Theatre History Commons^™

Waiting For Godot

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 2012 performance of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Waiting for Gadot is the story of two men and their conversations as they wait for someone named Gadot, who never arrives.

Noises Off, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2012-2013 Season

Michael Frayn's Noises Off takes a fond look at the follies of theatre folk, whose susceptibility to out-of-control egos, memory loss, and passionate affairs turn every performance into a high-risk adventure. This play-within-a-play captures a touring theatre troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run. Frayne gives us a window into the inner workings of theatre behind the scenes, progressing from flubbed lines and missed cues in the dress rehearsal to mounting friction between cast members in the final performance. Brimming with slapstick comedy, Noises …

8 Program, University Of Southern Maine Department Of Theatre

Programs 2012-2013 Season

A New Play by Dustin Lance Black

Directed by Wil Kilroy

Something's Afoot: A New Murder Mystery Musical, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2012 Summer Theatre

Something's Afoot is a murder mystery musical that spoofs detective stories, mainly the works of Agatha Christie, and especially her detective novel And Then There Were None (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians). The play involves a group of people who are invited to the lake estate of Lord Dudley Rancour, When the wealthy lord is found dead, it's a race against the clock to find out whodunnit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something%27s_Afoot

Barefoot In The Park, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2012 Summer Theatre

What happens when two very different people fall in love? Paul likes to wear his gloves in the winter and Corie wants to walk barefoot in the park. Mix in the crazy neighbors upstairs, Victor Velasco, who "wears Japanese kimonos and sleeps on rugs" and Corie's mother who "wears a hairnet and sleeps on a board" and expect some complications. Set in 1963, Barefoot in the Park captures the tension between the freedom of the burgeoning 60's and the conventions of the waning 50's. Corie and Victor are pre-hippies, attuned to their libidos and their desire for freedom and adventure. …

Circle Mirror Transformation, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2012 Summer Theatre

A sharply funny new play by emerging playwright Annie Baker, Circle Mirror Transformation follows five people through a summer of "creative drama" in their small town's adult acting class. Led by their bohemian acting coach, the five experiment with harmless theatre games that unexpectedly lead to poignant discoveries about themselves and each other. At turns, surprisingly funny and subtly insightful, this revealing play reminds us why theatre is the most human of all arts.

Noises Off

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 2012 performance of Noises Off by Michael Frayn.

Noises Off is a farce involving the small cast of a play and how their offstage drama impacts their onstage drama.

Three Musketeers And A Rock Band, Brandi K. Kawamoto

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis is the culmination of my scenic design work for Ken Ludwig’s The Three Musketeers in the Howell Theater at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the spring semester of 2012. Within this paper I will look at the conceptualization process, historical research, execution of the set design, the realized final product, and the critique process. The rough sketches, research images, computer draftings, finalized renderings, and production photos are featured within the thesis.

Advisor: Sandy Veneziano

Playing Devil's Advocate: The Attractive Shakespearean Villain, Jonathan Montgomery Green

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The characters of William Shakespeare have spawned countless words of critical interpretation inspired by the playwright's aptitude for fashioning intricate and conflicted figures. As a master character craftsman, Shakespeare is consistent in creating fascinatingly deep characters, and many of them have even gone so far as to generate entire literary archetypes. From the contemplative Prince Hamlet to the despicable yet charming John Falstaff, Shakespeare's characters remain eternal representatives of what any good character should be: interesting, provocative, and complicated.

However, among the playwright's most hypnotic figures are his villains, those characters whom audiences should by all counts detest but cannot …

Power And Relationships In The Plays Of Neil Labute: Directing And Performing In Some Girl(S), Mary Peyton Griffith

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the major works of Neil LaBute's career as a playwright and screenwriter, including the criticism he has received on theatrical and literary levels. The themes most prevalent in the thesis are the use of power and manipulation in the relationships between LaBute's characters and the ongoing maturation of his characters that coincides with the maturation of his work. The second section of the thesis follows the production, directing, and acting in LaBute's play Some Girl(s).

King's Theatre Queens: Three Successful Women In The Early Classical Era, Ashley Mchugh

2012 Awards for Excellence in Student Research & Creative Activity - Documents

In the early Classical era, three particular women are accredited with encompassing the vocal style and techniques of the timeframe: Madame Gertrud Mara, Brigida Giorgi Banti, and Mrs. Elizabeth Billington. They were of different nationalities, statuses, educational backgrounds, vocal qualities, and performance strengths. However, they were all frequently associated with similar repertoire, critics and audiences, and companies- especially the King's Theatre in London.

Hedda Gabler Program [2012], University Of Southern Maine Department Of Theatre

Programs 2011-2012 Season

By Henrik Ibsen

Directed by William Steele

This production was a Participating entry in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KC/ACTF).

The Fight Master, Spring 2012, Vol. 34 Issue 1, The Society Of American Fight Directors

Fight Master Magazine

No abstract provided.

The Drowsy Chaperone Program [2012], University Of Southern Maine Department Of Theatre

Programs 2011-2012 Season

Music and Lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison

Book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar

Directed by Assunta Kent

Musical Direction by Edward Reichert

This production was a Participating entry in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KC/ACTF).

Dance 2012: Spotlight, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2011-2012 Season

No abstract provided.

Eurydice Program [2012], University Of Southern Maine Department Of Theatre

Programs 2011-2012 Season

By Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Meghan Brodie

This production was a Participating entry in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KC/ACTF).

A Dull Enigma: Historians' Analysis Of Gilbert And Sullivan's Impact On The Development Of The American Musical, Andrew Vorder Bruegge

College of Visual and Performing Arts Faculty Publications

Historians of musical theatre have been ambivalent when assessing the historical significance of Gilbert and Sullivan upon the development of the American musical. Historical narratives typically jump from The Black Crook to Friml, with only passing reference to G&S (and Offenbach, and Strauss). Gilbert and Sullivan (encouraged by D’Oyly Carte), however, anticipated not only most of the formal elements, but also many of the creative/production processes of the American musical genre. The shows that we associate with the “Golden Era” of the American musical theatre contain many components that G&S devised three score years earlier. Historians should acknowledge the importance …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

American Art Theatre In The Digital Archive, Patrick Michael Finelli

Theatre and Dance Faculty Publications

Based on a critical examination, evaluation, and selection of primary and secondary sources related to American art theater that have moved from the private into the public digital realm, Finelli reflects and comments on key issues related to the digital archive and theater historiography. His objective was to analyze the notion of digital archives and consider how accessing materials in electronic form affects the practice of writing history. He hypothesizes that the process of digitizing library and archival materials has a significant affect upon archival elements through their transformation into the digital realm, bringing about change in both an ontological …

The Masks Of Commedia Del’Arte, Noh Theater And Classical Greece: The Cultural Meanings, Influences And Similarities, Makena Bennett

A with Honors Projects

This essay examines the use and meanings of masks in Noh, commedia dell'art, and classical Greek theatre.