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2016 Otterbein Summer Theatre Season Brochure, Otterbein University Department Of Theatre And Dance

Theatre and Dance Annual Brochures

Annual promotional piece of the upcoming season's shows.

Stories Of Otherness, Lee Ann Harrison

Graduate Theses

The thesis exhibition Stories of Otherness is an interactive installation created using dance, music, photography, video, ceramic figurative sculptures, and armatures of found objects to create a voyeuristic and physically participatory experience of situational art. Many artists from various art and literary genres influence my research and art, including Petah Coyne, Mona Hatoum, Pina Bausch, Mia Michaels, and Jeanette Winterson. The multi-faceted combination of art mediums and artists inspires me to create a mixed media, multi-dimensional installation for an immersive participant’s experience as a source for awareness, empathy, reflection, and ultimately as a “call to action” evoking change.

This thesis …

Design Theory In Practice Selected Projects In Costume Design, Mandolynn S. Browning

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Ah, Wilderness! is Eugene O’Neill’s only comedy. The story takes place over the 4th of July weekend and revolves around Richard Miller, a misunderstood teen who rebels against 1906 society with suggestive poetry and declarations of communism. When his girlfriend, Muriel, spurns him at the behest of her father, his antics take a darker turn and lead him to a night of drinking, prostitutes and fist fights. However, all ends well as the two lovers reunite and Richard is surrounded by the love and compassion of his family. Ah, Wilderness! was produced at the Old Lyric theatre in the winter …

The Art Of The Silent Story, Caitlin J. Walker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I created a one minute 2D, hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation with an original music score utilizing Toon Boom to demonstrate my ability to convey an interesting story without the use of any dialogue.I relied instead on pantomime, expressions, and context clues to communicate the story to the viewer.

Play Script: Treed, Thomas Kee

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

The Process Of Empathetic Bonding With Berniece Charles., Candice Renee Handy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rehearsal process of theatre art entails several steps leading up to performance. Traditionally, the ensemble will discuss together what is needed to produce the theatrical piece, the director will work with each scene individually, and eventually the ensemble will be able to perform the entire piece, with only polishing left to do before performance. This process varies depending on the type of genre that will be performed. The rehearsal process to produce plays that are written with realistic settings and plot lines often, but not always, involve these steps. In order for this process to be productive, as an …

Presence And The Actor's Craft., Casey Richard Moulton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to establish that Presence is essential to an actor’s craft. This thesis makes considerable mention of my own work on Naomi Iizuka’s Polaroid Stories, playing the part of SKINHEADboy, as well as making mention of the theoreticians and practitioners of Acting who have dealt with the subject of Presence. The parallels I draw between actor training and the sources from outside of the field of Acting feed not only into an understanding of how consequential Presence is for the actor, but also how Presence can affect the lives human beings. This thesis also contains …

Communicating Through Space: An Exploration Of Interdisciplinary Relationships Between Architecture And Theatre Through Practical Application, Erin E. Hunter

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Space as an expression of ideas is a relevant topic both in theatrical design and architectural design. Both create worlds, places in time, and experiences. The theatre is a platform where architectural ideas can be explored on a real scale. Audiences can make associations based on representation on the stage and connotations from popular culture. Theatre is more temporary than architecture by nature, and therefore theatre can reference architectural ideas in temporary settings to tell a story. By analyzing the physical characteristics of a space and the societal and cultural conditions that created it, a theatre set can isolate moments …

Behind The Stakes, Between The Lines, Beyond The Pun: A Critical Deconstruction Of Humor In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, And Other Popular Comedies, Jaime Libby

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Humor is a powerful rhetorical device employed at all levels of human discourse—from casual banter to political debate. Still, despite humor’s global prevalence, its historical transgressiveness, and its distinct potential both to neutralize and critically engage highly fraught issues, humans do not often pause to ask how humor works. And what does its working tell us about our humanness? This thesis explores the operation of humor in literature and performance, using tools provided by structuralist, deconstructive, and postmodern critical arenas, to reveal how humor’s fundamental structures invite humans to entertain new perspectives and practice empathy. The study considers irony, the …

An Actor’S Growth: From Student To Professional, Tackling Collegiate Theatre With Michael Lee, Michael B. Lee

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis includes the journey of Michael Lee becoming a professional actor by performing several characters within two contrasting productions. The first, "The Trojan Women", by Euripides, Michael portrayed Poseidon, Talthybius, and The Guard in ETSU's very own Bud Frank Theatre. Michael's second production included the character of Charles in the modern drama "Race" by David Mamet, which was held in the newly renovated Studio 205. Michael documented his growth as an actor through daily journal entries and analyzing the final performances.

