Digital Commons Network^™

Four Years In Europe With Buffalo Bill, Charles Eldridge Griffin

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the entertainment industry’s first international celebrity, achieving worldwide stardom with his traveling Wild West show. For three decades he operated and appeared in various incarnations of “the western world’s greatest traveling attraction,” enthralling audiences around the globe. When the show reached Europe it was a sensation, igniting “Wild West fever” by offering what purported to be a genuine experience of the American frontier. By any standard Charles Eldridge Griffin (1859–1914), manager of the Wild West’s European tour, was a remarkable man. Known by the stage names of Monsieur F. Le Costro, Professor Griffin, and …

The Scene Design For Macbeth, Michael Leonard

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

This thesis presents the scenic design for Macbeth written by William Shakespeare. The play was produced by the Department of Theatre Arts at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln and performed in the Howell Theatre on April 17, 2003 through April 26, 2003. The written portion of the thesis is divided into sections: The Play and Synopsis, Scene Deisgn Analysis including Time, Place, and Physical Needs, Design Concept, The Design Process, The Process of Realization, Reviews and Comments on the Scenic Design, and Self Evaluation.

The final portion of the thesis is a collection of sketches, drafting, paint elevations, and …

Becoming The Bastard: An Exploration Of The Creative Process For Preparing The Role Of Edmund In King Lear, Daniel Gilbert

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

This thesis is a documentation of the creative process I utilized in the preparation of the role of Edmund in the 2009 UNL production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear. It is comprised of three main parts. Part One: Research consists of all complied materials pertaining to the life and work of William Shakespeare and his play King Lear; including play structure, language and themes. Part Two: Process is an examination of the rehearsal process and methodology used in character development. Part Three: Evaluation is a conclusion of the process and provides faculty responses as well as self examinations …

Costume Design For You Never Can Tell, Emily S. Parker

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

This thesis will expound upon the costume design process for The Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film’s 2009 production of You Never Can Tell, performed in the Howell Theatre at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Directed by Dr. Tice Miller, and Mijou Sahiouni, Assistant Director, the production team included Emily Parker as the Costume Designer, Ahna Packard as the Set Designer, and Harrison Hohnholt as the Lighting Designer. This thesis will describe the research, inspiration, rendering and construction process of the costume designer.

Two Kings: An Account Of The Preparation And Performance Of The Role Of Edgar In William Shakespeare's King Lear, Ryan Kathman

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

This work is my graduate thesis documenting the creative process behind my performance of the role of Edgar in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s 2009 production of King Lear by William Shakespeare. It is comprised of five sections including an introduction, pre-rehearsal research, rehearsal and performance journal, post-production responses and conclusion. The introduction outlines my impressions of Edgar and King Lear prior to researching or rehearsing the role. In my research section, I attempt to better understand Shakespeare, his play and the role of Edgar by studying the playwright’s life and the history of the character and play, while also making …

The Sacred Choral Music Of Seth Daniels Bingham (1882-1972), With Special Focus On "The Canticle Of The Sun" Op. 52, James E. Wilson

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

Seth Daniels Bingham (1882-1972) holds a unique place within the pantheon of American composers. He was one of many composers to travel to France for lessons in composition during the first decades of the Twentieth Century. From 1906 until 1907 he studied organ with Alexander Guilmant and composition with Charles Marie Widor and Vincent d’Indy. Through his absorption of the French musical aesthetic, Bingham learned to improvise and compose in the French style, to voice textures according to a French system of registration, and to combine modernity with tradition. It is true that Bingham was not the only American composer …

The Heroic Struggle Of Pleasing A Mad King: An Actor’S Exploration Of The Earl Of Kent In William Shakespeare’S King Lear, Robie A. Hayek

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

This thesis is the research and analysis of the creative process I used in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film’s 2009 production of King Lear. It is comprised of three main parts. Part One: Research explores the life and work of William Shakespeare. Part Two: A Study of King Lear examines the history of King Lear including major themes and performance history. Part Three: Process provides insight to the thought process of an actor while building a character. Additional materials include documentation of the rehearsal and performance, script analysis, and critical responses to the …

Costume Design And Execution Of King Lear By William Shakespeare, Cecelia Rae Sickler

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

This thesis documents the costume design and execution for the fall production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear performed on the Howell Stage at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The following discusses and documents the research, inspiration, development and construction of the costume design.

