Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Adapting The Hellmouth In The Office Of The Dead From The Hours Of Catherine Of Cleves: An Experiment In Using A Dramaturgical Approach To Medieval Studies, Tatiana A. Godfrey

Masters Theses

This thesis is an artefact documenting the process of adapting a late medieval painting of hell into a short horror film. The process of adapting the Three Mouths of Hell, housed within the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, serves as an experiment in applying a dramaturgical approach to medieval studies. The process of adaptation and production, informed by critical research about the Hours of Catherine of Cleves and its Three Mouths of Hell, yields new frameworks for understanding the history of Catherine of Cleves, her Book of Hours, and the Three Mouths of Hell.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Dramaturgical Concerns): Re-Centering Dramaturgy And Comedy As Feminist Tools For Social Change, Shaila Schmidt

Masters Theses

Titled as a play on Mindy Kaling’s 2011 book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), this thesis highlights the obstacles women, the genre of comedy, and dramaturgs face in order to be taken seriously in the arts. Using the work of Mindy Kaling, I explore how she uses comedy as a means of defying the expectations put upon her as an Indian American woman in order to provide context for the ways in which the marginal statuses of women of color and comedy overlap.

In an effort to demonstrate the ways in which comedy can be …

Play In The Woods: The Role Of The Dramaturg In Facilitating A Holistic, Slow Theater-Making Process, Claudia Nolan

Masters Theses

In this thesis, I document the ideas behind and my process for Play in the Woods, an experiment in slow theater-making that serves as a model for how dramaturgs can facilitate sustainable, holistic methods of performance. This model is grounded in feminist theater practices and the aesthetic of poor theater. In creating the performance of Play in the Woods, I as dramaturg invited participants to serve as co-creators, individually crafting pieces that examined fairytales and the role those stories have played on their lives. The performance was held out of doors at the Amethyst Brook Conservation Area on …

Queer Temporality And Aesthetics In Taylor Mac's The Lily's Revenge: A Dramaturgical Exploration Of The Play At Umass Amherst, Gaven D. Trinidad

Masters Theses

This master’s thesis documents the dramaturgical exploration of the spring 2018 University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater’s production of gender non-conforming performance artist Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge. The thesis is separated into two parts. The first half focuses on my dramaturgical analysis of Mac’s play and its exploration of queer temporality and queer embodiment, asserting the importance of queer aesthetics in American drama and its vital role in shaping the future of LGBTQIA+ politics in the United States. The second half includes reflections on rehearsal processes and performances, giving readers and fellow artists examples of the potential …

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof: 60 Years Of American Dialogue On Sex, Gender, And The Nuclear Family, Amy Brooks

Masters Theses

This thesis is a two-part work. Its components, a written paper and a one-night symposium/film screening event entitled Tennessee Williams: Gender Play in 2015 and Beyond, have been closely coordinated with my dramaturgical research for the February 2015 University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The written inquiry is structured around a chronological, selected American production history of Cat; this history, rendered in a series of three case studies, will (1) synthesize preexisting analyses of Cat’s dramaturgical profile, its impact on American theater, and its position in Williams’s oeuvre; …

Encountering "Agaat": Toward A Dramaturgical Method Of Adaptation, Paul Adolphsen

Masters Theses

This M.F.A. thesis in dramaturgy presents the first-ever stage adaptation of South African writer Marlene van Niekerk’s 2004 novel Agaat. Van Niekerk is an internationally acclaimed novelist, short story writer, poet, and dramatist particularly known for her lengthy novelistic excavations of Afriakner identity, in which sexuality, race, and gender collide in compelling but fraught ways. Covering nearly fifty-years of South African history—from the establishment of apartheid in 1948 through the nation’s transition to democracy in 1994—Agaat investigates everyday cycles of abuse and intimacy through the story of white farmer Milla de Wet and her coloured adopted daughter-cum-maid, Agaat Lourier. …

We Are French. Et Anglais Nous Restons., Alison Jane Bowie

Masters Theses

French Canadian playwright Joseph Armand Leclaire (1888-1931) was very well known and respected in his time. Although he wrote over thirty plays, lyrics to several songs and an abundance of political poems, most of his work has been lost and Leclaire himself seems to have been forgotten. Several of his plays were produced at the time they were written, including his 1916 play La petite maîtresse de l'école (later published in 1929 as Le petit maître d'école), but none have been presented postumously nor have any been translated. This M. F. A. thesis presents the first ever translation and …