Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime, Lynn University

Drama Programs

Don't miss this winner of the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. Based on the novel by Mark Haddon, adapted by Simon Stephens.

Christopher is a 15-year old with an extraordinary brain; he is exceptional at mathematics but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road. He detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. Now it is seven minutes after midnight and Christopher stands beside his neighbor's dead dog, Wellington, who has been speared with a garden fork. Finding himself under suspicion, Christopher is determined to solve the mystery of who murdered …

Kinetic Meditative Experimental Drawing, Julie Lord, Elizabeth Adams Thomas, Chai Avery

P-12 Lesson Plans

This lesson for high school students provides an opportunity to make a work of art without a preconceived plan by using their bodies and spontaneous movements to control mark-making. Symmetry is explored along with the art of Heather Hansen and Tony Orrico.

V.1 Fall 2021, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Fall 2021 issue is formatted as a zine and contains notes from students displayed on their phones and otherwise, along with student creative writing.

Frederick Wiseman's Essene (1972): The Duality Of Mary And Martha, Nilita Vachani

Journal of Religion & Film

America’s legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman shot Essene 50 years ago at the height of the commune movement in the United States. Unlike his previous institutional films which showcase an insane asylum, a public high school, an inner city police force, a hospital, and a military training school, Essene's canvas is the far less turbulent terrain of a serene and austere Benedictine monastery devoted to the love and service of God and the divine spirit. This paper undertakes a close textual and hermeneutic analysis of Essene alongside an appraisal of Wiseman’s working methodology, his cinematic portrayals of character and dramaturgy, …

Fall Playfest (October 8-9, 2021), Lindenwood University

Student Theatre Programs

Program for Fall Playfest Part 1 (October 8-9, 2021).

Playing God, Parkland College

Parkland Theatre

Written and Directed by Felix Crim

Director/Playwright: Felix Crim+
Stage Manager: Yen Vi Green
Scenic/Props Designer: Molly Ilten
Lighting Designer: Nicholas Shaw
Costume Designer: Sheri Doyle
Sound Designer: Maggie O'Brien
Makeup Designer: Bailey Mills
Faculty Advisor: Brian D. Morgan

Presented in Parkland Theatre Second Stage

September 30, October 1, 2 at 7:30pm
October 3 at 3:00pm
Fall 2021

To view images from this production, visit Playing God (2021).

Limbo, André Williams '15, Veronica Pejril

President Lori S. White Inauguration Symposium

"'Limbo' was based on what it might be like to wake up in limbo. But now I'm not so sure it's quite that simple. I hope that in "Limbo" you might also go on a journey of acceptance of fate, or maybe even destiny." - André Williams, ‘15, Choreographer

برهان علوية – اللقاء المتواصل, Haddy Zaccak

Regards

With the passing of Borhane Alaouié, Lebanese cinema loses one of its most prominent directors and spiritual fathers.

ملخص

.مع رحيل برهان علوية، تخسر السينما اللبنانية أحد أبرز مخرجيها وآبائها الروحيين

A Gentleman's Guide To Love And Murder, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2021-2022 Season Production

Join us as we celebrate a return to live theater with a very special staged concert version of the show that was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. While we are unable to fully realize the elaborate design of this hilarious knock-em-dead musical romp, the script will be performed in full with much of the original cast, and you will not leave without having a hearty laugh. Poor, low-born Monty Navarro is desperate to inherit the dukedom by surpassing no fewer than eight members of the well-to-do D’Ysquith family in line before him. Just wait until …

Investigating The Spiritual Dimensions Of The Theatrical Rehearsal Process, Dorothy C. Bryan-Ployer Mrs.

Educational Studies Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Using an art-based research design this study explored a possible link between spirituality and the theatrical rehearsal process. Drawing from three pre-selected monologues, four participating actors and I engaged in an abbreviated rehearsal process. I met with each participant individually four times over the course of two weeks where they explored and rehearsed their monologue. We met again (individually) four weeks later to reflect on the study, and each performed their monologue one last time. All sessions were audio and video recorded. The videos, along with their respective transcripts, and the study’s work product were used to determine the …

Borrowed Babies

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University's performance of Borrowed Babies by Jennifer Blackmer.

Performed September 10-12, 2021 at the Mitchell Theatre.

Borrowed Babies is a play by Jennifer Blackmer that delves into the historical practice of university "practice houses" for home economics students. The story follows Judy London, a Professor of Home Economics, who encounters one of her former "practice babies" as she nears the end of her career. This meeting prompts Judy to reflect on her life's journey and the sacrifices she has made. The play explores the evolving roles of women and mothers in American society over the past …

Beauty And The Beast Lighting Design, Kathe Devault

Theatre Arts Faculty Scholarship

For Ohio Northern’s production of Beauty and the Beast, the director Matt Simpkins wanted to make a new aesthetic for the show: ominous, mysterious and dramatic yet still enchanting. This was not to be your typical Beauty and the Beast. Because of the director’s film background, the scenery was to act as film set where projections set the environment for each section. Lighting was to highlight the dark mood of the piece while also acting as the “close up” for the intimate nature many of the scenes have. Backlight was very important for separating the actors from the projections/scenery …

Fun Home (September 30-October 2, 2021), Alison Bechdel, Lisa Kron, Jeanine Tesori

Student Theatre Programs

Program for Fun Home (September 30-October 2, 2021).

