigating two works, Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1349-1353) and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2016), that argue for the value of art in the midst of catastrophe. Boccaccio’s collection of 100 tales, written in the context of the Black Plague, and Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel about a world devastated by a killer flu, overlap and diverge in instructive ways in making their cases for the important role of literature in …
Bard College
Accommodation And Coping In Medieval Catholic England: A Historical Dramaturgy Casebook For The Chester Mystery Cycle’S Play 14: Christ At The House Of Simon The Leper, Christ And The Moneylenders, And Judas’ Plot, Andrew J. Roberge
Senior Projects Spring 2022
In this historically focused dramaturgy casebook for the medieval Catholic Chester Mystery Cycle's Play 14, Christ at the House of Simon the Leper, Christ and the Moneylenders, and Judas’ Plot, I offer suggestions for Play 14's production as it might have appeared in the cycle's final year of performance, 1575. I contextualize and grapple with the play's antisemitisms, and also offer a brief history of antisemitism in medieval Europe. I also analyze Play 14 and the Chester Mystery Cycle for their rhetorical appeals to the medieval vernacular language, contexts, and events, as well as their anachronistic temporal and geographic …
Deconstrucciones Del Hogar Hegemónico: La Familia Disfuncional En El Último Teatro Español,
2022
Ameriber (Universidad de Burdeos, Francia)
Deconstrucciones Del Hogar Hegemónico: La Familia Disfuncional En El Último Teatro Español, Ruth María Gutiérrez Álvarez
Teatro: Revista de Estudios Escénicos / A Journal of Theater Studies
El teatro español contemporáneo presenta una creciente tendencia a situar la familia en el centro de la materia dramática desde muy diferentes posturas estéticas, desde la autoreferencialidad y la autofictión del yo, procedimientos característicos de los ejercicios performativos, a la precisión de las formas de hiperrealismo. El presente artículo propone un análisis de aquellas piezas teatrales que llevan a cabo un profundo proceso de deconstrucción y desmitificación de la familia nuclear hegemónica por medio del cual, por un lado, se presenta el hogar como una convención social, política, económica e ideológica que oprime al individuo y, por otro, se cuestiona …
“What We Ought To Say”: Debating The Morality Of Dishonesty And Equivocation In King Lear,
2022
Brigham Young University
“What We Ought To Say”: Debating The Morality Of Dishonesty And Equivocation In King Lear, Markelle Jensen
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism
King Lear does not reveal the nature of honesty but provides a stage on which the morality of honesty can be debated. The play questions whether honesty is inherently moral at all, or if there are ways in which honesty can be considered harmful and even immoral. Other scholars have noted this as well in characters such as Edgar and Kent, but missing from the critical conversation are the ways in which Cordelia is the pillar of moral goodness in the play, and how her own paradoxical honesty and dishonesty were what enabled Lear to “see better” and ultimately, to …
What Is Normal In Mental Health?: A Script Analysis Of Next To Normal,
2022
Belmont University
What Is Normal In Mental Health?: A Script Analysis Of Next To Normal, Caitlyn Campbell
Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)
Next To Normal, the Broadway musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, follows a dysfunctional family whose matriarch struggles with a multitude of mental health issues. Delving into hard topics, such as mental health and family relationships, the musical challenges what we consider to be normal family dynamics and mental states. These important themes are mainly demonstrated through Diana, a mother and wife who struggles with severe mental health diagnosis. Through this analysis, these difficult questions are unveiled while looking closely at the musical’s plot structure, characters, ideas, and dialogue.
