Digital Commons Network^™

Selfown, Richard Hollman

Student Theses

A play.

Scenic Design: Ariadne Auf Naxos, Riley Lathrom

Student Theses

riadne auf Naxos was made in collaboration between librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal and composer Richard Strauss between 1911 and 1916. While it was not the first or last project the pair would do together, it was one that dared to reinvent the form of early 20th-century German opera. Both artists understood that, in order to evolve with the modern world, their art form needed to reflect the changing culture around them. Hofmannstal envisioned “a totally unified creation of the contributing art forms, harmoniously and inseparably blended into a superior vehicle of expression” (Davidsen et al.) I find this mindset one …

The Role Of Music In Storytelling, Eliot Z. Tenberg

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Music is often thought of as a background element in storytelling, something that enhances a scene but is not essential to its meaning. However, this perspective overlooks the powerful role music plays in shaping how stories are understood and experienced. Across film, theater, and even interactive media, music does far more than accompany images or dialogue. It actively guides emotional response, constructs narrative meaning, and connects audiences to stories on a deeper psychological level. Unlike visual or verbal storytelling alone, music has the unique ability to communicate emotion without explicit explanation. A shift in melody, harmony, or rhythm can signal …

Spring Dance Concert 2026 (Emerge) Playbill, Providence College Department Of Theatre, Dance, & Film

Playbill and Promotion

Providence College Department of Theatre, Dance, & Film

Angell Blackfriars Theatre

Spring Dance Concert 2026 (Emerge)

May 1, 2026, 7:30PM

May 2, 2026, 2PM

Director, Nina Kossler

Lighting Designer, Elissa Pensa Cerros

Choreographers: Elizabeth Graney, Caroline Guanci, Jade Bocciarelli, Caroline Puccini, Rowan Locascio-McLaughlin, Kiley Vallee, Heidy Guzman, Ella Ford, Gabriella Girard, Julia Mele, Emma Daigneau, Anna Gross, Camryn Lowry, Alyssa Rago, Grace Sittig

Dancers: Lola Blessington, Simone Chabot, Noël Rose DeRosa, Ella Ford, Elizabeth Graney, Katherine Pritchard, Kiley Vallee,  Elaina Bartolini, Alyssa Dalto, Caroline Guanci, Heidy Guzman, Riley Joyce, Heidi Nicholls, Anna Bernat, Jade Bocciarelli, Lauren Gerew, Julia Mele, Grace …

2026 Celebration Of The Arts Program, Lynn University

Celebration of the Arts Programs

Celebration of the Arts 2026 Program - cover designed by Mark Sparacio

Finnegan's Got A Secret: An Exercise In Playwriting, Ari Theodore

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Pro Rege Chr. Brass Band: A Century Of Sound, Jonathan T.J. Henneveld

Dissertations

The Christian Brass Band Pro Rege of Heerenveen, The Netherlands, celebrated its one hundredth birthday in 2024. As one of the most prominent community-based brass bands in the region, Pro Rege is part of a Dutch wind ensemble tradition that goes largely undocumented. While they and other bands like them function as cultural and educational institutions, academic literature remains limited, almost ignoring them completely. This dissertation wishes to address this oversight by providing an historical study of the brass band from its establishment in 1924 to the present day.

Starting out in the Dutch ensemble tradition of the Fanfare band, …

Wanti Wanti Nuh Ghetti: Navigating The American Theatre Through A Multicultural Lens, Gabriela Madu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how actors of color navigate educational and professional spaces so they can bring their full experiences to the projects they take on, whether those projects are written for them or not. Through the depiction of the struggles faced by women of color in educational theatre in my one-person show Wanti Wanti Nuh Ghetti, the thesis argues that theatre holds transformative potential when actors of color are not merely visible on stage, but are deeply invested in their work and have a sense of belonging within the creative process. Drawing on this performance, the study further explores how …

No Place But Here, Dillon Bryant

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The writing in this document is a dovetailing of fragments ranging from critical inquiry, analysis, scripts, and other observations that relate to the body of work in “No place but here”. It is an accompanying document attempting to enrich the visual work rather than a direct illustration. The installation of “No place but here” at the Rogers Creamery is an investigation utilizing collage, text, and other constructed photographs, images, and objects to play with and against familial and broader narratives of power, control, and ambiguity associated with the American West. Underpinned and intersected by interior questions revolving around artifice, connection, …

Bright Star: A Lighting Design, A Study On The Emotional Impact Of Lights, Dean J. Bressler

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

The purpose of this thesis will be to observe, analyze, and evaluate the design process and production for the musical Bright Star Written and composed by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, Produced by the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film’s in house production company the Nebraska Repertory Theatre Company in collaboration with the University of Nebraska’s Glen Korff School of Music. Performed in the Howell Memorial Theatre from April 16^th, 2026, to April 26^th, 2026. Bright star was directed by Bobby Pieranunzi, the dance captain for the original Broadway performance of Bright Star in 2016, …

