Digital Commons Network^™

You Into Bad Girls?, Mara A. Swanson

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

A short play about a confident sister pretends to be her shy sister at a bar, but her attempt to impress the bartender her sister likes backfires when she leans too far into a fake “bad girl” persona.

Latasha, I Love You, Kumari Ananda Devidasi Billings

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

Latasha and Shawn revisit their romantic, tumultuous past, engaging in tense discussions about the value of sex work, the exploitation and brutalization of black and brown sex workers, misogynoir, and the lack of accountability -- socially, politically, and criminally -- given to perpetrators who have been socialized to believe they have a right to unleash rage on women in sex work due to the hypocritical minimal value society places on the existence of women in the oldest form of professional service work.

A Dupe Death, Bradley M. Ash

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

'A Dupe Death' is a 10-minute play written by Bradley Ash for LMU's 2026 New Works Festival. The comedy follows a young man who lies to his boss about his mom's death--he is then forced to keep his secret from the two after his boss arrives unannounced to express his heartbreak. The play is inspired by many classic sitcoms, as well as lots of modern Gen-Z-like humor; sorry in advance.

Pouring Grease Down The Sink, Mateo Tomas Hercules Gonzalez

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

Meet two half-siblings named Scab and Trash! One is the embodiment of pain and stress, and the other is the embodiment of disorder and loneliness! Follow them as they come to terms with how they feel about being half-siblings while a certain vistor is present! Fun for the whole family...!

This Play Is About Bugs, Zachary Scrima

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

A dung beetle attempts to talk a mosquito out of entering a human home. A ten-minute play that reimagines the ancient fable 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' in a contemporary context, exploring the nature of lateral violence within a marginalized community.

Egg Tarts For Evie, Hannah Ko

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

A mother and daughter struggle to connect, facing barriers such as differences in language, culture and personality, ultimately proving that love is a compromise.

Should Tomorrow Mark The Start Of Forever?, Rodrigo Zoratto Assis

LMU Theatre Arts Annual New Works Festival

Should Tomorrow Mark the Start of Forever? is a play about family, memory, love, and the strange performance of becoming yourself. The work follows characters who are trying to tell the truth, even when truth becomes painful, theatrical, funny, or impossible. At its center, the show explores how children inherit stories from their parents, and how those stories shape faith, identity, desire, and belonging. The piece moves between humor and emotional intensity, using performance itself as a way to reveal what people cannot say directly. Brazilian culture, love, spirituality, and the fear of disappointing the people we love all live …

Use Your Voice, St. Mary's University Theatre Department

Theatre

Use Your Voice is a play devised by Dr. Grace Edgar and her students in the Theatre for Change & Social Justice course at St. Mary's University during the Spring 2026 semester. Acts: Lower the Ceiling; Did You Love Him?; Dad, Let Me in; Cartel Assassination; Two Towns; Paperball of the Past; Whale Noise; The Alysa Liu Moment; Since I Was Little; Lake House; The Dow Right Now; Cobbler

‘It’S The Best Person For The Job’: Gendering Logic And The Hiring Practices Of Music Organisations In Ireland, Yvonne Kiely Dr

Irish Communication Review

Despite calls for reform in the allocation of jobs in music industries, little is known about how music organisations operate internally and the day-to-day realities that male and female workers must navigate. Findings of bullying and harassment in the arts sector by the Irish Theatre Institute prompted the Irish government in 2022 to issue a set of recommendations aimed at reforming the working conditions and gender divisions of labour of arts sector organisations under its remit. These recommendations were made in the absence of academic studies of music organisations in Ireland, and in the absence of centralised data about these …

“This Play Has Become Something That Isn’T For Us”: Working Class Identity, Canonical Inheritance, And The Girlo On Stage In That’S Sooo Povo!, Ciara L. Murphy Dr

