Performance Studies Commons^™

We’Re Late; But We Made It: A Brief Analysis And Comparison Of Characterization And Storytelling In Pre And Post-World War American Theatre, Jasmine Binford

McNair Scholars Research

As the effects of the World Wars hit the American people, playwrights responded to the grief and passion of the country with a new approach to theatrical storytelling. After World War I and II, American playwrights finally made it to the movement that had been sweeping through Europe for five decades: realism. Theatres began exploring real emotion, action, and characters in their stories. This research will explore the journey of transitioning from American melodrama to American modernism using characterization and storytelling methods. Critiques from contemporaries and the works form each movement will be used as primary sources.

Upstream Downtown: Theatre Creation Through A Feminist And Multispecies Lens, Morgan Johnson, Alexandra Simpson

The Goose

In the historically masculine Western sciences, we are told we can fully know a being by dissecting, labelling, testing, observing, and documenting. This article explores how multispecies and feminist theatre creation and performance, specifically in the style of clown and bouffon, can work to resist such narratives and offer a more sentient understanding of interspecies relationships. Our investigations focus on our journey as two female creators of Upstream Downtown, a research-based, physical theatre play about salmon and humans finding home in the settler colonial city of Toronto.

Ada Cheng Interview, Zishuo Wang

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Bio: Ada Cheng is the host of the storytelling show Pour One Out, a monthly storytelling series at Volumes Bookcafe. She is also the producer and host of the show Am I Man Enough? a storytelling/podcasting show, where people tell personal stories to critically examine the culture of toxic masculinity and the construction of masculinity and manhood. In addition, she is the co-producer and co-host of Talk Stories, an Asian American/Asian diaspora storytelling show, along with Randy Kim, a show where they showcase Asian/Asian American storytellers and performing artists.

A Failure Of The Music Industry: The Frustration Of Women Of Color, Christina Estes-Wynne

Backstage Pass

Throughout the history of the music industry, women of color have not received the same recognition as their male counterparts because males have dominated the industry resulting in lack of female representation. Women have been oversexualized reducing their clout in their fields and the lack of acknowledgement of success, which discourages future generations of colored women from attempting to reach their highest potential.

Stream Ripping: A Copyright Infringement Epidemic, Darla Testino

Backstage Pass

No abstract provided.

So Long To The Black Parade, Sarah Werth

Backstage Pass

No abstract provided.

Giving Voice To The Extra-Normal Self With The Extra-Normal Voice: Improvised Exploration Through The Realms Of Shamanic Chaos Magick, Insight Meditation And Gender Performance, Sage Harlow

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis documents practice-led research exploring the intersections of, and tensions between, improvised invocation ritual within a chaos magick paradigm and Buddhist insight meditation. I explore the extra-normal self—those aspects of consciousness not usually present, or not usually accessible, in day-to-day life—by mean of improvised ritual work with the extra-normal voice and seek to maintain a Buddhist ‘witness’ consciousness throughout these explorations. I also explore the tensions between politics, aesthetics and spiritual practice; in particular, queer and trans politics, a timbre-centred vocal aesthetics and chaos magick, shamanic and Buddhist spiritual practices. This work constitutes part of a larger project of …

Smoke On The Mountain, Otterbein University Department Of Theatre And Dance

2019 Summer Theatre

n this delightful tale of the Sanders Family Singers, the audience is invited to go back to 1938 and pull up a pew for an evening of more than two dozen songs, many of them vintage pop hymns. The more-or-less devout members of the family don’t just sing, but also have hilarious stories, which are delivered despite the mild protestations of the Reverend Oglethorpe.

Do We Make A Sound? An American Morality Play, Bennett A. Kirschner

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

"Within The Hollow Crown": Performing Kingship In Richard Ii And Henry Iv Part One, Angeline Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the parallels and connections between Richard II and Prince Hal in Shakespeare’sRichard II and 1 Henry IV and what the results would be if the characters were cross-cast, or played by the same actor onstage, in performance. Criticism on the plays has often addressed the parallels between the two characters, but as of yet no one has examined ways to show this in performance. This paper acts as a form of critical introduction for a proposed combined performance text of both Richard II and 1 Henry IV, arguing that the textual parallels between the two …

Mccartt-Jackson, Sarah, B. 1982 (Fa 1290), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1290. Student collection titled “’Clogging’s Just Clogging’: The Richard McHargue Cloggers and Approaches to Vernacular Percussive Dance Study” in which Sarah McCartt-Jackson conducts an interview with Richard McHargue, a clogging instructor from Richmond, Kentucky. The interview contains McHargue’s early dancing memories, clogging terms, and opinions about the contemporary state of clogging. The collection also contains a partial transcript, fieldnotes, interview questions, content index, photographs, and the recorded audio interview on CD.

