Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Birth By Sleep: An Immersive Adventure Through Wonderland, Edd Bass

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

When Lewis Carroll wrote down Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland he never expected it to become a worldwide sensation. His work has gained a following as psychoanalysis has allowed people to dive deeper into Alice’s dream world. Many books and movies based on the Alice books have been released, such as Sucker Punch. On a seemingly unrelated topic, a company called Punchdrunk has created an immersive theatre piece known as Sleep No More in which the audience runs around a “hotel” following different actors and trying to unveil the story unfolding. Immersive Theatre allows for the audience to be swallowed up …

Costume Design For My Fair Lady By Alan Jay Lerner And Leonard Loewe, Emily I. Taradash

Masters Theses

This paper discusses a theoretical costume design for the Musical "My Fair Lady" by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe. The costume designer chose to set the production in 1912, stylizing choices clothing based on period silhouettes and social research. The paper includes character analysis, research, and a discussion of the design process.

¿Y El Público No Cuenta? Cine, Emigración Y Estrategias De Representación (1930-1960). De La Contextualización Histórica De La Producción A La Matriz Cultural De La Significación., Luis Guadano

Dissidences

La historiografía cinematográfica española se ha basado tradicionalmente en premisas ideológicas y estéticas que reducen el estudio de las estrategias de repesentacion del cine exclusivamente a su evolución desde el punto de vista de la producción obviando la existencia del público. Así, los cambios en la representación se han abordado o políticamente como consecuencia del proceso de transición de la dictadura a la democracia o historiográficamente mediante su adscripción a las tendencias ideológicas existentes en el cine español del periodo.

Sin embargo, partiendo de la movilidad social se puede constatar que la evolución de los elementos integrantes de las estrategias …

The Fight Master, Fall 2014, Vol. 36 Issue 2, The Society Of American Fight Directors

Fight Master Magazine

No abstract provided.

Empathy, Social Intelligence And Critical Thinking: What Can Theatre Education Offer?, Jane Dewey

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

This study examines the relationship of theatre, education, and emotional and social intelligence. The applied research component explores what theatrical processes can offer the efforts to address the issues of bullying by developing skills (focusing on empathy) to help deal with that issue in a substantive way. In this study, I provide a selected review of literature with regards to: how theatre has historically addressed social issues, the current state of bullying with an emphasis on bullying in schools, and how theatre is currently addressing the issue of bullying in both school and theatrical settings. The role that emotional and …

We Are French. Et Anglais Nous Restons., Alison Jane Bowie

Masters Theses

French Canadian playwright Joseph Armand Leclaire (1888-1931) was very well known and respected in his time. Although he wrote over thirty plays, lyrics to several songs and an abundance of political poems, most of his work has been lost and Leclaire himself seems to have been forgotten. Several of his plays were produced at the time they were written, including his 1916 play La petite maîtresse de l'école (later published in 1929 as Le petit maître d'école), but none have been presented postumously nor have any been translated. This M. F. A. thesis presents the first ever translation and …

Front Matter, Contents - Grotowski And His Legacy In Poland, Kathleen Cioffi

Mime Journal

No abstract provided.

Challenge, Chaos, And Collaboration: Two Weeks With Studium Teatralne, Katharine Noon

Mime Journal

Katharine Noon, the artistic director of the Ghost Road Company, a Los Angeles theatre troupe, describes Ghost Road’s collaboration with Studium Teatralne, a Warsaw theatre company headed by Piotr Borowski, a former collaborator with Jerzy Grotowski at the Workcenter. Borowski and the Studium Teatralne actors work in a more athletic physical way than the American actors typically do, and the Americans learned this method from the Warsaw actors. The Warsaw group also gained from the collaboration, however: Ghost Road hosted them when they came to Los Angeles to perform, and they also learned Ghost Road’s methods for adapting texts.

Madness And Method: Improvisation In The Theatre Of The Eighth Day, Lech Raczak

Mime Journal

Lech Raczak, the director of the Theatre of the Eighth Day for twenty-five years, describes the method of physical improvisation derived from Jerzy Grotowski that the troupe used to create productions. The Eighth Day used Grotowski’s methods to create productions that were very different in tone and content from those that Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre created. They became famous for their stance of opposition to the Communist regime.

Searching For Something A Little Visionary: Anthony Nikolchev Interviews Matej Matejka, Director Of The Studio Matejka, Anthony Nikolchev

Mime Journal

Anthony Nikolchev, an American actor studying and performing under the auspices of the Studio Matejka, a resident group at the Grotowski Institute in Poland, interviews Matej Matejka, the director of Studio Matejka. Matejka is a Slovak actor, teacher, and director who started the Studio in order to work with a dedicated group of multinational performers to explore physical approaches to acting and performance. Matejka and his actors search for intuitive, energetic exchange rather than just explanation or interpretation.