Eurydice | Tigers Be Still: Technical Direction Between Two Studio Sets, Rory G. Galada Brownell

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

This thesis examines the technical direction processes for two studio productions, Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl and Tigers Be Still by Kim Rosenstock, produced during the 2025–2026 season at the Nebraska Repertory Theatre. Through comparative analysis, this document explores how differing design styles—metaphorical and installation-based versus grounded realism—impact the planning, communication, and execution responsibilities of a technical director within a constrained academic production environment. Both productions operated within similar parameters, including limited budgets, student-based labor, and a shared performance space, allowing for a focused evaluation of process rather than resources. The Eurydice production emphasized abstract scenic elements, including large-scale string installations …

Where Doubts Fade And Stars Glow: A Costume Designer’S Journey In Silent Sky By Lauren Gunderson, Randy Tabiliran Olarte

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study employs a practice-based design methodology grounded in historical research, visual analysis, material experimentation, and collaborative production processes. This thesis, Where Doubts and Stars Glow: A Costume Designer’s Journey for Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson, explores the process of design and creation of costumes for the production of Silent Sky at the University of Arkansas. Silent Sky portrays an astronomer whose work in the early 1900s profoundly impacted the study of photographic plates for mapping stars. Specifically, the astronomer closely analyzes Cepheid variable stars, discovering that their consistent brightness fluctuations aid in determining stellar distances and the universe's size. …

Let The Mystery Be: Meditations On Process, Wildness, And Collaboration In The Creation Of The Play Camp Wyldwood, Basilton Parnell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a mix of personal reflection and examination of my time in graduate school and the creation, development, and subsequent production of my full-length play, Camp Wyldwood. Camp Wyldwood was performed as a part of the spring 2026 ArkType New Works Festival at the University of Arkansas.

Reframing Little Women: Renovating A Classic For Modern Audiences, Claire Wewers

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis serves as the documentation of the director’s process in creating a production of Little Women: The Broadway Musical for the Main Stage season at the University of Arkansas in the fall semester of 2025. This thesis will serve as in-depth record from the initial reading of the script through the opening of the project using the metaphor of the building of a house. In Chapter 1 “Introduction,” the document will provide context for the thesis. It presents several of the materials used in the creation of the thesis, discusses the methodology of the study which is mostly historical …

The Oncoming Light: An Experiential Approach To Psychological Exposition Through Dialogue-Driven Narrative, Benjamin G. Dewitt

Honors Theses

Narrative is a lens through which we understand ourselves, our histories, our futures, and our ties to those around us. Narrative form has undergone vast transformations over time, and in the case of “postmodern” literature, pushes the boundaries of form into the experimental, questioning the truth of knowledge itself. While these experimental works can give rise to uniquely powerful emotional experiences, some components of narrative, when abandoned, may only hinder the immersion of the reader. This thesis evaluates several experimental, dialogue-driven narrative works against these components: linguistic, literal, emotional, and intellectual significance, in a hierarchy of importance as proposed by …

“Who Are We?”: Exploring Adolescent Identity And Community Through Collaborative Mural Art, Rachel E. Stacy

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how participation in a high school mural club influences students’ sense of personal identity and community. By creating and leading a mural club, I guided students in designing and painting murals around their school and extending this work into the local community, all focused on how students defined themselves within the context of the school’s motto: “A Star is Rising”. I used qualitative methods including surveys, observational notes, artist statements, and visual documentation to examine and analyze how students experienced identity and collaboration throughout the process. The findings show that the creation of these murals provided students …

Unraveling The Modernist Grid: An Exploration Of Femininity And Containment In Design History, Riley Hayes

Honors Theses

This paper examines the Swiss grid as both a foundational tool of modernist graphic design and a cultural system embedded with ideological assumptions about order, neutrality, and authority. While the Swiss design tradition is widely celebrated for its clarity, rationality, and universality, this study argues that such principles are not neutral but historically situated, shaping how postwar Western visual culture organizes information, bodies, and value systems. Focusing on the circulation of Swiss design principles through editorial and advertising media, the paper situates the grid as a structuring logic that extends beyond layout into the framing of identity and gender. This …

Beauty Over Perfection: The Idealization Of Drapery In Classical Greek Sculpture And The Stylistic Reinvention Of Roman “Copies”, Lauren M. Grover

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Margarete Bieber’s claim that the drapery of Greek sculpture accurately reflects ancient garments. I introduce a method of tracing drapery to capture the garment pattern of sculpted drapery and argue that the drapery of Greek originals and Roman “copies” is an idealized representation of ancient dress.

