Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Director Methods For High School And Amateur Theatre Implementation, Tyler Leeps

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

My aim with this thesis is to take college and professional level directing techniques and break them down in a digestible way so new directors can take these techniques and implement them at the high school and community theatre level. I discuss five different approaches to directing theatre with student or amateur actors, each tied to common practices and standards used in professional theatres. My goal is to take theoretical techniques taught at universities and create a practical mindset to implement them on the high school and community theatre level. Spending four years balancing teaching world history with being theatre …

How Artists Can Capture Us: Educating About The Works Of Stephen Sondheim Through Parody, Jarrett Poore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis examined the modern renaissance man and his relationship between musical theatre history and parody; it examined how the modern artist created, produced, and facilitated an original parody in which humor can both influence and enhance an individual's interest in the art form. In the creation and production of The Complete Works of Stephen Sondheim [abridged], I showcased factual insight on one of the most prolific writers of musical theatre and infused it with comedy in order to educate and create appeal for Stephen Sondheim's works, especially those lesser known, to a wider theatrical audience. My two greatest research …

Stages Of Color: An Exploration Of Drama Through A Chromatic Lens, John Norton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The human eye can see approximately seven million different colors and within this vastly wide spectrum of refracting and reflecting light waves, an almost equal number of connotations have been attached to these various shades and tones. Whether originating from cultural histories, religious traditions, or a myriad of other sources, these associations succeed at quite literally coloring one's view of what is illuminated in front of them, especially when it comes to any and all attached emotional implications. This knowledge raises the question of how does an artist navigate not only the utilization of color in their work, but the …

Playing Disability, Daniel Romano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Disability in performance has a long history, starting with fictional characters such as Shakespeare's Gloucester/Richard, progressing through the freak shows of the early twentieth century, and finally with artists such as Neil Marcus, Mat Fraser and Deaf West Theatre in the past twenty years. Looking to the work of disabled artists, activists, and theorists such as Petra Kuppers and Carrie Sandahl, I will examine the history of both disability in performance and the performance of disability. I will discuss my performance of Garret, a man with muscular dystrophy, in my original play, The Sick Parents Club. Through analysis of what …

Who Am I, And Why Does It Matter? Reflections Of Identity And The Need For Culturally Sustaining Theatre, Bianca Alamo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The question of "who am I" created an involuntary domino effect which led me to my most valued work I have done as a graduate student, serving predominantly Latino/a students in educational theatre settings. This thesis explores three productions I worked on and the questions that have evolved in my understanding of identity and cultural sustainability as a Latina theatre artist and educator working in educational theatre. As an Orlando Repertory teaching artist, I began a residency with HOPE CommUnity Center along with some colleagues. We worked with high school students from their youth group to devise a show titled …

Dolly'll Never Go Away Again: Producing The Classic Musical At The High School Level, Jason Whitehead

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

High school theatre programs tend to select musicals that employ many students, both on and offstage, as well as titles which contain little to no objectionable content, making it safe for all family members to attend. The community standards imposed by school districts limit the choices for theatre teachers. Students also tend to be attracted to the newer and recently released musicals, ones that just finished a national tour or their Broadway run. Finding a title that adheres to the various criteria of a high school can be demanding and frustrating. For my thesis, I mounted and produced Hello, Dolly! …

Evita: A Practical Approach To Creating And Implementing Choreography For Professional Theater, Kimberly Ball

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

From Oklahoma!, 42nd Street, and A Chorus Line to Hairspray, Kinky Boots, and Hamilton, we have watched musical theater dance transcend conventional boundaries and open up worlds that were once unimaginable and distant. Musical theater choreography is a crucial element to the storytelling process. When dialogue, either spoken or sung, isn't fully able to express feelings, dance is there not only to heighten the emotion, but also to reveal character depths and further the plot. As an extension of expressed language, movement becomes the link that connects text and emotion, and ultimately the story and the audience. How does a …

Metatheatre And Critical Race Theory: A Combination For Compelling Storytelling And Effective Changemaking, Andrew Coleburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Vaclav Havel once said that "[t]heatre is always a sensitive seismograph of an era, perhaps the most sensitive one there is; it's a sponge that quickly soaks up important ingredients in the atmosphere around it." One of the more important "ingredients" in our cultural atmosphere in modern America is the issue of identity. In his book on metatheatre, Richard Hornby posits that theatre is "a kind of identity laboratory, in which social roles can be examined vicariously." In this thesis, I examine Hornby's theory of the five different modes of metatheatre, critique each, and argue for the addition of a …

Everybody Says Don't: An Examination Of Works By Stephen Sondheim In High School Theatre Programs, Matthew Nash-Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The works of Stephen Sondheim are some of the most complex in the musical theatre canon. The storylines are often about adults in tumultuous relationships and the music contains indiscernible melodies and abnormal rhythms. These are works often difficult for even the most experienced performers, let alone any high school student. As a high school theatre teacher, it is important my students are challenged and prepared to tackle any and all theatrical works. I have dissected a number of Sondheim's works in order to find ways to make them more accessible to high school students. While the characters and their …

