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Articles 1 - 30 of 364
Full-Text Articles in Theatre and Performance Studies
Introduction To Theater Syllabus, Claudia Terry
Introduction To Theater Syllabus, Claudia Terry
Open Educational Resources
This is the main components of an Introduction to theater course syllabus that is OER. Using these sources also allows the course to be more open and diverse in what theater is and how it done.
Dancing In Circles: Bon Dance As Performance Of The Past, Travis Robb Kim
Dancing In Circles: Bon Dance As Performance Of The Past, Travis Robb Kim
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This capstone project traces the contours of the Japanese folk dance tradition of Bon Dance in Hawaiʻi through the nuances of public scholarship, diaspora, and racial capitalism by producing an original play which aims to perform the knowledge and praxis which the performance ritual puts forward. Treating Bon Dance as muse, the original play examines the necessity of turning to the past in order to disrupt a future made inevitable by oppressive systems; a fiction that comments on and critiques the predictive and generative technologies that have embedded themselves into society at large. Through intertwining conversations that explore prophecy and …
Chi Meta-Project Ecosystem Overview - Spring 2026, David B. Smith
Chi Meta-Project Ecosystem Overview - Spring 2026, David B. Smith
Publications and Research
This paper offers a high-level account of the Center for Holistic Integration’s (CHI) meta-project ecosystem as visualized in the included system map. CHI provides an organizational structure framed around persistent meta-projects that support and extend individual initiatives across curriculum, scholarly and applied research, infrastructure, artistic production, AI development, cultural inquiry, and external partnerships. Rather than presenting the map as a static inventory of projects, the paper examines how its core domains function as living systems through which knowledge, tools, documentation, participants, and collaborations can accumulate over time. It also considers how CHI-mediated connectivity, institutional integration, and external funding allow the …
The Parent Trip, Jessie Daniels
The Parent Trip, Jessie Daniels
Publications and Research
This one-hour solo show propels the audience from 1970s Texas to 1990s New York City. In this hilarious and heartbreaking story, Jessie Daniels tells what it means to be raised to become a 'nice white lady.' When she rejects that to embrace the magic of queerness under a disco ball, she decides to write about it, and nearly loses everything.
Theatrical Agency In The Constitution Of Logical Space, Esther Marveta Neff
Theatrical Agency In The Constitution Of Logical Space, Esther Marveta Neff
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation takes advantage of our current moment of collapse and shifting episteme to move from resistance and critique into modes of position, prefiguration, and praxiocentricism, giving not only a critique of the colonial-modern logical space of Theatrum Mundi, but also aiming to configure the thetic consciousness that grounds “theatrical agency” in the logic of cognitive and social epistemological modelling. In what ways do we “build our own worlds”? What does “theatricality” tell us about human agency, especially in the domain of “theoretical attitudes,” and “consciousness”? In what ways, and to what extent, are we responsible for constituting …
School Just Wasn't For Me: Investigating The Intersections Of Education, Incarceration, And Improvisation, Kelly L. Brady
School Just Wasn't For Me: Investigating The Intersections Of Education, Incarceration, And Improvisation, Kelly L. Brady
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
New York City is the largest city in the United States and home to the nation's largest school system. NYC public schools are also the country's most segregated, according to a 2021 report from the UCLA Civil Rights Project. This qualitative, Arts-Based Research study follows the development and performance of an applied theater piece created by formerly incarcerated and court-involved youth exploring their early educational experiences before encountering the juvenile justice system. Using Disability/Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) and Critical Performance Ethnography this project investigates how structural systems of education and incarceration intersect to construct youth as "others," including special education, …
Vestigial Choreographies: Climate Consciousness In The Long Nineteenth Century, Alexandra A. Rego
Vestigial Choreographies: Climate Consciousness In The Long Nineteenth Century, Alexandra A. Rego
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The aims of this project are twofold: (a) to develop a method of theoretical analysis and (b) to put this method into pointed use. In service of (a), I propose a method of choreographic analysis. This method operates relationally, highlighting the production of movement and stillness among and between bodies, objects, and encounters. Choreographic analysis draws from methods typically sequestered to dance studies. Towards aim (b), this project demonstrates the relevance and breadth of choreographic analysis by connecting it to ecocriticism. Throughout this project, I apply choreographic analysis to a diverse set of case studies. I use choreographic analysis to …
