Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“The Autism Adventures Of Watson & Holmes”: Puppet Theatre To Improve Elementary Students’ Knowledge Of And Attitudes Toward Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sarah N. Simon

Departmental Honors Projects

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a growing concern in schools across the nation. More students with high functioning autism are being mainstreamed, and students on and off the spectrum are being exposed to a wider variety of behaviors and new opportunities for friendship in school. Many students who fall on the autism spectrum suffer from the stigmatizing attitudes of their peers, and this stigmatization often stems from a lack of early education about mental health. Puppetry has been proven to captivate young audiences while teaching important messages in an entertaining and relatable way. The purpose of this …

The Creation And Reflection Of A Solo Show: Corner Of 26 And Lost, Margaret Mcgurn

LSU Master's Theses

We knew coming into this two-year M.F.A. program in June of 2013 that our thesis would culminate in December of 2014 with the performance of a solo show that we would each write and perform ourselves. So as early as out first summer here, we were encouraged to get the ball rolling with potential ideas. The thought this project was to not only give us practice at devising work, but also put a show in our back pocket. So, when we graduated, we would have a full-fledged show that we could take on the road and perform anywhere with little …

Theatre Safety In Louisiana Secondary Schools: A Survey Study, Christopher Pyfrom

LSU Master's Theses

Participation in secondary school theatre can have many benefits including the development of improved reading comprehension, self-concept, and empathy. In the world of professional theatre, each design area has its own department head and several levels of assistants and workers below them. Yet in the world of secondary school theatre, we expect one person to assume all of those roles in addition to the regular responsibilities of teaching. Not many people see theatre as being dangerous when compared to sports, science labs, or vocational education. However, it can contain many of the same risks. This study investigated several factors that …

Joan: A Play With Broken Songs, Colton James Neidhardt

LSU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT This thesis details the writing process, rehearsals and performance of the author‘s devised play, Joan: A Play With Broken Songs. The play aims to reimagine events occurring the evening before the death of French folk hero and Catholic Saint, Joan of Arc. The play exists in the moments between sleep and waking, in which Joan is visited by her own patron Saints (Margaret and Catherine,) as well as the Archangel Michael. The Saints then guide Joan through the dreamscape revealing to her images of the past, present, and future that allow her to come to peace with the sacrifice …

Augmented Renaissance: From Creation To Revelation, Christopher Atkinson

LSU Master's Theses

During the summer of 2013, the M.F.A. acting ensemble at Louisiana State University was charged with devising solo performance projects that would be performed December 6-14, 2014. We were given artistic freedom to create shows that could cover different topics and a variety of genres. The writing and performance of this project served as a graduation requirement, but was also pitched as a professional opportunity post graduation. Initially I opposed this project, but I soon became elated once I chose my subject matter. I knew that if I was going to perform a solo piece for 30-40 minutes it had …

Blarney In St. Louie: Performing Irishness At The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904, Cassandra L. White

All Master's Theses

The dynamics of power between the privileged and those who must be subordinate to them was glaringly apparent at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. While natives from many countries were displayed in ethnographic villages, the Irish were represented in the Irish Industrial Exposition concession on the Pike. A group of ninety performers came from Ireland to show their skills this concession; among these were a troupe of actors from Dublin. The Dublin troupe was engaged to perform AE’s Deirdre, but left before they had been at the exposition for a month because they felt that the Irish …

The Shifting Voice: Investigating Accent And Dialect Training For West Australian Actors, Luzita Fereday

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This masters research examines accent and dialect training for actors in the Western Australian context and seeks an understanding about what aural, embodied and cognitive attributes an actor needs in order to move from one accent to another. In particular, this research explores the characteristics of Australian dialects as grounds for the acquisition of the Standard British accent or Received Pronunciation.

