Performance Studies Commons^™

Direction Of The Imaginary Invalid By Molière Translated By Charles Heron Wall Adapted By Kimberly Dorman, Kimberly S. Dorman

All Graduate Projects

This project comprises of the selection, research, casting, adaptation, production and post-production process of The Imaginary Invalid. Documentation and research include adaptation, analysis of the play as a production vehicle for our program, research, script analysis, outcome goals, a record of the production period, and a postproduction evaluation.

Dramatic Themes: Active Learning And Thematic Teaching In The Theatre History Classroom, Brandon Lareau

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores major texts dealing with pedagogical theory and active learning in the context of a theatre history class. By comparing a class which is taught in the traditional, chronological format relying heavily on lectures to a class taught in a newer, thematic format utilizing active learning the thesis defines what student-centered learning means. Active learning, its benefits, and its implementation are explained and explored, along with the advantages and benefits of teaching thematically instead of chronologically. All of this is applied to a theatre history class in the resulting syllabus in chapter three. The syllabus creates a curriculum …

“The Ground On Which I Stand” Healing Queer Trauma Through Performance: Crafting A Solo Performance Through The Investigation Of Ritual Poetic Drama Within The African Continuum, Ashley W. Grantham

Theses and Dissertations

“The Ground On Which I Stand”

Healing Queer Trauma through Performance:

Crafting a Solo Performance through the investigation of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum.

By: Ashley W. Grantham

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Performance Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University

April 16^th, 2019

Thesis Adjudicator: Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates

Committee: Dr. Keith Byron Kirk, Director of Graduate Studies and Karen Kopryanski, Head of Voice and Speech

How does this method of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum, by extension, solo performance, …

Encuentro Con La Precariedad: La Reaparición Del Gitano En El Cine Documental Español De La Crisis De 2008, María Julia De León Hernández

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

In 2008, Spain’s financial crisis had a great impact on the primary sector on which the nation’s ‘economic miracle’ was founded: housing.Land speculation, the increase in housing construction, and easy loans had become one of the hallmarks of twenty-first-century Spanish identity. The crisis del ladrillo (“brick crisis”) plunged the national economy into chaos and condemned many Spanish citizens to job insecurity, loss of earning power, threat of eviction, and put them at high risk of social marginalization. This dissertation studies the unusual proliferation of documentary films during the years surrounding this economic downturn about the ghettoization of the Spanish Gypsy …

A Mother Honors College Alternative To The Thesis, Amanda L. Ellenburg

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis was intended to inform readers about the one-woman show I performed, A Mother. In addition, my thesis described job positions within my field and the research I conducted for my production. Essentially, this may allow readers without any experience in the theatre to understand the process an actor undergoes during a production. Typically there are many people on a production team performing various roles. Instead, my tremendous challenge was acting as producer, director, actor, event coordinator, part designer, and marketing director. This paper includes acting advice from classmates, my instructor, Larry McDonald, and details of my use …

Josephine Baker & Me: Black Femme Identity In Performance, Meghan Gwinn

Scripps Senior Theses

The paper explores the complicated intersection between Black womanhood and performance by considering Josephine Baker as a site to engage the concept of “performing identity.” It discuss both the development of burlesque and the history of Josephine Baker to provide a foundation for the investigation of her early-career movement and visual practices. Then, the paper explore these hallmarks through Sherril Dodds’ “critical components of neo-burlesque striptease” writ into her book, Dancing on the Canon: Embodiments of Value in Popular Dance. The second half of this document includes a script of CATHARSIS, a self-devised solo show created to process one’s personal …

Su Dansi. A Dance Film – And – Dancing Elements: The Making Of Su Dansi - A Dance Film. An Exegesis, Johanna Omodei

Theses : Honours

This research project titled Dancing Elements explores choreographic conversations between the body and natural elements, specifically water on film. I question how natural elements when viewed in relation to the dancing body, can begin to be seen as a dancing entity. This research is divided between scholarship and the creation of a new dance film, su dansi which is Turkish for ‘water dance.’ su dansi is a collaborative and explorative outcome that plays with the dancing body and water through the art form of film. Drawing from author Sylvie Vitaglione (2016), I have adopted her term “natural elements’’ in reference …

Constructed Languages And Their Role In Drama, Emelie Vandenberg

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper covers the history and use of constructed language and dialect on stage and screen as well as the issues that arise concerning social awareness and intellectual property.

Myrrha Now: Reimagining Classic Myth And Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses In The #Metoo Era, Claire A. Pukszta

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper represents the final culmination of a theater senior project. The project consisted of an analytical research paper, performance in a mainstage department production, and supporting process documentation. I portrayed Myrrha, Hunger, Zeus, and others in a production of the play Metamorphoses.