Irish Communication Review

That’s Sooo Povo! was first produced in 2025 as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival by D’Girlos Theatre Company. The play follows Chantelle and Croía, two working class Dublin drama students who, when faced with partnering up to perform a scene from Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars (1926), end up summoning the “drag-drenched larger-than-life entity” Queen Povo (That’s Sooo Povo! | Fringe Festival, 2025). This companion piece firstly aims to examine how O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars has made a journey from subversive class critique to nostalgic institutional property, and what it means for working class women …

Identidad Flamenca: Formation Of And Negotiations With The Flamenco Identity, Kayla Lyall

Theatre & Dance ETDs

The core of this dissertation is an inquiry into belonging in flamenco. Expanding beyond the personal, it examines how flamenco identity is constructed through embodiment and practice. Challenging dominant narratives of purity and authenticity, I argue that identity in flamenco emerges through multiple pathways—including inheritance, training, cultural proximity, and artistic inquiry—and is continually reshaped by social, political, and aesthetic forces. Through phenomenology and practice-as-research, I position the body as an archive of knowledge and a site of meaning-making. My creative project, NUDE, serves as an embodied investigation into vulnerability, lineage, and self-definition, demonstrating identity as something enacted rather than …

Model Woman: Realizing Frances Folsom Cleveland As A Fashion Archetype Of Gilded-Age America, Olivia R. Sweet

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This paper is an exploration of former First Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland’s position as an influential figure in women’s fashion during her years in the White House, seeking to fill a gap in historical scholarship regarding her legacy. It proposes the term “fashion archetype” to describe the phenomenon of celebrity that Frances experienced in which her public persona was detached from her individual identity and manipulated by the media to influence American women. Analysis of her early-White House wardrobe and the media attention her style and appearance received reveals the power that clothing held in nineteenth-century American society, as well …

Not My Fault: An Original Play And Analysis, Samira Gharavi-Nouri

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

“For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather” (Goblin Market, lines 562-563) I grew up with 1, 2, 3 sisters and even though my childhood was shaped by countless fights, hair pulling and scratching, it was equally formed by built-in best friends, advisors and bodyguards who would go to bat for me without hesitation. There are not many people you can fight with like no other on one day and be best friends with again the next without holding a grudge. While I can count myself lucky to have had this experience of unconditional …

That’S Class! Exploring The Class Dynamics In Ireland’S Creative Industries - Introduction From Editors, Caroline Ann O'Sullivan Dr, Ciara L. Murphy Dr

Irish Communication Review

This article introduces and contextualises this special edition of Vol 20 of the Irish Communications Review

The Last Boat: How American And Polish Domestic And Foreign Policies Shaped The Polish Jewish Emigration Experience, 1933–1939, Jesse Spadaccini

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

The interwar period from 1918 to 1939 saw Poland and the United States contend with major international and domestic questions regarding Jewish emigration. In a matter of twenty years, Polish policy developed from protecting its Jewish minority to actively persecuting it in political, economic, and social spheres with radical antisemitism. In the United States, immigration was limited post-1924 because of a nationality-based quota system introduced by the Immigration Act of 1924. Despite diplomats arguing for increased numbers, American officials’ position remained strong on limiting immigration, continuing unchanged as an understanding of Polish-Jewish plight became clear in the 1930s. The Polish …

Modernity And Transcendence: Gendered Subjectivity In Miss Lonelyhearts And A Spy In The House Of Love, Rachel Loging

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and Anaïs Nin’s A Spy in the House of Love (1954) represent gendered subjectivity under the conditions of modernity. Drawing on Ben Singer’s account of modern experience and Rita Felski’s analysis of modernity as a masculine structure organized around autonomy and production, it argues that both texts stage encounters between masculinity and femininity as sites of interpretive conflict. In Miss Lonelyhearts, masculinity remains tied to coherence, authority, and the paradigm of Christ, and repeatedly attempts to impose order through perception, relationships, and religion. These efforts ultimately collapse, exposing the futility and …

Creating An Audio Drama, Nikolas D. Stark

Honors Theses

Creating an audio drama is a process that normally includes a team of people taking on their own specialized roles. For this project, I instead assumed each of these positions myself in order to better understand the nuances of each role and voice acting industry as a whole. These roles included script writer, sound engineer, voice actor, voice director, editor, and sound designer. Overall, this process took seven months to complete in its entirety, with three artistic collaborators joining the process. While inherently difficult for one person to fulfill each of these roles, I not only accomplished it, but I …

"Staged” Discussion (Activity), Lytton Smith Ph.D.