Love Letters To Illyria: An Actor's Voyage, Stephanie Faatz Murry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis outlines the development of the characters of Olivia in William Shakespeare’s

Twelfth Night and Melissa in A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters. It also contains a headshot, resume and link to a website designed to help further my career as a professional theatre artist.

A Storm In The Port: The Process Designing Twelfth Night, Jacquelyn Ryan Cox

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to document the process and provide all the necessary materials for the realization of the lighting design for the University of Arkansas Department of Theatre’s 2015 production of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. This thesis consists of the following materials: designer’s script analysis, design concept statement, historical and evocative research, Vectorworks overstage plot, Vectorworks section plot, LightWright paperwork, cue sheet, final magic sheets, and process evaluation. The materials provided are necessary to the design team, the electricians who hang the light plot, and the designer in order program the cues. Archival photography is included …

The Day I Walked Off The Motherf**King Stage: Shakespeare To Stephen Adly Guirgis, Christopher Markus Hecke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis represents the culmination of my craft as an actor, through the collection of production material from Twelfth Night, and The Motherfucker With The Hat, headshot, resume, website link and my personal statement of artistry.

The Art Behind The Baroque Violin, Carolyn Goldstein

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Since the age of three, I have been playing the violin; however, I was uninformed about the history of the violin or how the instrument works in a mechanical sense. Inspired by my love of the music of the 1700s, I chose to study how violins were made, how their physical properties affected performance practice, and how to play Baroque violin—a project that allowed me to combine elements of my two majors, Music History and Cultures and Violin Performance. I narrowed my area of focus to the late Baroque (1700-1730) because renowned violin-maker Antonio Stradivari was considered to be in …

Photo Essay - Inside The Myth: A Week At Russia's Vaganova Academy, Jenifer Sarver

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Theater Education: Thinking Outside Of The Black Box, Raheve Gray

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A 2005 report by the Rand Corporation concluded that "Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in math, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking, and verbal skill" (Smith). A 2012 report from the National Endowment for the Arts mirrored these findings, stating that “Students who have arts-rich experiences in school do better across-the-board academically, they also become more active and engaged citizens, voting, volunteering, and generally participating at higher rates than their peers” (Garelick 1). The above statements speak to the mounting evidence that arts in education provide extensive benefits for students fortunate enough to have them as part of …

Collaborative Writing For Commercial Musical Theatre, Alexandra Grill-Childers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Collaborative writing has produced some of the world’s most important work for the stage, especially in the field of multidisciplinary theatre, which includes musical theatre, operetta, spectacle theatre, circus, ballet, and any other form of theatre employing multiple modes of performance (i.e. music, dance, acting, mime, etc.). Without collaborative writing teams, we would retain little of the multidisciplinary theatrical repertoire that has been produced in the past 120 years.

I argue that although the solo creative genius holds a position of great esteem in Western culture, creative collaboration has long been a more reliable, if less romantic, approach to the …

Rhinestones In The Desert: The Rise And Fall Of The Las Vegas Showgirl And The Productions That Shaped Her, Diane Marie Palm

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Showgirls are a cultural icon that is linked intrinsically with Las Vegas, where the image of a showgirl is prevalent and often ubiquitous. This thesis will look at the showgirl in Las Vegas and a brief history of the how she came to be, as represented by Donn Arden’s Jubilee!. This will include a discussion of the specific people and elements that contributed to the presentation of the showgirl: Donn Arden, who created the Las Vegas showgirl spectaculars, Company Manager Ffolliott “Fluff” LeCoque, scenic designer Ray Klausen and costume designers Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee.

This is a necessary thesis …

Eclipse; A Master Of Fine Arts Thesis, Sally Durbin

Theses

As I went through the process of designing costumes for Eclipsed, I took a journey to another continent, and place in time. In writing this thesis, I attempted to emphasize how history and psychology informed the costuming of characters who portrayed the remarkable people in Liberia, whose story is told through Eclipsed.

Escape From Amherst: Emily Dickinson’S Life Of Freedom, Maria Whitcomb

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Through Escape from Amherst: Emily Dickinson’s Life of Freedom, I endeavored to create an immersive art song recital experience through which I explored the character of Emily Dickinson, hopefully rendering her ambiguous, iconic character somewhat more comprehensive to modern day audiences. Enclosed in the following chapters, please find the formal research I performed in examining Emily Dickinson’s character, an explanation of my own artistic journey, the program that I distributed to audiences during the concert (containing analyses of the Emily Dickinson texts that I performed), stage directions illustrating actor/singer intention and movement onstage, and lastly an explanation of my …

Somewhere Between Hell's Kitchen And Illyria: An Actor's Utopia, Guadalupe Campos

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of my statement of artistry, and documentation of artistic materials and thesis related performances.