The purpose of this research was to identify the expertise required when teaching an accent to acting students in pre-professional levels of tertiary training. This practice-led approach to the research included interviewing, observation, the circulation of questionnaires, and my …

Enter The Movement: Generating Stimulus From Sceneography And Proposing 'De-Sign' As A Tool For Choreographic Invention, Helene Gee Markstein

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this study was to provide the notion of ‘de-sign’ as a proposed aid for movement composition and is the core framework of my research, which is aimed at empowering the dancer/choreographer with a multi-disciplinary aesthetic and a focus for dialectic discussion and experimentation with all material enclosed within the scenographic. De-sign is a method for decoding scenography (as a deconstruction tool to extract the components of composition classified as elements and principles). The play on words is a deliberate acknowledgement of the ‘design’ in the scenographic environment which, in this study, takes into account that all forms …

Autonomy Of The Student: Maintaining Ballet's Relevance As An Art Form Through Pedagogy, Daniel Cho , '15

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

City Limits And Other Stories, Leandro Fefer

Whittier Scholars Program

This project is a collection of short-stories. There is a three-part and design story titled City Limits and six other stories. The bibliography is a list of sources of information and inspiration with notes about each.

Childhood Incidence Rates For Lymphoma In California: Rural Versus Urban County Comparison, Natalie Edelman

Whittier Scholars Program

Cancer use to be more rare in children, but now we are dealing with an increased rate for Childhood Cancer in the United States. Adults and children are both at risk for these potentially deadly diseases. The problem with cancer is that there is still so much about this disease that is unknown. There are many different speculations as to how cancer enters the body and things that can trigger cancer. The environment in which a child is raised in has long since been questioned as being a link or cause for specific childhood cancers. To understand this potential link …

The Curse Of The V: Contemporary Feminist Movements And Performative Dichotomies In The Plays Of Caryl Churchill, Meredith A. Connelly

Honors Program Theses

Caryl Churchill mixes historical setting with shallowly defined characters and dissociative references to the contemporary within her vast body of work. She seeks to deny her audience the opportunity to blindly accept the entertainment of narrative theater, forcing them instead into a realm of discomfort where they must identify the unsavory elements of history with their own lived experience. This research began with the questioning of previous critical models which examine characters as autonomous beings rather than as personified themes, and asks how Churchill responds radically with theater as a medium to events pervading her own experience as a woman …

Hamlet #Princeofdenmark: Exploring Gender And Technology Through A Contemporary Feminist Re-Interpretation Of Hamlet, Allegra B. Breedlove

Scripps Senior Theses

Exploring the process of designing, producing, directing and starring in a multimedia feminist re-interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in a contemporary social media landscape.

"If More Women Knew More Jokes...": The Comic Dramaturgy Of Sarah Ruhl And Sheila Callaghan, Jennifer Ann Goff

Wayne State University Dissertations

Conversations around women and comedy are few, and tend to swirl around the tired question of whether or not women are funny. Conclusions usually range from, "They're not" to a few token funny women whose exceptional wit proves the rule that, in fact, women are not funny. Or, if women are funny, they have a specific, feminine brand of humor that has an almost genetic set of differences from men's comedy. In this dissertation, rather than outlining an essentialized poetics of "women's comedy," I identify two prominent women writing comedy for the theatre today. Drawing on comic, dramatic and feminist …

Teaching Technical Theater: Learning, Not Just Doing, Christian J. Hershey

Theses and Dissertations

I have seen a trend in the teaching of technical theatre towards a more practical and less theoretical education. This has brought about a change in viewpoint by professional technicians, as well as students, in regards to an academic degree. Due to this change and the rise of student debt, the impulse has been to encourage going directly into the field and learning the craft there instead of spending four years in an academic institution.

There has also been increased pressure on theatre departments to produce larger and more involved shows; both to draw in new students and to justify …

An Exploration Of Costume Design For David Emerson Toney's "Frankenstein: Dawn Of A Monster", Emily Atkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis details the Costume Design process for David Emerson Toney’s Frankenstein: Dawn of a Monster at Virginia Commonwealth University. Toney’s original adaptation interprets Mary Shelley’s genre-defying novel as biography, directly influenced by the tragic events of her young life. Costumes differentiate the two narratives, with Mary Shelly in gray scale, regency-inspired modern dress and the novel in period and color. This follows the design process from concept to production to execution.

