Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Blanche Dubois: Feminist Forerunner, Andrea M. Grey

Theses

Andrea M. Grey’s thesis, Blanche Dubois: Feminist Forerunner, explores Blanche Dubois from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire as a proto-feminist figure. Challenging traditional interpretations of Blanche as merely fragile or delusional, Grey argues that Blanche exhibits traits of modern feminism, advocating for female independence, financial self-sufficiency, and resistance to patriarchal oppression.

Blanche’s education, career as a teacher, and efforts to manage her family’s estate position her as an independent woman in a male-dominated world. However, societal constraints and gendered double standards undermine her agency. Her sexual autonomy is condemned while her male counterparts’ indiscretions are ignored. Blanche’s opposition …

Dancing In The Stacks: Dance Works And The Concept Of Authorship In Libraries, Dominique Bourassa

Library Staff Publications

It is self-evident to choreographers, dancers and dance scholars that dances are works in their own right as much as literary and musical works are. However, from an American library perspective, this fact was not fully acknowledged until 20 years ago. Indeed, the historical mistreatment of dance works has evolved from their once total absence from subject taxonomies, to their being classified with works about recreation instead of among the “serious” arts, to their being subordinated to music. The situation greatly improved in 1994 with the publication by the Library of Congress (LC) of special cataloging rules that finally treat …

The Aesthetic Which Is Not One: The Feminist (Un)Aesthetic In The Works Of Caryl Churchill And Suzan Lori-Parks, Kathren Martin

Theses and Dissertations

In the following essay I will establish a theatrical feminist (un)aesthetic that resists essentialism, which creates the dramaturgical space necessary to present a feminist (un)subject. The rejection of Ibsenite realism within the (un)aesthetic disrupts the male gaze as theorized by Laura Mulvey. This is achieved through a materialist feminist focus that highlights the constructive nature of gender difference anf disrupts the production of "woman" as sign. Through the use of Brechtian alienation techniques and theatrical formalism, the playwrights Caryl Churchill (Cloud Nine) and Suzan-Lori Parks (Venus) force the feminist goals of the (un)aesthetic to be considered beyond the context of …

Sources, Linda B. Fairtile

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Sources of instrumental music and of non-dramatic vocal music are generally understood to include preliminary sketches and drafts, manuscript and printed scores, performing parts, and, in the latter case, materials related to the choice or development of the vocal text. Letters, diaries, administrative papers, and even journalistic reviews can also be considered sources. Opera, as a collaborative fusion of music and drama, expands this list to include such materials as set and costume designs, staging manuals, lighting plots, and prop lists. Technology has further augmented the inventory, first with still photographs, and later with audio and video recordings. This chapter …

Speak Out Loud: Deconstructing Shame And Fear Through Theater In A Community-Based Service-Learning Project, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

The combination of theater and community-based service-learning can be a powerful tool to allow university students to meet their educational goals while connecting them with the world. The performance of children's theater in elementary schools with English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs, for example, has important pedagogical and social effects. For both groups of students, this becomes an opportunity to be better prepared for a level of social engagement involving bilingualism that was not necessarily available to their parents and/or members of their community. The author describes and analyzes the results of teh adaptation and performance of Alfonsina …

A Survey Of Dramaturgical Practices In Contemporary American Theater: The Dramaturg In Process, Maggie Bell

All Master's Theses

A review of the literature on dramaturgical practices in the American theater from the past thirty years revealed a significant paucity of first-hand accounts by dramaturgs about their work and especially about the contributions dramaturgs make to the production process. In general, the literature addresses dramaturgical practices in abstract or theoretical terms, without documenting the specific contributions that dramaturgs make to the creation of productions and events as performances. This thesis documents and defines the dramaturgical process through interviews with a select sample of early career and established dramaturgs. The interviews conducted follow the narrative method of open-ended questions and …

Confronting Terezin: A Production History Of Maurice Sendak And Tony Kushner's Brundibar, Justin Almquist

All Master's Theses

Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner adapted Hans Krasa and Adolf Hoffmeister's opera Brundibar for the English speaking stage as well as a children's book, but they struggled with the message the work should pose to audiences. During World War II, fifty-five performances of the opera were staged within Terezin, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Kushner and Sendak questioned the extent to which the adaptation should memorialize its Holocaust past, or offer new political aspirations. I used archive-based research to reconstruct the development and first productions of the script, which fixated on Sendak and Kushner's competing aesthetic and political perspectives. By …

Reading With The Grain: On Vin Nardizzi’S Wooden Os: Shakespeare’S Theatres And England’S Trees, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Students Embrace Avant-Garde Theatre Style, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Re-Thinking Paris At The Fin-De-Siècle: A New Vision Of Parisian Musical Culture From The Perspective Of Gabriel Astruc (1854-1938), Cesar A. Leal

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Gabriel Astruc (1864-1938), a French impresario of Jewish background, is mostly known for his collaborative work as an impresario with Sergei Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. His role within Parisian musical culture at the fin de siècle, however, was much broader. He was a critic, creator of a leading periodical, producer of musical and circus events, music publisher, and associate of many important cultural figures of his day. Although Astruc has been mentioned in scholarly literature, his multifaceted activities have never been carefully studied.