Notes On Rhythm, Maya Lee-Parritz

Theses and Dissertations

Line meets impulse, association meets sign. I weave the eye towards the smudge and sublime—a fractal lineage flowing through the brush, my body, space itself. I walk toward reality in serial successions, allowing what is fragmentary to move me, to cohere in shards, murky and strange inside of me. My body is a repository of images, of broken rhythms and dissonant ideologies. All of these flow and stutter onto the surface, dripping and blurring over each other. Through all of this, I always try to make something whole, perfect, and true.

Granted, Emily Weissman

Theses and Dissertations

Granted is an Alice in Wonderland-style psychotic break of a play about trying and explosively failing to dodge the landmines of being an artist–only to become your own worst enemy: a gatekeeper.

I Now Pronounce You..., Paul Mims

Theses and Dissertations

In this satirical dramedy, an interracial gay couple’s picture perfect relationship is  upended when a “beloved” family member decides to get married—on a plantation

The I Need More Time Machine, Suzanne L. Schulz

Theses and Dissertations

The I Need More Time Machine imagines alternatives to gendered overwork and exhaustion. Incorporating animation and the interviews of twelve NYC-based female and nonbinary artists who are caretakers and full-time workers, the film dwells in spaces of fatigue and repetition — from the vantage point of commuting — then draws on forgotten feminist and utopian housing blueprints to create science fiction-inspired, fantasy-imbued sites for gendered flourishing. The animated fantasy segments imagine elastic time, deep rest, experiments in collaboration, and liberating feminist spatial possibilities

Do Clothes Make The Man? Ftm Crossdressing In The 18th-19th C. Anglo-American World, Aidrian Graber

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the legacy of "Female Husbands" and other female-to-male crossdressers in the 18/19th c. Anglo-American world and how such people can illuminate the field of transgender history.

A Special Place In Hell: The Iconography Of Judgment In Twelfth-Century Sculpture And Manuscript Illumination, Nina Piper

Theses and Dissertations

While art historians have focused on the meaning of individual scenes of the Last Judgment and collections of “monstrous” images, this thesis considers images of Hell and its inhabitants as a single subject. It investigates the space of Hell itself and the beings most closely associated with it—whether or not they are depicted within the space of Hell—to identify iconographical consistencies across those images. In addition, this thesis draws upon material evidence from the medieval world to interpret images of Hell, the Devil, demons, and the damned in new ways, identifying connections between the imagery and what artists and other …

Heirloomed: An Italian-American Daughter Weaving Past And Present, Catherine Santino

Theses and Dissertations

Amid a string of family deaths, writer and journalist Catherine Santino found herself preoccupied by the idea of lineage and inheritance. As she digs into her Sicilian heritage, she explores how the traditions and values set forth by her family’s matriarchs have shaped the woman she’s still becoming. From grappling with the shame caused by the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings of purity to examining how Italian food customs impacted her body image, Santino interrogates the complicated truth that the belief systems she was raised with offer both comfort and torment.

On A Small Strip Of Land On The Great South Bay: A Vaudeville, Kev Berry

Theses and Dissertations

In this epic, genre-exploding tragedy about the Long Island Serial Killer case, On a Small Strip of Land on the Great South Bay unearths the complex story of police corruption, sensationalized violence, and the broken dreams of the women discarded along Ocean Parkway.

Public Art And Military Technology At The Mexico-U.S. Border: Disrupting Boundaries On Battlegrounds, Anna Luise Kaunert

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how contemporary artists Rubén Ortiz Torres, Chico MacMurtrie, rafa esparza, and Cassils transformed military technologies into powerful artworks that interrogate the Mexico-U.S. border as a battlefield. Together, their works illuminate militarization and surveillance technologies at the border and the violent enforcement of U.S. immigration policy.

Landscaping The Exotic And The Ancient Through Picturesque: Reconsidering The Impact Of David Roberts’S Egypt And Nubia, Sophie Cooke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers David Roberts’s use of picturesque art for imperial Britain and analyzes the ways Egypt and Nubia played an influential role in the cultural transmission of ancient Egypt. By confronting both antiquity and modernity, his Egyptian landscapes are evidence of how Western picturesque artworks influence historical narratives.

Critical Improvisation: Black Secondary Graduates’ Experiences Of Student Voice, Lauren Malara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe Black secondary graduates’ experience of improvisational comedy through the framework of Student Voice. Amid silencing legislative bans in education, the study aimed to critically make meaning of participants’ shared experiences of Theater Games and provide insight into the critical applications of improvisation as a tool to develop student leaders. The study employed a hermeneutical phenomenological design, sampling six Black graduates that participated in improvisational courses as part of the secondary curriculum. Data collection included a demographic questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and participant journals. The findings of a thematic analysis indicate that improvisation developed …

2026 Commencement Program, Columbia College Chicago

Commencement Programs

The commencement program of the 2026 Columbia College Chicago graduation ceremonies.