"Playhouse Creatures:" A Study Of Restoration Actresses, Emily Laplante

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Creatures. Women. Actresses. We are here because of women like Mary Betterton, Doll Common, Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, and Rebecca Marshall. Theatre is about telling stories. Their story is a timeless one: of suffering, resilience, dedication, love, and comradery. Actresses were first permitted by royal decree to act upon the stage in 1669 by King Charles II of England. This decree created a spark within the playhouses to see actresses in the flesh perform. With this came a ripple effect of a host of expectations and suppression. This Honors Capstone is a comprehensive look into the themes of April De …

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time An Actor’S Reflection, Emily Austin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis delves into the creative process of creating characters for the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The characters that were created include: Mrs. Shears, Woman on Train, and Voice One. This thesis highlights the creative process through methods of research that dissect the authors, story, autism, and the actor’s experience throughout the rehearsal process. Sources such as interviews with autism consultants and family members of those with autism added useful information towards the creation of the characters. Research on the performance aspect was centered around the exploration of a character’s past through diagrams …

A Performance Of: "The Madness Of Lady Bright", Holly Mcdowell

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Lanford Wilson’s The Madness of Lady Bright first premiered in 1964 at the Caffe Cino, and is widely regarded as among the first works of the gay theater movement. Over the course of this one-act play, an aging drag queen slowly loses her mind in her New York apartment.

This production examined the themes of Wilson’s play through the lens of transgender identity, and an updated setting in the 1980s. This time period shapes the idea of the loneliness of not passing as a woman in a world where being visibly transgender meant rejection and danger.

Perceiving Live Improvisation In The Performing Arts, Aili W. Bresnahan

Books and Book Chapters by University of Dayton Faculty

This chapter will explore the ways that live improvisational performances by professional-level actors, musicians, and dancers, take place at both cognitive and sub-cognitive levels in ways that are relevant for understanding perception and appreciation of the performing arts. First, evidence from cognitive science will be used to show that improvising, as in a dance or a music jam session or a scene in theatre, may involve physical responses that occur before we are conscious of the event to which we are responding. Second, this chapter will demonstrate how understanding these cognitive processes can help us to pinpoint why live improvisational …

Memories: The Lighting Design For “The Glass Menagerie”, Catherine Blencowe

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents new ways of looking at an old classic by illuminating the emotions and hardship of the Wingfield family through the use of color and texture. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was presented at the University of Arkansas in September of 2017. The challenges of this production will be addressed as well as the achievements and areas of improvement of this production. Finally, this document will answer the question: How does color, texture, and the angle of stage lighting help heighten the emotions of the characters and engage an audience in the play?

Included are all the …

Acting Styles Of Caryl Churchill Performance, Mischa Hutchings

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains materials pertaining to my thesis performance and one-person show. This thesis also includes my headshot, resume and link to my website.

Queer Pregnancy In Shakespeare's Plays, Alicia Page Andrzejewski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bringing together queer and feminist theory, this dissertation examines Shakespeare’s representations of pregnancy divorced from their promised duration and promised end, revealing that the pregnant body is not wholly symbolic of futurity, chastity, or even heterosexual desire. In queer readings of Shakespeare’s plays and in the methodological debates that inform them, the pregnant body has been conspicuously absent, despite being often subsumed into definitions of heteronormativity and procreative reproduction. In feminist work on Shakespeare’s pregnant characters, scholars largely conflate pregnancy with maternity instead of considering the ways in which these women might engage in non-heterosexual forms of intimacy and eroticism. …

Dance Of Exile: The Sakharoffs’ Visual Performances In Montevideo (1935–1948), Pablo Munoz Ponzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life-work chronology of the dancers and choreographers Clotilde von Derp (whose surname then was Sakharoff) and Alexander Sakharoff, who were exiled in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, between 1941 and 1948. During their stay in the Rio de la Plata region, the Sakharoffs stirred up the art scene by performing extremely detailed dances with great attention to costume design. This thesis begins with a review of the reception of the dancers’ performances by the artistic and cultural circles in Montevideo, arguing that the Sakharoffs’ “queer” trajectory resonated with the Uruguayan artistic community, influencing the creation …