Performance Studies Commons^™

John Jasper: The Creation Of A Character, Blake Price

Honors Theses

On November 13th, 2015, I will be participating in my last mainstage performance at Western Michigan University. To say I’m excited to be finishing my college career as John Jasper in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, would be an absolute understatement. Over the course of the past three and a half years, I have had the rare privilege to split my time evenly between performing plays and musicals, which does not always happen for Music Theatre Performance majors. The ability to work with new directors on a variety of different styles of plays and musicals has given me the opportunity …

Living Between The Lines: Intersectionality And Self-Actualization In Shakespeare's Plays, Morgan L. Green

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

More than four hundred years after his death Shakespeare is still the most performed playwright in the English-Speaking World, and even in some cultures vastly different from Shakespeare’s England. Theatre companies continue to make him relevant by exploring new themes and tailoring the productions to the social mores of contemporary audiences. One particular theme being examined more and more by both scholars and theatre artists is diversity and the role of identity in Shakespeare’s works. Three works in which this can be easily examined are Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello with particular attention paid to …

An Arts Therapy Case Study: The Vision, Progress, Impact, And Plan Of Canada’S First National Centre For Dance Therapy, Abigail Jane Axelrod

Graduate Theses

Since it’s founding in 1957, the ballet company, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal (LGBCM, Les Grands Ballets), has stretched the reputation of classical dance. Within its first year, the dance company was listed as a “top-rank cultural institution, actively involved in the presentation and promotion of dance in all its forms” (Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal “National Centre for Dance Therapy”). To continue its legacy, the Executive Director of LGBCM began collaborating with LGBCM’s Director of Development of Affairs, to establish the National Centre for Dance Therapy (NCDT, the Centre). Both directors updated Les Grands Ballets’ original …

Mask Work And Improvisations: A Classroom Adaptation Based On The French Tradition, Marcia Berry

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Both historically and currently, mask work provides excellent body training for actors and mimes. This article offers a brief history of French mask work as well as step-by-step instructions for a mask workshop that moves students from simple to abstract mask improvisations. The mask workshop also functions as an icebreaker and builds class camaraderie.

Exploring Literary Characters In Classroom Performance, Gerald Lee Ratliff

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

Original classroom exercises are an invaluable instructional tool to actively engage students in analysis and performance of dramatic and non-dramatic literary texts. The basic principle of classroom performance emphasizes a critical and creative teaching perspective that stimulates student responses to the aesthetic, emotional and intellectual content of a literary text. Selected exercises that promote a more theatrical impulse in the study and performance of literary texts present meaningful opportunities for students to give vocal and physical visualization to the actions, attitudes and emotions of literary characters and, ultimately, enriches the classroom learning experience.

Eurydice

Theatre Programs

Written by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Theresa Robbins Dudeck

In Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl reimagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine. Dying too young on her wedding day, Eurydice must journey to the underworld, where she reunites with her father and struggles to remember her lost love. With contemporary characters, ingenious plot twists, and breathtaking visual effects, the play is a fresh look at a timeless love story.

Waltmar Theatre
7:30 p.m. - November 12, 13 & 14
2 p.m. - November 14 & 15

To view photos from this production of Eurydice, please …

Machinal, Jennifer Popple

2010-2019: All Shows

The play's title means "automatic" or "mechanical" in French and is based loosely on the murder trial of Ruth Snyder and her lover, Judd Gray, who together murdered Snyder's husband. Convicted of murdering her husband, Snyder later received the electric chair. A woman's role during this era in history is confined and regimented to wife, mother, housekeeper, and sexual partner. Love is considered unnecessary, and thus many women are trapped in their dependent status, living a hellish life in a loveless marriage. The relationship between Helen Jones and her husband, George H. Jones, is no different. However, when a man …

Make Love, Not War?: The Role Of The Chorus In Kokoschka’S “Murderer Hope Of Women”, Susan F. Russell

Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

In the summer of 1909, two one-acts by the twenty-three-year-old painter Oskar Kokoschka premiered in Vienna in an outdoor theatre built in the garden adjacent to the art museum as part of the second Kunstschau exhibit. The two Kunstschauen (of 1908 and 1909) were organized by Gustav Klimt and his friends in order “to expose the Viennese public to the most shocking and revolutionary forces in contemporary art,” and Kokoschka exhibited in both. The showing of Oskar Kokoschka’s art and his plays cemented his reputation as the most prominent enfant terrible of his day. These exhibitions helped ensure that, by …

The Fight Master, Fall 2015, Vol. 37 Issue 2, The Society Of American Fight Directors

Fight Master Magazine

No abstract provided.