Actor Training And Techniques In Pieśń Kozła Theatre, Anna Zubrzycki

Mime Journal

Anna Zubrzycki, one of the founders of the Pieśń Kozła (Song of the Goat) Theatre, describes the working methods of the theatre, which seeks to develop the the actor’s tools—text, song, rhythm, physicality, spatial relations—and to help actors coordinate those tools with each other and with the text through physical and vocal exercises. They also work on the actors’ ability to respond to each other’s impulses in a physical way. Zubrzycki also describes five of the productions that Song of the Goat has created using this physical/vocal method of creation.

Between Body And Spirit: An Interview With Leszek Bzdyl, Barbara Świąder

Mime Journal

Barbara Świąder interviews Leszek Bzdyl, the artistic director of Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre, a dance theatre company that operates on the borderline of artforms. Bzdyl describes his evolution as a dancer, how he started the company with Katarzyna Chmielewska, how Dada’s plays are developed, and his artistic influences, including Jerzy Grotowski. He also assesses the contemporary Polish dance and alternative theatre scenes.

Introduction: Grotowski's Evolving Influence In Poland, Kathleen Cioffi

Mime Journal

In this introduction, Kathleen Cioffi discusses the physical basis of Jerzy Grotowski’s practice and describes how it developed through the various stages of his career, from the Laboratory Theatre stage to the Art as vehicle stage. She also surveys Grotowski’s Polish reception, including various controversies surrounding his work, and analyzes the evolution of his influence on several generations of physical theatre practitioners in Poland.

The Notebooks Of Rena Mirecka, Zbigniew Osiński

Mime Journal

Rena Mirecka, Jerzy Grotowski’s leading actress, kept notebooks detailing her experiences in the early years of Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre, 1959–1964, when the theatre was in Opole. The notebooks—appearing here in English translation for the first time—provide a record of the development of Grotowski’s working method, as well as the development of Mirecka herself, from a naïve young near-amateur to a maturer actress whom Grotowski designated as the leader responsible for the “plastic” exercises in the Laboratory Theatre company.

Jerzy Grotowski In Copenhagen: Three Encounters With The Sage, Juliusz Tyszka

Mime Journal

Juliusz Tyszka describes Jerzy Grotowski’s three appearances at the the Tenth Session of the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA), which took place in Copenhagen, May 3–8, 1996. Grotowski describes various key concepts in his work. He also relates the early stages of both his life and his work with the Laboratory Theatre to the work he was doing in the 1990s at the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards in Pontedera, Italy.

Play From The Heart: On Crafting A Community Of Empathy In The Theatre, Kevin Kingston

The Theatre School MFA in Directing Theses

The power of story goes beyond mere escapist entertainment. Yes it should entertain, but that is not the ultimate goal. It may even offer a bit of escape, but again this is not the holy grail. When we experience a well-crafted narrative, we are called to cross a threshold. We pass through the door of our own life and enter into the experience of another. This is what we mean when we say we "got lost" in the story. We take on the experience of another as our own. When a group of people experience a narrative they cross this …

A Method To The Madness: My Quest For A New System Of Acting, Michael Osinski

The Theatre School MFA in Directing Theses

How does one get actors to embrace work and imbue it with the same truth they bring to realistic theatre and how does one prevent them from turning into robots performing meaningless gestures? How does one work in experimental ways while still giving actors something human to hang onto? This thesis will examine a new system of acting to embrace the demands of the work and explore how to articulate and collaborate with actors to create the work.

Re-Enchanting The Spectacle, Shayna Cohn

Graduate School of Art Theses

“Re-Enchanting the Spectacle” explores guiding notions and central themes within the art practice of Shayna Cohn. Cohn’s installation spaces and sculptures within them, evoke a type of fabricated aura and melodramatic attitude of entertainment sites. By isolating the affect outside of the original environment, Cohn references the perceptual duality of entertainment sites within this “post-sacred” era. Entertainment venues become sites of potential transcendence, yet are also inextricably tied to their automated mechanization. Drawing on the Peter Brooks’ analysis of the historical and poetic relationship between melodrama and the sacred, Cohn argues that contemporary notions of melodrama can be found within …

On And Off The Stage: An Analysis Of Dance In Theater And Performance, Michael Chiaverini

Dance Undergraduate Theses

No abstract provided.

Student Directing Thesis: Directing A Main Stage Show, Brock J. Cooley Mr.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

My thesis gives insight on directing a main stage production at the collegiate level as a student. Specifically directing Tradin’ Paint, an original piece from playwright Catherine Bush a native of Abingdon Virginia, and a company playwright for the Barter Theatre. In the thesis I discuss how I arrived at different conclusions for my show through different research. I discuss the experience of being a director over professors, and my own peers, and how all of these challenges and discoveries eventually gave me a finished product to be proud of. If a director were to look at this work, they …