Through research on Mary Zimmerman’s 1998 play Metamorphoses, adapted from the works of Roman poet Ovid, this thesis grapples with the historical meaning of the myth of Myrrha. A polarizing figure, Myrrha was cursed to fall in lust with her father. By exploring of portrayals sexual assault onstage, I tackle themes of audience relationships to …

Where Do We Go From Here? A Semi-Autobiographical Performance Exploration Into The Therapeutic Benefits Of Theatre, Emma Elliott

Scripps Senior Theses

My intention in this performance is to create a therapeutic theatrical process for myself and engage the audience with intense emotional vulnerability regarding the combination and validation of the nobody and performative self. I utilized both my vocal and acting training to work through emotional trauma that I have experienced and created a musical performance to demonstrate my journey of therapy and emotional reconciliation within myself and my family. I focused my research on using autobiographical performances to solidify and validate the identity of the performer to an audience. In doing so, this allows the performers to become the …

Volume 36 - Full Volume

National Forensic Journal

No abstract provided.

"Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, And Broadway Bodies, Ryan Donovan

Publications and Research

This article surveys how contemporary Broadway musicals cast fat women and focuses on Hairspray. The use of fat suits and contractual weight clauses figure into the discussion of fat stigma and casting practices. Seemingly body-positive musicals both celebrate and undermine the identities staged in them.

Regionally Interdependent Applications Of Total Motion Release® And Active Rotational Shoulder Range Of Motion In Overhead Athletes, R. Ross Dexter, Terylan K. Loftis, Russell T. Baker, Timothy E. Speicher

Clinical Practice in Athletic Training

Healthy athletes commonly engage in pre-participation warm-up strategies designed to physiologically and mechanically prepare the body for training and competition. Alterations in rotational range of motion (ROM) of the dominant shoulder in overhead athletes, resulting in total rotation ROM loss, correlate with performance deficit, injury risk, and lost training time. Researchers have suggested that interventions using Total Motion Release® (TMR®) increase shoulder ROM more effectively than traditional warm-up methods. A randomized pre-test post-test trial was used to explore the effects of a regionally interdependent application of TMR® via a forward flexed trunk twist (FFTT) and seated straight leg raise (SLR) …

She's Not Allowed To Do That: Performing Stigmatized Same-Sex Sexuality, Orion Lee Risk

Honors Program Theses

In the summer of 2018, an emerging theatre company produced Stop Kiss by Diana Son in Waterloo, Iowa, a mid-size industrial town adjacent to the city of Cedar Falls, which hosts a small public university. In Stop Kiss, the two lead characters are women fall romantically for each other, so that in performing their characters the actors embody same-sex sexuality. This paper will explore how the actors playing these two characters engaged with this embodiment, and how doing so affected them.

Bright Half Life Assistant Director, Charles Lawver

Honors Thesis

My Theatre Arts thesis project was working as an assistant director (AD) on the play “Bright Half Life,” alongside my director/professor, Dana Resnick. This play ran from August 29 through September 1 at the beginning of the Fall 2018 semester in the Strub Theatre at LMU. For this project I was expected to perform a number of duties and responsibilities. The other assistant director and I were present at every production meeting, rehearsal, and performance to assist our director in establishing, creating, and guiding her vision for the play into life. We all met with the designers for the show’s …

Masks: A New Face For The Theatre, Alexi Michael Siegel

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This study seeks to reimagine and reinvigorate modern theatre’s relationship with mask work through text-based historical research and practice-based artistic research. It focuses on three ancient mask traditions: pre- and early Hellenistic Greek theatre, Japanese Noh theatre, and Nigerian Egungun masquerades. Research on these mask traditions and recent masked productions informed the development and staging of a masked performance of Charles Mee’s Life is a Dream. The production featured sections for each of the ancient masking styles and a final section that explored masks in a contemporary theatrical style. As a whole, this creative project pulls masks out of …

Light Eaters: A Study On The Affect Of Light Depicted Through Different Art Mediums, Samuel Dyck

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Humankind has spent its entire history defining and creating the things that make up our physical world. Everyday, humanity continues to discover and create, furthering society’s knowledge and understanding of existence. However, there are facets of nature that have never been entirely understood by mankind, because they have a unique affect on each individual. It is known how a tree manifests and grows but no one can explain the feeling of relief that comes in the shade of a long limbed oak on a cloudless day. Nature is unique in its simplicity and mystery. Artists often use aspects of nature …

The Challenges And Limitations Of Adapting Mozart's Così Fan Tutte For A Small University Setting, Christopher Lovely

Dissertations

In this dissertation, challenges and limitations related to presenting Così fan tutte within a small university setting are conveyed, as well as offering innovative ideas to create a manageable presentation. I recall my personal experience as Korepititor/Vocal Coach for The University of Southern Mississippi’s 2014 production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. This document presents topics on the various workings of an opera production: pre-rehearsal preparation, language issues, rehearsal preparation, selection of singers, and production issues. It offers practical solutions to overcome various challenges a small university may encounter. Smaller university opera programs were surveyed regarding their adaptations of …

Vinegar Tom

Theatre Programs

No abstract provided.

In Another Person’S Skin: Adaptations Of To Kill A Mockingbird And The Characterization Of Scout Finch, Eric A. Pitz

Conspectus Borealis

No abstract provided.