The Role Of Avram, In Indecent By Paula Vogel, Bryce Hargrove
The Role Of Avram, In Indecent By Paula Vogel, Bryce Hargrove
Student Theses
In the Fall of 2026, the Brooklyn College Department of Theatre produced the play, Indecent by Paula Vogel. This play was directed by then MFA Directing candidate, Sam Plattus. In this production, I played the role of Avram, who serves to represent a handful of characters, including Sholem Asch, the author of the 1906 play God of Vengeance, the content and surrounding events of which Indecent is based on. This show ran from December 5-9 as a part of the 2025-2026 season. In this thesis, I will delve into the life of playwright Paula Vogel and discuss her prior works, …
The Role Of Halina In Indecent, Grace Olinksi
The Role Of Halina In Indecent, Grace Olinksi
Student Theses
In December of 2025, I had the privilege of playing Halina in Paula Vogel’s theatrical love letter Indecent. It ran December 5th-9th in the New Workshop Theater at Brooklyn College, and was directed by MFA Directing candidate Sam Plattus. Indecent sprawls across time and place to tell the story of Sholem Asch’s controversial and groundbreaking play God of Vengeance. Halina, the female “Middle,” of Vogel’s archetypal acting troupe, takes on the roles of many mature and worldly women, including Manke, the prostitute and doomed lover of God of Vengeance, the actresses who portray Manke throughout the play’s history, hopeful immigrants, …
Every Night We Tell This Story: Remembering, Remaking, And Re-Remembering Paula Vogel's Indecent, Sam Plattus
Every Night We Tell This Story: Remembering, Remaking, And Re-Remembering Paula Vogel's Indecent, Sam Plattus
Student Theses
Vogel’s subtitle calls Indecent “the true story of a little Jewish play,” Sholem 4 Asch’s The God of Vengeance. A Jewish man is arranging a marriage for his daughter; that man is a brothel owner who raised his daughter in a home just upstairs from his place of business; his daughter falls in love with a girl working downstairs, and they dance naked, together, in the rain. Indecent follows the journey of Asch’s play from its first reading in his bedroom in 1906, through its European tour in the 1910s, to its debut on Broadway in 1923 when the cast …
The Community Era: Developing Artistic Resource Sharing And Local Collaboration In California's Central Valley, Sine Chan-Golston
The Community Era: Developing Artistic Resource Sharing And Local Collaboration In California's Central Valley, Sine Chan-Golston
Student Theses
This work explores possibilities for artistic resource sharing and collaboration to address the needs of local arts communities. With the artistic programming researched and outlined (Arts Database, Space Sharing, Community Collaborations), the goal is to create an arts environment in California's Central Valley where local opportunities are abundant, accessible, and sustainable.
Enhanced And Confused: The High Price Of Partnership In American Theater, Brandan Walsh
Enhanced And Confused: The High Price Of Partnership In American Theater, Brandan Walsh
Student Theses
Broadway’s contemporary development ecosystem relies on a complex and increasingly fragile relationship between nonprofit regional theaters, Equity workshop models in New York City, and a small number of fully commercial out-of-town tryouts. In recent decades, nonprofit regional theaters have become central to the commercial development process, hosting fully staged productions of Broadway-bound work under a banner of artistic partnership. These institutions provide infrastructure, audiences, labor, and institutional credibility, absorbing reputational risk in hopes of high rewards and financial gain from donors. In return, they receive limited financial participation in downstream commercial success and operate under strict ethical and legal constraints …
Hannah, Nora Brigid Monahan
Hannah, Nora Brigid Monahan
Theses and Dissertations
Hannah is a contemporary adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, which reimagines Ibsen's heroine as a "stealth" (or undetected) transsexual woman living among the American conservative elite in Washington D.C. Newly married to George Taylor, a charismatic but financially strained far-right media personality, Hannah struggles to maintain the façade she has constructed when Eliot Loving, a volatile political streamer and figure from past, reappears in her life. Their collision, orchestrated by the manipulative power-broker Judge Brock, upends Hannah's sense of self and forces her into a desperate struggle for her own autonomy and security. In a deliberate subversion of …
Notes On Rhythm, Maya Lee-Parritz
Notes On Rhythm, Maya Lee-Parritz
Theses and Dissertations
Line meets impulse, association meets sign. I weave the eye towards the smudge and sublime—a fractal lineage flowing through the brush, my body, space itself. I walk toward reality in serial successions, allowing what is fragmentary to move me, to cohere in shards, murky and strange inside of me. My body is a repository of images, of broken rhythms and dissonant ideologies. All of these flow and stutter onto the surface, dripping and blurring over each other. Through all of this, I always try to make something whole, perfect, and true.