Quiet Virtue Or Roaring Indignation: One Actor's Quest, And Ultimate Failure, To Reveal Complexity In Shakespeare's Cordelia, Mary Lucy Lockamy

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

QUIET VIRTUE OR ROARING INDIGNATION: ONE ACTOR'S QUEST, AND ULTIMATE FAILURE, TO REVEAL COMPLEXITY IN SHAKESPEARE'S CORDELIA Mary Lucy Lockamy, M.F.A University of Nebraska, 2010

Advisor: Harris Smith

This thesis documents the performance process I underwent while tackling the role of Cordelia in William Shakespeare’s King Lear in the November 2009 production at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This document is the culmination of a three-year endeavor to attain a Master of Fine Arts in Acting.

There are three main sections. In Part One, I focus on Cordelia’s presence in the story of King Lear, before Shakespeare ever wrote his version, …

"If A Passage Could Be Found": The Power Of Myth (And Money) In North American Exploration, Brenden Rensink

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The popular lore of North American exploration and westward expansion has oft been woven with themes of heroic bravery, divine providence and Manifest Destiny. These tales indeed relate portions of actual history, but also offer insight into the self-perception and culture of the societies perpetuating them. As larger-than-life figures braved the "unknown" in the name of nation or creed, the motives behind their ventures often were not so singular. The ever-driving force of economic gain stood as a foundation for most expeditions. Simultaneously justifying the current expedition and providing support for future endeavors, explorers interested in self-preservation placed a premium …

Goneril: Jealousy And Thirst For Power Caused By The Loss Of A Father's Love, Beth L. King

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

The challenge for every actor is to bring something of yourself to a role. The more real it can become for you the more real it will be for the audience. Goneril is a caricature. She is rich, powerful and she does horrible things like throwing her father out into the cold, having an affair, poisoning her sister and ultimately killing herself. She is one of Shakespeare’s “evil” women. I have to say I do not consider myself evil. So what could I have in common with this monster of a woman? One of our fellow classmates died while we …

Processing King Lear, Patric Michael Vendetti

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

This thesis is the culmination of my scenic design work for William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Lear in the Howell Theatre at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Within this paper I will look at the processes used to create the set design, the execution of the set design and the final product when seen in a fully realized production.

Insight Into Madness: The Rise And Fall Of The Duke Of Cornwall, Kyle Broussard

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

The Duke of Cornwall, created by the world’s most popular and influential playwright in history, William Shakespeare, is a complex, compelling, and controversial character brought forth to life in the pages of King Lear. In accordance to guidelines established by the University of Nebraska, the following graduate thesis will provide a basic outline of my journey through the challenges of understanding, developing, and ultimately performing the role of Cornwall in Shakespeare’s King Lear. The Duke of Cornwall was a challenging and often difficult role to embody and understand due to several factors, such as interpreting his motivations, understanding …

Costume Design For Tartuffe By Molière, Shannon Paulick

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

“Tartuffe: The Costume Design Process” is a paper that describes the conceptualization, creation, and critique of the costume design chosen for the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film’s production of Tartuffe during the spring semester of 2010. The conceptualization process included meetings with the director, historical research of France during the 1660s, and consideration of the play’s specific needs. The rough sketches and finalized renderings, along with the historical research, are featured within the thesis. The creation process involved numerous people, hours, and creative solutions to bring the design to fruition. Newspapers and an American College Theatre Festival respondent …

I Am Regan: The Preparation, Performance And Afterthoughts On The Character Of Regan In King Lear, Tiffiney C. Baker