Rent

Theatre Programs

Book, Music, and Lyrics by Jonathan Larson; loosely based on Puccini’s La Bohème
Directed by Matthew McCray
Music Direction by Diane King Vann

Impoverished young artists and musicians struggle to survive and create in New York's Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. The physical and emotional complications of the disease pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom, and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble. Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income and is on the outs with …

Pinocchio Commedia, Jackie Wynes Mccall

2010-2019: All Shows

This Harlequinade version of Pinocchio is one of his theatre’s most successful productions. Simons uses the original Italian commedia names, such as Arlecchino, who later became the French Harlequin. The name “Pinocchio” may be spoken with its Italian pronunciation as pee-no-kee-o. In true commedia fashion, this wild and uninhibited play begins with a troupe of strolling players exploding into the theatre with their noisy props and crude scenery. Arlecchino plays a Cricket; Pantalone plays Geppetto; Razullo, a fox; Beltrama, a cat; Pulcinella, the wicked puppet master; Pedrolina, a donkey and a fool; Columbina, a spirit and Pinocchio plays himself. The …

Narrative Engagement And The Role Of Presence, Stef Nicovich

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Presence as a phenomenon has been studied for over 20 years with an identifiable progression as to how the field has matured. Initial research explored the physical nature of what conditions were necessary to produce presence focusing on the physical representations of the experience such as vividness and interactivity. This soon segued into more of an exploration into the psychological understanding of what is to experience presence focusing more on the actual “being there” phenomenon experienced by people as they engaged in a CM event. However as our understanding of presence has matured the focus has turned to exploring the …

The Merry Wives Of Windsor, Daniel Gordon

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

The Merry Wives of Windsor A story of LUST, GREED, and DIRTY LAUNDRY
By William Shakespeare, adapted by Daniel Gordon.

Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor uses more prose than any of his other plays, for indeed, these characters are simple folk. His setting of the countryside of Windsor also offers clues to how I might interpret this play for a South Carolina audience. To reinforce the tight-knit community or provincial common folk that is wary of outsiders, I set this production in a southern trailer park. The script and rhythms fit remarkably well with a southern twang. Knowing the …

Poor Relations: An Original Play By Robert Flaherty Hart, Robert Flaherty Hart

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to present my play, Poor Relations, to my thesis committee and discuss both the process of bringing it to the stage and the results of that process.

The dissertation opens with a narrative essay detailing the process of writing Poor Relations and bringing it to the stage in a full production. It discusses my initial idea for the play, the original draft and changes made after input from those at informal readings. It pays particular attention to the changes that were made during the rehearsal process for the full production.

Following is a copy …

The Many Faces Of Cleopatra: How Performance And Characterization Change Cleopatra In Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Legend Of Good Women," William Shakespeare's The Tragedy Of Antony And Cleopatra, And John Dryden's All For Love; Or, The World Well Lost, Rebecca Piazzoni Chatham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and John Dryden presented the character of Cleopatra differently, through both the written language of their pieces and their own and others’ performances of her, in order to meet the demands of their respective audiences and performance conditions. Chaucer, in “The Legend of Cleopatra,” portrays and performs Cleopatra comically. Shakespeare, in his Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, characterizes Cleopatra as a complex woman. In All for Love; or, The World Well Lost, Dryden characterizes Cleopatra as sentimental, but the performance of her on stage by female actresses added depth to the role. For Chaucer and Dryden, …

Fusion Of Art Forms Across The World: An Examination Of Contemporary Dance Improvisation In England And America, Jade Primicias

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Artists in the dance world are now experimenting with new and more varied subgenres of contemporary dance such as contemporary dance improvisation, but audience reception of this type of work is incongruent from country to country, and even from place to place within one nation. In America, the artistry spans from those who are making breakthroughs and experimenting with new techniques to companies which continue to perform celebrated repertoire. Because of London’s role as a world leader in the arts, and its geographical location in England, avant-garde artistry is especially common throughout that nation. The author spent time studying in …

"Debate: Millennials Don't Stand A Chance" Devised, Documentary And Immersive Theatre: The Story Of Everymillennial, Sean R. Byrne

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This thesis aims to discover how communitas can be created through theatrical performances by blurring the line between audience and performer as well as performer and character. The topic of the Millennial generation is used as a thematic element in performance to emphasize the creation of community. A theatrical form will be introduced, called the “Living Biography:” a method of devising based on devising, documentary, and immersive theatre. This form will be shown as one possible option in creating communitas in a performance. While other forms of audience inclusion are frequently used, it will be argued that the “Living Biography” …

The Sentence Continues: Breaking Silences And Becoming Authors Through The Semicolon Project, Brooke E. Covington

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Through its many digital platforms, The Semicolon Project, a suicide and self-harm prevention initiative, offers its users a creative means of using writing to heal. As its name suggests, the semicolon is an essential mark for this group—grammatically a semicolon represents a place in the sentence that an author could have ended and for the members of this prevention initiative, the semicolon acts in a similar way. By tattooing or drawing a semicolon on the body, the semicolon bearer embody a sense of authorial agency, positioning herself as author and using the semicolon as a representation of her dedication to …

As You Like It, Jennifer Popple

2010-2019: All Shows

Comic twists and turns abound when a disguised Rosalind seeks refuge after being wrongfully banished by her uncle. Her unfortunate exile is transformed into a charming adventure when she encounters some of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters - colorful fools, witty rustics, and the handsome, lovesick Orlando. A clandestine, gender-bending courtship ensues, in Shakespeare’s timeless comedy about love, transformation and the roles we play.

An Actor's Trust, Nathaniel Arthur Stahlke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a reflection of an actor's learned ability to trust ones self and to trust the process, following three years of intense training. It consists of my statement of artistry, documentation of my thesis project and performance, as well as my future professional development materials.