Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Smartest Woman In The Kingdom (2002), Theatre Arts

Productions 2000-2009

Director: Mary Yarbrough

Set Design: Kyle Snyders

Costume Design: Mary Yarbrough

Summer Season 2000, Little Theatre On The Square

2000 Programs

No abstract provided.

Stupid Marco (1999), Theatre Arts

Productions 1990-1999

Director: Mary Yarbrough

Design: Mary Yarbrough

An Analysis Of Using Dramatic Activities To Communicate And Stimulate Learning Of Biblical Principles Regarding Drug/Alcohol Abuse Among Teens, Victoria Norton

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Ngatish, Dale T. Mosley

Masters Theses

Ngatish is a tragedy involving the lives of Othello's African family. My purpose in writing this play is to explore the shifts in roles between women and men in powerful and subservient positions. Therefore, I have created an historical 16th-century African setting for the play while the story-line explores the lives of Othello, his African family, and his first wife, Ngatish.

Through Ngatish, I want to answer some to the unknowns in Othello: how was such a notorious general so easily and readily duped by an obviously envious man as Iago: what were his secrets; his …

The Feminine Other: A Study Of The Women In Shakespeare's Major Tragedies, Kurt E. Wilamowski

Masters Theses

The central examination of this thesis concentrates on the essential contributions of the female characters in Shakespeare's major tragedies--Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Without the women's conflict with the patriarchal order, the males would be unable to recognize and combat the corrupt elements in their society. The awareness of the female characters allows them to perceive the tainted patriarchal atmosphere they dwell in and operate within it as best as they can.

In short, each woman's individual field of awareness allows her to act as the executor of the dénoucement in the tragedy. Even …

99 Bottles: An Exploration Of Oral Interpretation As Rhetoric, Jeffrey T. Hess

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to combine the elements of oral interpretation and rhetoric in order to create a group performance piece that contains interesting movement and dialogue as well as persuasive rhetorical elements. This new genre of group oral interpretation is called Rhetorical Theatre and implements only non-fictional material for the manuscript. Metaphoric blocking and direction is discussed, as well as the use of other conventions currently employed in group interpretation.

Letters To Mother: A One-Act Play, Susan R. Brock

Masters Theses

Few graduate students in English elect to write a creative thesis to complete their degrees, their tendency perhaps to believe that a thesis based on research seems a more scholarly endeavor. I do not think one could successfully argue the superiority of one type over the other, simply because the two are quite different. While a research thesis can require the reading and analysis of another author's work, a creative thesis requires the writing, reading, and analysis of one's own work. For that reason, the main body of this thesis consists of an introductory essay in addition to the creative …

Destination Zero: A Play In One Act, Deborah L. Muller

Masters Theses

While there have been a few creative theses written in the English department, those written up till now have consisted of collections of short stories and poetry. This is the first play to have been conceived and written for a Master's Thesis at Eastern Illinois University. The Thesis is comprised of two major parts: an introduction and the play, itself.

The introduction deals with what the goals of writing the Thesis were, what research went into reaching these goals, what the characters in the play were attempting to communicate to the reader/audience, and whether the resulting play deviated from the …

"For Though It Swam In France, It Might Have Sunk In England": A Comparison Of John Vanbrugh’S The Confederacy With Its French Source, Les Bourgeoises À La Mode, Diane T. Harris

Masters Theses

In the summer of 1705, as Sir John Vanbrugh was casting about for dramatic source material which might play successfully at the new Haymarket theatre, he rediscovered Florent Dancourt's Les Bourgeoises à la Mode and, in the manner of Restoration theatre playwrights, created an adapted version in many respects quite different from the original. This adaptation, known as The Confederacy, is considered by many Vanbrugh scholars to be one of the English author's best works.

This paper is essentially a comparative study of the two plays. It begins with a plot summary of the play Vanbrugh used as the …

In Common: Voices Of The Common Woman, Zoanne Allen

Masters Theses

This is an original compiled script of selected materials relating to the common experiences of women. The intention was to present a work that would touch all women by describing experiences that are shared among us generally. The script utilized materials from a variety of sources: prose, diaries, poems and plays. The tone of the pieces selected were both serious and humorous. Through the assembling of these pieces, a complete script was created. The final goal of the work was to create a sense of bonding among the women in the audience. Secondarily, the male members of the audience should …

"Failed Love" In The Drama Of Edward Albee, Steven Leonard Long

Masters Theses

The plays of Edward Albee are frequently examinations of characters who are unable to love or to be loved. A central and recurring conflict which runs through many of Albee's plays is the conflict which stems from the lack of success which the characters often experience as they strive to find love. The uncertainty and ambiguity which surround the abstraction called "love" leave the characters with feelings of unhappiness, frustration, fear, self-hatred, and despondency. Though the individuals in Albee's plays are aware that love is the ingredient which is missing from their lives, none knows how to go about alleviating …

"Bootstrap Theatre": A Prompt Book For The Fantasticks, Jayne A. Ball

Masters Theses

This paper is the description of a creative fine arts project involving the direction and design of a full-length musical theatre production within a very low working budget. The purpose of this project was to create a work which showed how the arts of theatre, music, dance, and visual art may be combined to achieve a total presentation of the arts in one package, while demonstrating how it may be presented in an economically feasible manner. It is hoped that this work will provide directors of amateur organizations, such as community theatres, with a guide for step-by-step preparation for the …