To view the photos from this production of Fun Home., please click here.

Countersexuality In Times Of Neomachismo: Representations Of Gender In Contemporary Spanish Performance (1988–2019), Mara I. Valderrama

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces innovative representations of gender in Spanish contemporary experimental theatre and performance art. Using Paul B. Preciado’s concept of countersexuality, I argue that an embodied practice like theatre can model new forms of being-in-the-world that supersede binaries of gender and sexuality. Specifically, I analyze how emblematic performances marshal countersexual acts to intervene in the context of Spain and neomachismo, an antifeminist trend that, in the last two decades, has sought to reassert masculine structural power. I attempt to write marginalized cases into the academic narrative that might otherwise have been overlooked or erased for being experimental in their …

Baccio Del Bianco At The Court Of Spain: Early Modern Scenic Design In Context, Pamela Thielman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the life and work of seventeenth-century artist and architect, Baccio del Bianco, to imagine alternative research strategies for histories of theatre. Traditional scholarship of theatre design is rooted in art historical practices, which has limited the consideration of influences beyond visual culture. It has also posited Italian theatre culture as the driver of innovations in Early Modern theatre design. In this project, I argue for and engage in a practice of scenic design historiography that replaces Italy as the dominant actor in the theatrical scene of this period with a more nuanced approach that places emphasis on …

Aloof: Black Divas Of Refusal, Kwame K. Ocran

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Aloof: Black Divas of Refusal” studies performers Lena Horne and Billie Holiday as the progenitors of a new tradition of authentic representation of Black female interiority in the entertainment arts. As interiority denotes the wide-ranging amalgamation of human expression, these divas equipped themselves with a sense of refusal and aloofness to strategically posture themselves in conditions that suited their personal predilections best and considered their status as representatives of the Black community. Lena Horne’s evolution as an aloof diva successfully saw the singer and actress escape classist thought of racial uplift to the full embracing of the totality of Black …

A Host Of People In Detroit: Forging A Twenty-First Century Ensemble In The Deindustrial City, Jacob Hooker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the vitality and importance of ensemble-generated experimental theatre in the United States beyond traditional creative capitals. I investigate the transformations that are taking place in US independent contemporary theatre and show that these changes are connected to issues of place and the local. I frame this inquiry by detailing five community-based, experimental ensembles working in five deindustrializing cities: Team Sunshine Performance Corporation in Philadelphia, Goat in the Road Productions in New Orleans, Maelstrom Collaborative Arts in Cleveland, Hatch Arts Collective in Pittsburgh, and A Host of People in Detroit. Through these case studies I show how local …

Dramaturgies Of Intellectual Property Law In Read-Write Theatre, Andrew Kircher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Digital and networked technologies have intensified our relationship to knowledge: all the world’s information and creativity are so immediately and personally accessible that they become embodied. Into this moment, a new theatrical practice has emerged, what I identify as Read-Write Theatre (after Lawrence Lessig). In Read-Write cultural production, artists sample and speak through the full spectrum of disembodied data that is the internet—text, video, audio, and images. The artists I include in this critical category are marked by their posthuman relationship to knowledge and, most importantly, the ways that their theatrical work confounds contemporary intellectual property law.

In this dissertation, …

Listen Like This: Audiovisual Argument In Rockumentary, Lindsey Eckenroth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rockumentaries are commodities that construct authoritative interpretations of popular music history, shaping how we come to know, value, hear, consume, and identify with popular music and those who create it. The arguments rockumentaries make, and the ways they make them, are the subject of this dissertation. Rather than position rockumentary as a genre, I investigate it as a set of representational tendencies to be examined in relation to stardom, authenticity, fandom, the culture industry, and the music(ians) these films represent. My introduction argues that rockumentaries operate according to what I call the offstage pattern, a dialectical structure in which …

Desde El Fuego Que En Mí Arde: Performance, Literatura Y Cine Afro-Latinoamericano Producidos Por Mujeres Afrodescendientes En Perú, Cuba Y Brasil (1960–2000), Elena Ekatherina Chavez Goycochea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines different films, literary, and performance art pieces created by contemporary afro-descendant women from Peru, Cuba, and Brazil after the sixties with emphasis on the most relevant works of Conceição Evaristo, Sara Gómez, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Lucía Charún-Illescas. I focus my research on the crucial role these artists played in the cultural identity formation of Latin America when inserting ‘race’ as a category of socio-political analysis and cultural production. How did their films, performances, and texts challenge national narratives and imaginaries after 1960? Although in the sixties, women improved their civil rights in different countries, the ‘mujer …