School of Arts & Sciences

This activity was developed by SUNY Geneseo Professor Lytton Smith during the spring 2026 semester.

Learning Objectives

• To help students identify their own ‘default’ or habitual behaviors in teamwork settings
• To help students name and value alternative behaviors they will try out in future teamwork settings.
• To disrupt establish power dynamics within the classroom in order to allow different voices and learning styles to emerge as contributors in the second half of a semester (when patterns can have become ingrained: the same voices start the conversation each discussion, etc.)

Msh 115 - World Music Writing Intensive, Margaret Farrell

Open Educational Resources

This syllabus guided our exploration of music around the globe. In this writing intensive section, music served as a means to internalize information through writing as well as inspiration for developing a clear and persuasive writing style. Our investigations included consideration the forms of the music as well as their cultural and historical contexts.

Brain Candy: Wayne State University School Of Medicine Journal Of Arts And Culture, 13th Edition, Wayne State University School Of Medicine Gold Humanism Honor Society

Gold Humanism Honor Society

Brain Candy incorporates paintings, written pieces, and poetry from all the medical classes at Wayne State University School of Medicine to shed light on the creative process in medicine, the city of Detroit, and the experiences of health care providers. This year, the journal is organized into four sections, each of which denotes a particular time period within medical school. The first edition of Brain Candy was published online and in print in 2009, produced by a generous grant by the Gold Humanism Honor Society (GHHS). The edition featured poetry, nonfiction, short fiction, and different types of artwork. With generous …

William: The Musical, Tyler C. Green

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

William: The Musical is the story of my parents’ struggle, and unfathomable loss while trying to start a family. The work follows the couple through their commitment to start a family together, through a devastating miscarriage, and up to the birth of my older brother, William. The work is still in progress, but is currently structured as a song-cycle including five songs in the style of contemporary musical theater. William: The Musical explores themes of loss and resilience, bringing to light the disturbingly common experience of miscarriage. While the creative goal aims to allow audiences to reflect and mourn their …

The Mountains Call: Escaping To Zones Of Seclusion, Alec Lee Parry

Theses and Dissertations

The biographical and thematical overlap between the literature of Austrian authors Ingeborg Bachmann and Thomas Bernhard, and Swiss writers Max Frisch and Fleur Jaeggy, is established in literary scholarship. However, similarities in the role Alpine spaces play in their works remain unaccounted for. The Alps represent a cultural and geographical boundary between linguistic identities and international borders. Protagonists across this dissertation’s three chapters face internal crises, prompting them to move to “zones of seclusion.” Within these “zones of seclusion,” characters spark discussions of collective memory even if they are isolated themselves. These peripheral locations force recollection, often on collective memory, …

A Conductor’S Guide To Charles Villiers Stanford’S Songs Of The Sea & Songs Of The Fleet, Brian Niu

Theses and Dissertations

Charles Villiers Stanford is best known for his contributions as a composer to the sacred choral genre and his role as Professor of Composition at the Royal College of Music in London during the Second English Musical Renaissance. Beyond his church music, which is still regularly performed today, Stanford’s secular compositions are largely underperformed, especially for a composer and teacher of his stature. This document provides a conductor’s guide to Charles V. Stanford’s two works: Songs of the Sea and Songs of the Fleet. These two choral-orchestral works are less than 25 minutes in duration each and are scored for …

The Czech Double Bass School: The History And Development Of Bass Education Through The Prague Conservatory, Geordan Raisler