Initiating Change, Connection, And Community, Janine Papin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Augusto Boal said "Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it." I have been a teacher in a private school setting for 27 years. In my work with students, it becomes increasingly important to me that the projects in which I engage become transformative, not only for me and my students, but for my audiences as well. Finding ways that promote awareness of social justice, both locally and globally, has become paramount. My ongoing goal is to inspire …

Stage Fright: An Examination Of Horror-Based Theatre Through Theory And Practice, Ramon Paradoa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The horror genre wears masks of various shapes, sizes, and textures in the creative outlets in which it exists. While often criticized and chastised by the craftiest of pop culture critics, the general agreement is that the genre successfully fulfills its purpose in satisfying a craving for screams while providing a sub-cultured home for a specific demographic of misfits. Although the reasoning behind the genre's ever-growing popularity and continued financial success can easily be accredited to surface-level identifiers such as these, for the purposes of horror-based theatre, I believe they can more accurately be attributed to reasons far more psychoanalytical. …

Casting As A Pedagogical Practice In Educational Theatre Spaces, Scott Savage

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Casting might be the most exciting thing in theatre to happen off-stage. Actors, agents, directors, producers, and outside observers are keenly interested in who plays a given part. In a professional space, casting seeks to ask, "Which performer is the best fit for this part?" But what happens when an educational theatre director instead asks, "Which role will best enable the learning of this performer?" This thesis explores the process of casting in an educational theatre space as being distinctly different from casting in a professional theatre space. By examining theoretical underpinnings of casting through literature and reflexive practice, I …

Life Narratives As Technologies Of Self: Explorations Of Agency In A Son Of The Forest And The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Tiffanie Kelley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In A Son of the Forest (1829) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), the narrators describe their most formative experiences in relation to addiction and their respective religions. Though these narratives emerged at different periods (almost a century apart) in North American history, there are considerable similarities between them. As William Apess describes his struggle with alcoholism, he also appropriates both the language of popular literature and print culture in the Methodist movement, and in turn criticizes the white supremacist ideals ingrained in early American culture. Similarly, Malcolm X details his experience with substance abuse while criticizing white supremacist …

Introduction Project 400: Our Lived Experience, Ronnie A. Dunn

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.

A Cloud Index, Spencer Finch, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Artists' Books

60 folded sheets : illustrations. "The sixty pastel drawings that comprise this book were originally created for a public art project at the new Elizabeth Line station at Paddington in London. The entire work, titled "A Cloud Index," presents 27 different types of clouds within a single composition. The drawings were scanned and then printed onto 180 clear glass panels (each 2 meters x 6 meters) and installed in the canopy of the station. The pages of this book can be assembled and attached to a wall to re-create the entire artwork, at a reduced scale. The number printed on …

Don't Cut Your Hair It's Beautiful, Kellee Morgado, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Artists' Books

3 volumes : color illustrations Edition of 50. Each volume has 24 unnumbered pages, bound so that the reader can lift the center illustration to reveal a larger illustration within. The gatherings are unopened throughout, obscuring text and illustrations. In a cloth-covered portfolio, held closed with a printed paper band. "The work questions personal rituals surrounding hair, constructs associated with hair in Western culture, and the shift in value when hair is unattached to bodies. In this ongoing inquiry I explore my own experience with femininity, womanhood, my relationship with my own hair, and how it conforms to or disrupts …

Baldio, I.E. S̆Egota, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Artists' Books

20 unnumbered pages : all color illustrations Title from cover. "Dibugado por I.E. S̆egota para Concordia, MX, en la ciudad de Qro., en el año de la pandemia."--back cover. Signed in pencil by the artist on back cover. Accordion book, front side has one continuos illustration screen printed in green, orange, and purple on beige paper. Illustration on verso in blue on beige.

Delirium, Philip Zimmermann, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Artists' Books

60 unnumbered pages : color illustrations Printed by archival inkjet in a numbered edition of 30 copies, signed. "Delirium is a book born of the Covid-19 pandemic and time spent in lock-down. The text uses a paragraph from the 1866 masterpiece "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Towards the end of the book, his protagonist, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, has a feverish dream. This strangely prophetic text is quoted and used as the narrative line in this book. Highly manipluated images of jewel-like approximations of the corona virus appeared all over the web in the first few months of the pandemic …

Light Journal, Francesca Capone, Special Collections, Fleet Library

Artists' Books

102 pages : illustrations. Edition of 200 copies. Accompanying the book: sunflower seeds, a piece of turmeric dyed canvas, plastic glow in the dark star, and a postcard of a neon weaving. Book and objects all housed in a plastic bag. Black, paperback, perfect bound journal. "Light Journal is a conceptual writing project, where daily perceptions of light have been recorded as notes on a smart phone (a source of light unto itself). Similar to the process of weaving on a loom, the book starts at a point in time, and then builds upwards towards the present. The text reads …

Wild Connections, Sarah Huttner

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

My work is about the variety of relationships occurring in nature, whether it is the small delicate touch of a bumblebee landing on a flower to collect pollen, or the struggle between native and invasive plants fighting for survival in the prairies. “Wild Connections” is a visual response to learning about the inner workings of various ecosystems and placing emphasis on those which I find deserving of more awareness. Using traditional and experimental printmaking methods, I capture the relaxing elegance of the habitats and simplistic beauty of their creatures to place emphasis on their importance in our environment. Occasionally subtle …