Interdisciplinary Connections Between Science & Theatre, Jessica N. Dotson

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THEATRE

Jessica Nicole Dotson

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015.

Major Director: Dr. Noreen C. Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Theatre

In the 1990s, astronomer Peter Usher was searching for new ways to teach his introductory astronomy class at Pennsylvania State University. He began to engage his students by searching for astronomical connections from other disciplines. His focus was turned to the arts, especially the works of William Shakespeare. Usher found, while …

An Exploration On The Michael Chekhov Technique In Rehearsal, Performance And The Classroom, James P. Stover

Theses and Dissertations

• The Michael Chekhov Technique is a unique approach to acting that has been successfully used by professional actors for many years. This thesis explores finding a strong understanding of the technique as well as discovering ways to incorporate it into an undergraduate actor training program. The examination aims to further my aesthetic both as theatre teacher and practitioner. It includes training with master teachers in the technique, incorporating Chekhov exercises into undergraduate acting and movement classes and use of the technique on a production of Pride & Prejudice.

Cries From Within: The Struggles And Triumphs Of Creating A Singaporean Voice In Musical Theatre, Caleb Goh

Theses

This research explores the plausibility of replicating a Broadway-type musical theatre industry in Asia. What would it take to establish a similar standard of musical theatre in an Asian country? With the problem being a lack of Asian representation in the genre, my aim has unashamedly been to see whether it was possible to increase the visibility of Asian musical theatre in form and content, with greater representation for makers and audience. By exploring the viability of creating a strong musical theatre platform in Asia, this research aimed to empower student/emerging Asian performers in believing that the dominant paradigm of …

“Man? Where’S A Man? Don’T Let Him Go!”: Molina’S Trans/Gender Web In Interpretation And Performance, Bella V. Smith

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Using perspectives typical of English and theatrical fields of study, this capstone project interprets Molina from Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman as a heterosexual transgender woman and then investigates why such an interpretation does not exist in performance adaptations. Although Molina has been called a transgender woman in recent criticism, there is a conflation of gender and sexuality that has been uninvestigated in this text. It has not been addressed how Molina constructs her identity or how this interpretation might be employed in performance, which this essay seeks to confront. The first half of the project …

V.1 2015-2016, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2015-2016 issue contains articles on addressing the complexities surrounding today's institutions, pedagogies, technologies, and professional expectations. This issue was not themed intentionally, yet the articles signal the problems of higher education and the precarity of the students who occupy it.

Ages Of [Wo]Man, Amanda Jane Clark

LSU Master's Theses

Ages of [Wo]Man, was written to fulfill the thesis requirements of a solo performance for the M.F.A in Acting at Louisiana State University (LSU) in May 2015. The purpose of this project is to write, produce and perform a solo performance, to be reproduced after my time here at LSU. This paper documents the conception of my work, adaptation of Shakespeare’s text, rehearsal process and production of this piece. It contains five chapters. Chapter 1 is comprised of an introduction and discussion of how I decided on the topic for my solo performance. Chapter 2 continues with a layout of …

Writes Of Spring 2014: Fostering Creativity In Theatre, Education, And Leadership, Alexandra Hodson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Creativity is valued in many fields. In theatre, creativity celebrates the imaginative power of a theatrical experience. In theatre for young audiences (TYA), creativity is extended from the stage to the classroom, where theatre empowers learning through creative and imaginative teaching. Teaching artists and theatre makers in the field of theatre for young audiences utilize creativity as a means of connecting artistic and educational value. Through professional development and qualitative research, this project demonstrates the importance of creativity and its role in the classroom and on stage. This study examines my role as Project Coordinator in Orlando Repertory Theatre's (The …