Theses and Dissertations

As a member of the violin family, the double bass has existed for the majority of the instrument's history in an ephemeral state. Across Europe the instrument varied regionally, and differing performance practices hampered the development of pedagogical materials for the instrument, of which wouldn't be developed until the turn of the 19th century when the instrument’s construction began to stabilize.1

The focus of this document emerged from noticing a pattern between the increasing quality of bassists in Central Europe, particularly in the genre of solo music, and the development of pedagogical materials for the double bass during this time. …

The Importance Of Being Present: Presence Over Performance, De'on Turner

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development of presence as the foundational element of the actor’s craft through a sustained analysis of four major roles performed during the Master of Fine Arts Acting program at the University of South Carolina: Walter Lee Younger in A Raisin in the Sun (Spring 2024), Kesi/the Astronaut in Moon Man Walk (Fall 2024), Dennis in Mauritius (Spring 2025), and Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest (Fall 2025).

The central argument of this thesis is that the actor does not bring the character to life — at full depth; it is the character who brings …

The Art Of Dicky Wells: An Analysis Of Improvisational Style From 1927-1948, Larry Nathan Duvall Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

William “Dicky” Wells was a swing era trombone soloist for the bands of Lloyd and Cecil Scott, Fletcher Henderson, Buck Clayton, Jimmy Rushing, Rex Stewart, Count Basie, and countless others throughout a career that spanned more than five decades. During his career, Wells recorded albums with famed artists Django Reinhardt, B.B. King, James Brown, Dizzy Gillespie, and Buddy Tate, as well as his own albums as band leader. His time with the Count Basie Orchestra coincided with the height of the band’s popularity, 1938-1945 and 1947-1950, totaling nearly eleven years and eighteen records. Through a selection of exemplary recordings spanning …

A Compositional Analysis For Selected Works Featuring Saxophone By Braxton Blake, Matthew Allen Floeter

Theses and Dissertations

During the 2025-2026 school year, I have had the pleasure of working with Braxton “Brad” Blake to analyze and present on his theoretical approach to composition. As part of this project, I have learned and performed all of the music in this document. I firmly believe that one’s understanding of compositional technique is more fully realized through the preparation and performance of it. This document will provide insight into the compositional method in Seven Places (1998), Partita (2018), Three Dances (2022), and a Four Pieces for Baritone Saxophone and Piano (2026), presented in chronological order. Additionally, I have conducted several …

The Practice Of Being Human: Reflections On The Evolution Of My Acting Process, Elaine Christine Werren

Theses and Dissertations

An actor’s work is defined by process. Growth occurs not only through performance, but through examination and reflection on how this work is made. This thesis explores the evolution of my acting process as I created a variety of characters in shows performed on the mainstage at the University of South Carolina. Each role tested previous approaches, led to new ideas, challenged assumptions, and shaped my opinions about this craft. With the passage of time and new roles explored, my reflections have revealed that my process is not purely a technical pursuit, but a human one. Through sustained efforts and …

Between Traditions And Techniques: The Growth Of An Actor Across Styles And Cultures, Didem Ruhi Karci

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects on my artistic development during the Master of Fine Arts in Acting program at the University of South Carolina through an analysis of several performance processes, including The Visit, the Commedia dell’arte devised piece Mad Love, Antigone, Twelfth Night, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Drawing from rehearsal experiences, performance practices, and classroom training, the thesis examines how different acting techniques and theatrical traditions shaped my approach to character creation and performance. Throughout these productions, I explored the relationship between voice, body, and emotional truth while applying tools such as the Alexander Technique, Lessac voice work, Michael …

Learning To Stop Being Clever, Dominic Delong-Rodgers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the actors process for four productions in the University of South Carolina’s Theatre and Dance Department spanning from Winter of 2024 to Fall of 2025 and taking place as part of the MFA program in acting. These four productions – The Visit by Frederich Durrenmatt, directed by Craig Miller; Antigone by Sophocles, directed by Lauren Wilson; Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Erica Tobolski; and The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, directed by Dustin Whitehead – form critical points in the MFA program of study, allowing for the practical application of techniques and approaches learned …