Prey And Predators, Roberta Zamma Gallarati

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This exhibition focuses mainly on the relationship between Prey and Predators in the animal world. The idea comes from the many documentaries I watch about animals. In particular, I love the pent-up tension that is created moments before the predator attacks. What I want to represent in my drawings is role changing or the exception to the rule, when the traditional predator becomes a prey and vice versa. The subverted roles offer a new perspective of the Prey and Predator relationship by empowering the traditional prey with the same courage, strategy, and aggressiveness of the traditional predators in a sort …

The Surabhi Theatre–An Oasis Of Telugu Theatre, Pradeep Aswini Gurrala

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts degree in Theatre Arts. It is a detailed account of author Pradeep Aswini Gurrala’s study of the Surabhi Theatre in Telangana, India. The thesis follows the journey of a 134-year-old theatre company in four chapters: puppet show to stage show; the evolution of the Surabhi Theatre; the decline of Surabhi Theatre; and Surabhi Theatre as a cultural heritage. Appendices and works cited are included.

Queer Memory In Translation: The Work Of Pedro Lemebel, Jordan Gerue

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Abstract

Translating texts produced by marginalized communities offers readers the chance to learn about the political and social realities of the marginalized in their own words. However, in the process of creating a work that can be consumed by the target audience, it is possible to omit cultural differences in a way that hinders rather than helps readers understand the original culture. By translating representative samples of the unique “crónicas” of Chilean author and artist Pedro Lemebel with attention to queer translation praxis, readers can explore and better understand the queer urban subculture of Santiago de Chile from the 1970s …

The Victimization Of The African Girl Child: Primary Schools As Unsafe Spaces For Girls In Cameroon, Sandra Bume Nambangi

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Violence against girls in and out of school settings is a problem that is on the rise in countries of sub-Sharan Africa. In Cameroon today, the abuse of girls has progressed into the realm of primary education affecting prepubescent girls, making schools unsafe spaces for girls and thereby, hindering them from accessing and furthering their education, basic rights and agency. A study on the victimization of primary school girls in Malawi funded by the United Nations found that girls are subject to several forms of violence as a result of their gender and that this disrupts their access to basic …

Disabled Women In A Dictatorial Regime: Sexual Assault And Disability In Zimbabwe, Paidamoyo Chikate

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

In 2013, the Zimbabwean government promulgated a final draft of legislation meant to serve and improve the lives of people living with disabilities in the country. The move was made in the name of “solidarity” as the government purportedly turned a corner from dictatorship to power sharing as a result of what was referred to as the Government of National Unity. Disability activists made various demands of the government from formulating a definition that covers all forms of disability, accessible government buildings, the mainstreaming of disability and representation at the local and parliamentary levels of legislation. Chief among these demands …

The Monster At The End Of This: A Feminist Media Analysis Of Coverage Of Representative Ilhan Omar, Emma L. Schlei

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

With the impending 2020 election and the upcoming centennial anniversary of the 19th amendment, the topic of women in politics is more relevant than ever. Ilhan Omar is a Representative elected to the 2018 United States House of Representatives and is one member of the “squad,” a group of four women of color under the age of 50 who identify as part of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Ilhan Omar has been the focus of many liberal and conservative media outlets. In this research I focus on the tropes of Islamophobia that Omar faces to examine how political …

Creating The World Of Newsies: The Musical, Benjamin Kramer

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts Degree in theatre. It is a detailed account of the author Benjamin Kramer’s artistic process in producing the scenic design for Minnesota State University, Mankato’s production of Newsies: The Musical in the fall of 2019. The thesis chronicles the scenic designer’s artistic process beginning with an early production until the end of performances in five chapters: early production analysis, historical and critical perspective, journals, post production analysis and process development. Appendices and works cited and consulted are included.

Compilation Of Four Different Papers On Different Gender Issues, Minara Nazmin

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

I wrote four separate academic articles that placed in my Alternative Plan Paper in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts (M.A.) in Gender and Women Studies. My four papers spokes on different fundamental perspectives of issues of gender and women studies. The first paper unveiled inequalities in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) market, such as In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) and how it is reinforcing reproductive responsibility for women. This paper found unequal access to IVF based on color, class, and sexual orientation. The second paper explores gender from a feminist theoretical standpoint. Mainly, this examines how …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 11: Wallace, Darwin, Education, & The Class Question, James D. Williams, Charles H. Smith Editor

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

In a recent paper by John van Wyhe (2020), the issue of class was discussed and whether Wallace came from a “working class” background. As a result of class differences could or should Wallace be considered differently from Darwin, who supposedly came from a higher class? An additional “myth” highlighted was whether Wallace left school, aged 14, due to difficult family financial circumstances. Van Wyhe contends that Darwin and Wallace were both middle class, and Wallace left school at the “normal” school-leaving age. This article shows that both contentions are mistaken. Class in the 19th century was complex and difficult, …

Keeping People, John T. Davis

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.