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

The Preparation, Performance and Afterthoughts Concerning the Role of Regan in Shakespeare’s King Lear Tiffiney Carol Baker, M.F.A. University of Nebraska, 2010 Adviser: Harris Smith In April of 2009 I was cast as Regan Cornwall in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s main stage production of King Lear. Throughout the summer I researched various aspects of the playwright, the play’s origins, family dynamics and various other aspects concerning the world of the play in order to gain a clearer understanding of the character. The following is the documentation of my process divided into three sections. Section one contains historical research and a …

Fearing The "Turban'd Turk": Socio-Economic Access To Genre And The "Turks" Of Early Modern English Dramas And Broadside Ballads, Katie S. Sisneros

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores an important means for the non-noble and non-gentry population of England to read and interpret the figure of the Turk as textually represented: the broadside ballad. Cheap to print and produced on an expansive scale, broadside ballads had access to economic and geographic segments of England beyond the reach of the drama. Aimed at a far more general audience than theater-goers (especially during the Restoration period), broadside ballads provide an alternative literary interpretation of the Turk, one long-neglected in Anglo-Ottoman studies. Current scholarship’s almost-exclusive focus on drama has led to a progress narrative positing an evolution in …

A Conversation On “Confucius” With Daniel A. Bell, Alec Ash

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The film Confucius premiered in Beijing last month, to a backdrop of controversyover Avatar being dropped from cinemas to make way for more patriotic fare. I saw the film last weekend with Chinese student friends, and we couldn’t hold back the occasional open snigger: in a word, Confucius is cornier than maize. It also raises interesting questions about the selective interpretation and political uses that modern China makes of its ancient Confucian tradition.

I put some of these questions to Daniel A. Bell, Professor of Philosophy at Tsinghua University, who has written widely on Confucianism (including pieces for The China …

The Gilbert & Sullivan Critical Edition And The Full Scores That Never Were, Ronald Broude

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979-2011)

The critical edition of the “Savoy Operas” of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan provides a useful example of the ways in which scholarly editions of performing works can alter important elements of the sources on which they are based. The accepted form for the presentation of a critical edition of an opera is the “full score,” but for no Savoy Opera did a real full score ever exist—nor was one ever intended. The sources closest to full scores were the copying masters that Sullivan prepared for use by copyists extracting parts for performers, but these are skeletons into which …

Editing Sophia Peabody’S Cuba Journal: Travel, Recovery, And Interpretation, Jana L. Argersinger, Cheryl J. Fish

Documentary Editing: Journal of the Association for Documentary Editing (1979-2011)

Some collaborations are born out of chance encounters. For us, it happened at a recent conference of the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Having briefly met before on the common ground of studies in nineteenth- century American literature, we said “Hello” and discovered in the space of a five-minute conversation that both of us had our eyes on the early nineteenth- century journal-account of a young New Englander’s rest cure in Cuba. The traveler who authored the journal was Sophia Amelia Peabody (1809–1871), an accomplished visual artist, writer, member of a family that was vitally involved in …

An American Abroad: The Life And Career Of Robert Owens, Jamie M. Reimer

Glenn Korff School of Music: Faculty Publications

The life and career of African-American composer Robert Owens are a result of perseverance, creativity, and accidental opportunity. From his roots in Texas to his travels in France and his eventual settlement in Germany, Owens proves that if one believes in himself and his abilities, nearly any obstacle can be overcome. ... Owens' accomplishments as a composer have gained considerable recognition in the last five years, including the "Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks Visiting Professorship" at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2004) and The International Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Negro Musicians (2008). …

A Pattern Of Patience: On Providing Technical Direction For King Lear, Theron L. Seckington

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

The following writing will document my process as technical director for the 2009 mainstage production of King Lear at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film (JCSTF) at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL). King Lear was directed by Virginia Smith with scenery designed by fellow Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidate Patric Vendetti, lights by senior Angela Sharman, and sound by sophomore Max Holm. Costumes were designed by MFA candidate Cecilia Sickler. The shop foreman was Bryan Ruhs, and the production was stage managed by junior Amber Naylor. I was advised by JCSTF technical director Ed Stauffer. …