Granted, Emily Weissman
Granted, Emily Weissman
Theses and Dissertations
Granted is an Alice in Wonderland-style psychotic break of a play about trying and explosively failing to dodge the landmines of being an artist–only to become your own worst enemy: a gatekeeper.
I Now Pronounce You..., Paul Mims
I Now Pronounce You..., Paul Mims
Theses and Dissertations
In this satirical dramedy, an interracial gay couple’s picture perfect relationship is upended when a “beloved” family member decides to get married—on a plantation
On A Small Strip Of Land On The Great South Bay: A Vaudeville, Kev Berry
On A Small Strip Of Land On The Great South Bay: A Vaudeville, Kev Berry
Theses and Dissertations
In this epic, genre-exploding tragedy about the Long Island Serial Killer case, On a Small Strip of Land on the Great South Bay unearths the complex story of police corruption, sensationalized violence, and the broken dreams of the women discarded along Ocean Parkway.
The Creek And The Cave, Zoe Geltman
Selfown, Richard Hollman
Scenic Design: Ariadne Auf Naxos, Riley Lathrom
Scenic Design: Ariadne Auf Naxos, Riley Lathrom
Student Theses
riadne auf Naxos was made in collaboration between librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal and composer Richard Strauss between 1911 and 1916. While it was not the first or last project the pair would do together, it was one that dared to reinvent the form of early 20th-century German opera. Both artists understood that, in order to evolve with the modern world, their art form needed to reflect the changing culture around them. Hofmannstal envisioned “a totally unified creation of the contributing art forms, harmoniously and inseparably blended into a superior vehicle of expression” (Davidsen et al.) I find this mindset one …
Jerry Day, Daniel Holzmna
Jerry Day, Daniel Holzmna
Student Theses
The life and times of California's oldest erotic bakery.
Wellness By Design: Leadership And Learning Practices For Well-Being In Arts Management, Ashleigh Olander
Wellness By Design: Leadership And Learning Practices For Well-Being In Arts Management, Ashleigh Olander
Student Theses
Leading with a culture of care is the art of wellness-based design. The arts are often seen as places for healing and community connection; however, arts institutions themselves frequently function in ways that undermine well-being. The systems in place do not promote wellness, nor do they dedicate resources to maintaining the vitality of staff. Wellness initiatives in the arts are ordinarily based on programming, rather than embedded into the foundation of the organization. Although engaging with the arts as a whole elevates wellness, it is challenging to find an arts institution designed with wellness practices in mind. There is a …
The Role Of Otto In Indecent By Paula Vogel, Ben Turchiarelli
The Role Of Otto In Indecent By Paula Vogel, Ben Turchiarelli
Student Theses
Between December 5th and 9th, 2025, Brooklyn College’s Department of Theater presented Indecent by Paula Vogel, directed by MFA directing candidate Sam Plattus. It was my privilege to play the role of Otto, a member of a troupe of dead actors, tasked with presenting a nearly coextensive play-within-a-play describing the controversial Broadway production of The God of Vengeance, by Sholem Asch. Otto presents several older male characters, including real-life figures; among them author I.L. Peretz, and actor Rudolph Schildkraut. Some of these scenes are depicted in the story as a play-within-a-play-within-a-play, and there are numerous musical interludes throughout wherein Otto …
Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account Of Law & Society, Jason M. Leggett
Finding Luis: A Creative Nonfiction Account Of Law & Society, Jason M. Leggett
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This essay explores the contradictions in legal theory and human experience through creative nonfiction. Its main purpose is to argue that a truly just society requires acknowledging the profound influence of individual narratives on the law. This is supported by blending personal narratives, critical analysis, and philosophical inquiry to reveal the gap between codified law and lived realities for marginalized individuals. This unique Legal Poetics methodology employs a series of six vignettes, such as the author's and Luis's shared experiences with traumatic brain injury and the denial of justice, as data. By integrating autoethnography, law as narrative, and performativity theories, …
Fugitive Formalisms: Strategies Of Dissemblance And Dissent In The Work Of Queer-Identifying Artists, 1970–Present, Rowan Diaz-Toth
Fugitive Formalisms: Strategies Of Dissemblance And Dissent In The Work Of Queer-Identifying Artists, 1970–Present, Rowan Diaz-Toth
Theses and Dissertations
Utilizing case studies of works by Hélio Oiticica, Scott Burton, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres as points of departure, this thesis puts forth a speculative historical framework for reconsidering queer art practices up through the present day in opposition to regimes of visibility and transparency, exploring the subversive, fugitive potential of non-representational formalisms.