The Family In Modern Northern Irish Drama, Ray Wallace

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to show the plight of the family in Northern Ireland. The four plays which are the subject of this study--Within Two Shadows by Wilson John Haire, The Flats By John Boyd, Nightfall to Belfast by Patrick Galvin, and The Death of Humpty Dumpty by J. Graham Reid--deal with this innocent faction and highlight three principal effects of the troubles on their family lives. First, the families suffer internal division. They are alienated by religious/political differences which are as inseparable in these dramas as they are in Northern Irish life. Socialist doctrine opposes Christian …

Infinite Intellectual Leap-Frog: Tracing Three Character Voices Through Four Of Tom Stoppard's Works--Lord Malquist And Mr. Moon, Albert's Bridge, Jumpers, And Dirty Linen, Judy Laurene Donaldson

Masters Theses

Tom Stoppard (1937- ), British playwright, creates in his Absurd novel Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon (1966) three character voices that begin a debate on man's reason for existence. Instead of resolving the debate at the end of his novel, Stoppard, using the same character voices in various combinations, continues the debate in three of his later works: the plays Albert's Bridge (1968), Jumpers (1972), and Dirty Linen (1976). The three character voices include the realist's, who ties to make some sense out of the disorder of the world and to find his place in it; the manipulator's, who ignores …

Chekhov, The Doctor As Dramatist: A Study Of The Four Major Plays, Gloria Rhoads

Masters Theses

Studying the relationship of Chekhov's being a doctor to his being a dramatist reveals one reason for the scientific objectivity in his writing. Moreover, extensive reading of his letters and notes as well as careful readings of his plays leaves little doubt that he himself considered that his career as a doctor had a great impact on the plays he created.

Chekhov felt that a writer must not beautify reality or gloss over it but carefully present it as it is. He wrote that the writer must renounce subjectivity and report the grime of life along with the good; he …

Character Motivation And Definition Through Dialog In The Memory Plays Of Harold Pinter, Douglas E. Grohne

Masters Theses

Several critics have suggested that the plays of Harold Pinter are incomprehensible because the characters do not explicitly explain their actions and motivations. These comments come because the critics and audiences are conditioned to expect a playwright to in some way explain the motivations and personalities of his characters with a standard explanation given through explicit dialog, copious stage directions, or other means. But Pinter believes that it is dangerous for a playwright to design a play with one overall purpose in mind because the chances are that the purpose will be mistaken.

Pinter prefers to write in a realistic …

Notebook To Stage: The Creative Process In Dramatic Art, Terry Kroenung

Masters Theses

The following paper is the description of a creative fine arts project involving the writing, direction, and design of an original play, Sons of the Morning. This work is examined from both literary and theatrical viewpoints, with an eye to evaluating the entire learning experience.

Structuralism is used as the critical mode in the literary analysis. This technique reveals the existence of many dichotomies--good/evil, strength/weakness, love/hate--in theme, plot, and character. These opposites create conflict, the basis of drama, and contrast. They are the source of tensions between the characters and within each individual. The dichotomies are also seen to …

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Finds Reality: In The Comic Mask, Eva Marie Enis

Masters Theses

Scholars have considered the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus from nearly every perspective, but, at the same time, they have been hesitant to recognize the humorous incidents, particularly the so-called clownish scenes, as having a legitimate place even though much comic incident appears in Marlowe's source. Though scholars have acknowledged Marlowe's play to be a morality, they have not viewed Faustus as a morality character whose comic mask is his reality.

An examination of the morality tradition, with Marlowe's debt to the morality in mind, justifies the inclusion of much …

An Investigation Of Educational Theatre And Professional Training Needs For Costume, Lighting, Sound, And Scenic Designers, Barry P. Johnson

Masters Theses

The educational theatre programs in the United States accept as one of their purposes the training of the professional theatre artist. Since the educational theatre began in the 1920's, university theatre departments have garnered criticism over their approach to professional training. No literature was found concerning research of the curriculum best suited to the training or educational development of the costume, lighting, sound, or scene design student.

In the attempt to determine what training or coursework is instrumental in the development of the theatre design student, a questionnaire was sent to two groups: the members of the New York League …

The Costuming Of Hair: An Interdisciplinary Study, Mary E. Yarbrough

Masters Theses

This paper discussed the interdisciplinary study of costuming in general and specifically that of the musical, Hair. In addition to the discipline of theatre, costuming employs several other art forms and thereby may be considered an interdisciplinary art form. Basic to the development of costumes for Hair was knowledge of literature, visual arts and history. It is necessary to read and interpret a play very carefully in terms of relating the written words of the script to the costumes of the character. The actual designing of costumes entails basic drawing and design abilities as well as a creative artistic …

Wait Until Dark, Little Theatre On The Square

1979 Programs

No abstract provided.

Little Mary Sunshine, Little Theatre On The Square

1979 Programs

No abstract provided.

A Little Night Music, Little Theatre On The Square

1979 Programs

No abstract provided.

Pippin, Little Theatre On The Square

1979 Programs

No abstract provided.

California Suite, Little Theatre On The Square

1979 Programs

No abstract provided.

The Star-Spangled Girl, Little Theatre On The Square

1978 Programs

No abstract provided.

Cabaret, Little Theatre On The Square

1978 Programs

No abstract provided.

Count Dracula, Little Theatre On The Square

1978 Programs

No abstract provided.

The Marriage-Go-Round, Little Theatre On The Square

1978 Programs

No abstract provided.