The Branding, Creation, And Promotion Of A Solo Comedienne, Anna Mccorison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comedy exists as a stronghold in American culture as a coping mechanism throughout history, but is often limited to the male headliner. From Charlie Chaplin to Jackie Gleason and Bill Cosby to Will Ferrell, men have kept us laughing from stages to screen throughout the last century. Thus, I inquire: who are the prominent women who rose to the top of this male-dominated industry and how did they create a brand for themselves that was distinguishable and celebrated? What is it about being a woman in the last century that made making a name in comedic entertainment more cumbersome, and …

Connections Between Voice And Design In Puppetry: A Case-Study, Ryan Skiles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Puppets have been entertaining, educating, and mesmerizing American audiences since the birth of our nation. Both in live theatrical events and TV/film, audiences have watched puppeteers bring their puppet characters to life with clever voice quality choices, unique characterizations, and vivid visual designs. This thesis is a case study that first borrows insight from cartoon character designers, animators, and voiceover actors to provide considerations for voice quality choices, characterizations, and design elements when creating a new puppet character. It then investigates the connections that exist between those three elements once a puppet is fully realized. In order to identify these …

Directing Stop Kiss By Diana Son Within A Nontraditional Training Model, Rebecca Dilks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite the generally held view that the best way for a stage actor to give a strong theatrical performance is through a traditional training model, I hoped to develop a way for inexperienced actors to perform beyond expectation within the context of one production through a system of mentorship, expectation-setting, and tapping into young peoples' natural desire to identify with people and characters. I directed a production of Stop Kiss by Diana Son with a blend of experienced and inexperienced actors to see if I could make this work, with mixed results. This thesis is a reflection on the process …

Seeking A Vision, Finding A Voice: Exploring The Musicality Of Theatre Through Multidisciplinary Practice, Tara Kromer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In classrooms and textbooks the “Director's Vision” is often identified as the unifying concept for the production, and my goal in returning to graduate school was to explore my own vision as a director. In my own practice as a director, I tend to “hear” the play in my head before visualizing it. From my interpretation of the text, to the staging of the performers, to my collaboration with design team, my approach to the production of theatre stems from a place of musicality. Seeking a Vision, Finding a Voice explores my creative journey as multi-disciplinary theatre artist through a …

Providing Cultural Balance For Young Americans, Mark Nichols

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children today are increasingly being introduced to tablets and other personal electronic devices at very young ages. Due in part to this, the entertainment industry now has a near ubiquitous presence in America compared to cultural arts. Its influence on the development of children is almost impossible to ignore. My thesis will study an approach to engaging young people by way of location-based projects that synthesize two or more art forms (e.g. theatre arts, literary arts, visual arts) in order to provide a unified effort for cultural arts and also provide balance to the influences of entertainment. Incorporating research, interviews …

When Oppressed Women Attack: Female-Enacted Violence Through Minority American Female Playwrights' Works, Kate Busselle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As an Actor Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, theatrical violence is something that has always captivated me. When a female combat instructor once told me that even though I throw a great punch I will never be able to use it because women are always on the receiving end of violence in theatre, I wondered if this was truly the case. After a thorough exploration of several works with theatrical violence, I am glad to say that it is not the case. When most scholars examine violence in theatre, the focus is either male-centric or specifically on …

The Artistry Of Accessibility: Creating Theatre With And For Students On The Autism Spectrum, Sara Brunow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Theatre is a place where all can come together and have an experience regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or ability. As a theatre maker and teaching artist, how do I create inclusion and augment social awareness by designing and implementing theatrical experiences for a specific audience? In this personal exploration of inclusive theatre practices (Sensory Friendly Theatre, Inclusive Arts Integration, and Multi-Sensory Theatre) I will examine my experience of creating and adapting theatre with and for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. My process has a three-pronged approach: adapting an established production using a Sensory Friendly model; adapting an arts integration …