Susanna Rowson’S Transatlantic Career, Melissa J. Homestead, Camryn Hansen

Department of English: Faculty Publications

The contention that Charlotte is best understood as part of Rowson’s career, a career that spanned a period of years and the Atlantic Ocean, is central to our analysis and to the recovery of Rowson’s authorial agency. In Women and Authorship in Revolutionary America, Angela Vietto argues for the importance of the “literary career” as a category of analysis for women, of “examinin[g] the course writers followed in their pursuit of writing as a vocation—their progress in a variety of kinds of projects, both in their texts and in their performances as authors” (91). Although we leave the work …

Rationale For Magneto: Testament, Brian Kelley

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

A rationale for teaching the graphic novel Magneto:Testament in secondary schools.

Traversing Locality/Navigating Borders, Kelly Thompson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

What is it to be located? What are the markers of communication that travel with us, or that we seek locally? Recent art practices that address notions of geography, migration, settlement and travel in an increasingly ‘globalized’ and mediatized world are presented in this paper. With Montreal, Canada as the site of location, this research explores ways in which experience intermingles in the poetics of visual translation of ‘real world’ imagery into textile-based responses. Travel and ‘the local’ suggests a map, a rhizome, consisting of multiple entry points “entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real”, as Deleuze …

Capturing The Landscape : Textiles For The Australian Fashion Industry, Liz Williamson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Textiles are intricately interlaced with fashion, giving texture, drape, feel, detail and color to garments. In Australia, tracing the place of textiles in the fashion industry presents a complex story of materials, individual designers, studio practices, commercial production, textiles, art, craft and design. Overwhelmingly, makers of textiles for fashion have shown a desire to represent Australia, its character and spirit in cloth.

This paper documents research into how textiles have been designed and made for fashion over the last six decades, focusing on designers whose practice specializes in fashion fabrics. Many of these artists and designers gained experience overseas, returning …

Choreographed Cartography: Translation, Feminized Labor, And Digital Literacy In Half/Angel’S The Knitting Map, Deborah Barkun, Jools Gilson

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The Knitting Map was a large-scale, durational textile installation by the Irish-based performance production company half/angel that took place during Cork’s year as European Capital of Culture (2005). Bringing a decade of experience with emergent technologies and art practice, half/angel developed technologies to connect the physical busy-ness of Cork City (captured via a series of CCTV cameras) with correspondingly complex knitting stitches (stitches became more complex when the city was busy), and Cork weather (captured by a weather station) to yarn color. The resulting textile was an abstract documentation of a year in the life of an Irish city, in …

New Insights From The Archives: Historicizing The Political Economy Of Navajo Weaving And Wool Growing, Kathy M'Closkey

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

After the formation of the reservation in 1868, the government issued licenses to regulate trade in wool, textiles, and pelts that traders acquired from Navajos. In 1890, blanket sales were 10% of wool sales; by 1930, weavers processed one-third of the clip, their textiles were valued at $1 million, and provided one-third of reservation income. Only Navajos raised hardy coarse-wooled churros whose wool is ideal for hand processing. Recently analyzed archival evidence reveals that blankets were transformed into rugs when tariff removal (1894-97) triggered imports of one billion pounds of duty-free wool, much of it from China. Thus Navajos underwent …

American Poetry And The Daily Newspaper From The Rise Of The Penny Press To The New Journalism, Elizabeth M. Lorang

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examines the relationship of poetry and the U.S. daily newspaper in the nineteenth century and begins the process of recovering and reevaluating nineteenth-century newspaper poetry. In doing so, it draws on and participates in current discussions about the role of poetry and poets in society, the importance of periodicals in the development and dissemination of American literature in the nineteenth century, and the value of studying non-canonical texts. The appearance and function of poems in daily newspapers changed over the course of the nineteenth century, and these changes were part of larger shifts in the newspaper and its …