Bread And Circuses, Rosie Thomas
Bread And Circuses, Rosie Thomas
Capstones
This project documents clowns and their props and performance and rehearsal spaces in New York in the fall of 2025. The photos explore the surreality of practicing performance and indulging in art. I am asking what it means to have and explore creativity - queerness, weirdness, community, and play - while acknowledging that a community that gathers to exhibit their own freedom of expression is making an active choice and a prioritisation at every moment.
Final Assignment - Group Performance, Asya Gorovits
Final Assignment - Group Performance, Asya Gorovits
Open Educational Resources
The final assignment invites students to collaboratively devise and perform a site-specific, immersive theatrical experience in the ground floor of the Music Library. Working in groups, students will create a 7-minute mini-scene that engages with the space, considers audience sensory and emotional experience, and draws on techniques from twentieth-century avant-garde movements as well as insights from their midterm fieldwork. Through workshops, rehearsals, and a public performance, students practice creative collaboration, spatial analysis, and experiential design. The project emphasizes process, responsibility, and teamwork, enabling students to apply course concepts in embodied ways while developing practical skills in directing, performing, and devising. …
Midterm Assignment, Asya Gorovits
Midterm Assignment, Asya Gorovits
Open Educational Resources
This midterm assignment invites students to investigate theatricality beyond traditional theatre spaces by attending and analyzing a live, non-theatrical event such as a concert, religious service, festival, sports game, tour, or audio-guided experience. Through a 4–5 page reflective paper and a brief oral presentation, students will observe audience behavior, spatial dynamics, and implicit rules of participation, and relate these observations to early anti-realist theatrical movements discussed in class. The assignment develops close observation, critical thinking, and communication skills while encouraging students to connect personal experience with historical avant-garde practices and to contribute to a collaborative exploration of how performance operates …
Choreographies Of Care: Disability And Relationality In Performance, Kiera Bono
Choreographies Of Care: Disability And Relationality In Performance, Kiera Bono
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
My dissertation explores enactments of what I am calling “choreographies of care” in interdisciplinary performance practices in the 21st century. Working across disability studies, race and ethnicity studies, queer theory, and performance studies, I investigate the ways in which chronically ill and disabled artists have generated multisensorial movement, sound, and performance works that resist normative understandings of time, space, bodies, and interactions between bodies. Focusing mostly on performances and events that I have attended in New York City or virtually over the past decade, my project engages directly with disability arts communities in which I have been deeply embedded …
Interspecies Responsivity In Early Modern Drama And Animal Performances, Taylor C. Culbert
Interspecies Responsivity In Early Modern Drama And Animal Performances, Taylor C. Culbert
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation proposes an expansive, interspecies definition of performance that uses behavior rather than cognition as the decisive feature and illustrates how such a definition can reshape our approach to theatre and performance history. Using the concept of responsivity, which refers to the embodied and affective ways that humans and non-human animals acknowledge and react to one another, I trace human–animal interactions across a variety of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century performance genres, from the aristocratic stag hunt and entertainments involving trained animals to the plays of Molière and Shakespeare. Drawing on my experience training animals, I offer a new perspective on …