Dance Of Light And Loss, Clark Lunberry

English Faculty Research and Scholarship

On a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon in the Ogikubo district of western Tokyo, in the dark basement of Saburo Teshigawara's dance studio and performance space known as Karas Apparatus, an audience gathered to see the dancer's newest solo performance, Fool. The uncurtained stage in the small theatre was empty and unlit, the stage itself far larger, perhaps three times larger than that tight space reserved for those attending the event. What lights there were faintly illuminated only the slightly raised rows of cushions upon which the forty of us in the audience took our seats, waiting for the performance …

Nature And Notation: Steps Towards A New Dance Ontology, Madelyn Sher

Theses and Dissertations

None

Choral Theatre, Albert Joseph Wolfe Jr.

Dissertations

Jamaica gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962, after some 300 years of colonization. Prior to Independence, the standard arts education curriculum was decidedly British and Western European. That which was labeled Caribbean or Jamaican “folk” by the British was deemed inferior and was not taught, demonstrated, or performed in formal settings. Thus, generations of Jamaicans never observed or imagined a Caribbean aesthetic in the visual and performing arts. Instead, pre-Independence Jamaicans were taught British and Western European music and performed it the “British” way.

Today, Jamaicans boast a number of artistic developments that are instantly recognized across the …

Oh, The Hypocrisy! Or, A Dramaturgical Analysis Of Moliere's Tartuffe, Amelia Maxfield

Theses and Dissertations

In approaching Tartuffe from a dramaturgical standpoint, one must consider the relevancy of the production and how the production team is able to translate the message of an antiquated play to a modem audience. In our case, the solution was to set the play in 1926 Paris instead of the original 1669 Paris. From there, I conducted research on the two periods, discovered the pivotal factors that connected them, and further connected those issues to today’s world. After consulting scholarly articles concerning French history and literature, I compiled a Dramaturgy Casebook that contains information and analyses crucial to understanding the …

Classical Masculinity In Shakespeare’S Antony And Cleopatra, Timothy N. Grams

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis uses the formula of classical masculinity to examine Marc Antony’s value as a Roman man in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Examining Antony’s history as a Roman hero, I distinguish how his reputation is destroyed through his romantic involvement with Cleopatra. Furthermore, I consider the divine representations of Cleopatra and Octavian Caesar as they oppose each other, and how Antony’s role within their conflict defines his value as a classical Roman man. I then deliberate his sexual fetishism for the matriarch pharaoh, and how their relationship functions as sadomasochistic, defining Antony as the masochist and Cleopatra as the …

An Actor’S Approach To Claire In Proof By David Auburn, Kathryn Patterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The areas of study in the Proof thesis contain research on the play, the playwright, and the acting style utilized in the performance and character analysis. The acting style in this process focuses on the actor’s creative work in preparation of portraying a female character. This character is a controlling woman that is unable to manipulate others. By using relaxation techniques involving the Alexander Technique, the actor was able to transition into the character with honest emotions and motives. Finding similarities to the character by using personal relationships gave the actor the ability to discover connections with the character in …

The Art Of The Process: The Creation And Production Of Wrinkles In Our Clothing, Julia Alexandra Yancey

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Wrinkles in Our Clothing

One night after a party Andrew realizes that he has never truly lived. Christine finds her passion somewhere she never thought she could have it. These two young adults, making their way through college, realize that now is the time to decide how they will choose to live their lives. They face the challenges that most young adults face such as societal expectations, a parent’s ideal image of their child, and having the courage to take that first step. Although these two do not meet in the lives of their characters they appear to know each …

Transforming The Mundane: Juxtaposing Maria Friedman’S "High Society" With George Cukor’S "The Philadelphia Story" As An Emphasis On The Importance Of Theatre, Dana T. Speight Ms.

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The subjects of film and theatre belong to an extensive hierarchical debate that has remained prominent within the realm of performing arts since the introduction of cinema in the late nineteenth century. A plethora of scholars choose to argue in favor of the former, suggesting that film surpasses theatre as superior in both aesthetics and overall execution of naturalism; however, the argument is purely subjective and cannot be applied to all films and their corresponding plays. As a counterclaim, theatre continues to thrive as a prominent source of artistic entertainment globally, not only offering a contemporary twist to preexisting texts, …

Yiddish Diction In Singing, Carrie Suzanne Schuster-Wachsberger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The standard for classical singers in the United States to be trained in the singing diction of the German, Italian, and English languages. This sung diction varies from the spoken diction for those languages and is therefore important for singers to study in classes dedicated to singing language pronunciation. Literature is also available for the instruction in the singing diction of numerous other languages including Latin, Spanish, Czech, Russian, and Hebrew. While there is a vast scope of languages represented by vocal diction guides, there is no available singing diction guide for Yiddish songs, despite the spectrum of classical vocal …