Following the revisionist initiatives of previous scholars (e.g., Pasler, Huebner, Garafola, Fauser), this project offers …

Exploring Dance Teachers' Perceptions: Video As A Teaching Tool, Daralyn Scurlock

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The process in which dance instructors evaluate dance students' technical skills has been dependent on spontaneity; it is time sensitive and almost synchronous. However, video introduces an asynchronous evaluating component. Video recording can be utilized in the dance profession not only to improve a dancer's overall performance, but as an injury prevention tool. Therefore video permits deeper reflection.

This is a preliminary study designed to open the door for future studies in the dance field. In order to gain the in depth knowledge required for this thesis, an instrumental case-study design was utilized based primarily on the analyses of broad, …

Cultural Discourse In Taiwan. Ed. Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, And Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek., Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

The collected volume Cultural Discourse in Taiwan — edited by Chin-Chuan Cheng, I-Chun Wang, and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and published by National Sun Yat-sen Uiniversity Press in 2009 — is intended as an addition to scholarship in the field of Taiwan Studies. The articles in the volume are in many aspects comparative and the topics discussed are in the context of literary and culture scholarship. At the same time, the volume is interdisciplinary as the articles cover historical perspectives, analyses of texts by Taiwan authors, and cultural discourse as related to Taiwan consciousness, language, and linguistic issues. Copyright release …

Clcweb Best Practices, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Mapping The World, Culture, And Border-Crossing, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek, I-Chun Wang

CLCWeb Library

Authors in the collected volume Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing — edited by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and I-Chun Wang and published by National Sun Yat-sen University Press in 2010— begin with exploring theoretical premises about the processes and ramifications of cultural crossings to establish a clearly defined theoretical context for the case studies which follow. The case studies range from the creation of identity through patriotic songs in Taiwan under martial law, to nationality and Japanese identity, cultural autonomy in contemporary North America, Asian migration to Latin America, ethnic identity in the writings of Tan, Naipaul, Eliot, and …

Play Selection In The Department Of Speech And Drama At Pan American University In The 1970s And 1980s: Twenty Years Of Excluding Latino Plays, Eric Wiley

Theatre Faculty Publications

The theatre program at the University of Texas-Pan American has a long history of excluding Latino plays from its production seasons, even though the university is located near the Mexican border and the majority of its students are Mexican American. The regional population served by this publicly-funded school, which has been state-funded since 1965, is predominantly Mexican American and Spanish speaking. Furthermore, as reflected in its name, the school’s mission has included for more than half a century a commitment to advance the “blending” of the North American and Latin American cultures. This article reviews the school’s production record over …

Thea 70 Core Text, Sara E. Brady

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Trunk Coordination In Dancers And Non-Dancers, Danielle N. Jarvis, Jo Armour Smith, Kornelia Kulig

Physical Therapy Faculty Articles and Research

Variability, or how a task changes across trials, may reveal differences between athletes of differing skill levels. The purpose of this study was to examine trunk and lower extremity (LE) single joint kinematic variability and inter-segmental coordination variability in dancers and non-dancers during bipedal vertical dance jumps (sautés). Twenty healthy females, ten with no formal dance training and ten professional dancers, performed 20 consecutive sautés. Single joint kinematic variability was assessed using mean standard deviation of angular displacement, and inter-segmental coordination variability was assessed using angular deviation of the coupling angle between segments. Within the context of the standard error …

Transformational Directing: An Analysis On How Leadership Affects The Creative Process, James Clayton Winters

Theses and Dissertations

Leadership is often ascribed as a quality one either possess or doesn’t. We often hear phrases like “She is born leader” or “All eyes are on you”, these are thrown around without discretion in the classroom, conference rooms, social gatherings, and business meetings. This work contends that leadership and in particular leadership that grows and transforms its participants is less an inherent character trait, than an outlook and set of core principles that lead to transformation. Through the application of current and developing business leadership theory and its effect on creativity and a cross analysis of “Best in Class” theatre …

Dance In The Museum, Claire Bishop

Publications and Research

This paper argues that the art world’s current fascination for dance follows on from a previous high point of interaction in the late 1960s and 1970s, and before that, a moment in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It traces these first, second and third waves of dance in the museum at three institutions: the Tate in London, and the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Three institutional histories are sketched, drawing out the differences between their approaches. The conclusion presents the four most pressing possibilities/problems of presenting dance in the museum: …

Vicarious Villainy: A Critical Literary Analysis Of Sympathetic Villainy In American Musical Theatre, Mary Christopher Grogan

Theses and Dissertations--Theatre and Dance

A disproportionate amount of research into musical theatre focuses on the positive and accessible nature of the books and librettos. Very little, if any, research into musical theatre explores its darker side, specifically the considerable amount of villainy (i.e., traditionally immoral and/or criminal behavior) practiced by some of its protagonists. Moreover, it is important to note that several of the most popular musicals contain villainous characters, and that many of these characters are highly popular and even sympathetic (i.e., understandable, pitiable, and deserving of compassion) to audiences. Therefore, this thesis explores sympathetic villainous personalities in popular American musicals, focusing on …