Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

0713: Marceline White Platania Collection, 1929-1976, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

This collection consists of one scrapbook of clippings and photos and one folder of ephemera. The scrapbook includes extensive clippings and a limited number of photos of the 1937 flood in Huntington, West Virginia. Ephemera includes a copy of “The Belle of Barcelona: A Musical Comedy in Three Acts”, a 1929 program for said comedy at Huntington High School, and a ticket, pamphlet, clipping, and envelope about the 1976 American Freedom Train in Huntington.

"An Organized Power": A Choreographic Process, Summer Beasley

Theses

Not available.

The Mind Museum: Rudolf Schwarzkogler And The Vienna Actionists, Philip Barnes

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Sixth paragraph]

In the following essay I discuss the Austrian artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler. I have enjoyed the process of ferreting out articles and references to him, although these are seemingly as scarce as his own artistic output. Schwarzkogler spent just 2 years staging performance-actions in his apartment in the 1960s. These methodically photographed scenes involved sliced fish, bandages, light bulbs, razor blades, foodstuffs and surgical apparatus, all manipulated by anonymous figures. The photographs, works of art in their own right, have since toured internationally. Schwarzkogler was the least outgoing of a group called the Viennese Actionists, whose orgiastic, bloody Happenings …

On Guillermo Gomez-Peña's El Mexterminator And Cyber Vato, Michael Benton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

While attending Bowling Green State University in 1997 I had an experience that changed my worldview. I was a teaching assistant in the Popular Culture department and part of my responsibilities included teaching Introduction to Popular Culture (POPC 100) and Introduction to Mass Media (POPC 165). I had been struggling to engage my students in examining the way in which social reality is represented to them through popular entertainments [2]. The majority of my students were white, middle class students from the surrounding Northern regions of Ohio. My students were well-versed in the ongoing controversy over whether or …

Performing Hyphenates: A Study In Contemporary Irish-American Identity And Cultural Performance, Patrick Michael Bynane

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the issues and contradictions of identity formation found in contemporary Irish-American cultural performances. Using a theoretical language grounded in post-structuralism and cultural studies, this examination hopes to demonstrate the primacy of performance and theatre in the formation of culture, Irish-American specifically, or otherwise. The performances featured in the study are: Riverdance, St. Patrick's Day parades, pub performances, and improv theatre.

Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird As Adapted By Christopher Sergel: A Thesis In Directing, Andrew Vastine Stabler

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis describes the directorial process of a production of Christopher Sergels's adaptation of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. It follows the process of preproduction through rehearsals. It makes use of the influences of the prior history and the recent educational experience of the director. Throughout it accesses the choices made and concludes with conclusions on the final product.

The Chemistry Of Change: A Production Thesis In Directing, Anthony Greenleaf Winkler

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is an account of the production process involved in directing The Chemistry of Change by Marlane Meyer. Particular attention is paid to the Suzuki and Viewpoint methods of actor training used in rehearsal; periods of discussion with the playwright regarding the script; negotiations with designers; and an evaluation of the audience reception of the public performances. These aspects of producing a play for the theatre are recorded from the point of view of the director and described with the intention of revealing the learning process for all involved in the collaborative process.

A Scenic Design Process For The Chemistry Of Change: A Production Thesis In Theatre Design And Technology, Stephen E. Haynes

LSU Master's Theses

The scenic design for the Louisiana State University Theatre production of Marlane Meyer’s The Chemistry of Change was selected and approved as my thesis project in the spring of 2001. This document represents a written account of the scenic design as it was conceived, developed, and executed. Records include research, a description of the design process, photographic evidence, and a final evaluation of the result.

[Introduction To] Alegorías De La Disidencia: El Teatro De Agustín Gómez-Arcos, Sharon G. Feldman

Bookshelf

This book is a case study of the relationship between art and oppression. It is the first book devoted to Gomez-Arcos, a member of a "lost" generation of Spanish dramatists who were silenced during the Franco era. It addresses three crucial issues that define both his literature and his life: censorship, exile, and bilingualism.

The Power Of Desire In Selected Plays By Henrik Ibsen, Brooke Torrens

Theses : Honours

This thesis explores how desire operates in selected plays by the Norwegian dramatist, Henrik Ibsen. I will argue that desire acts us a motivating force, urging the characters to seek fulfilment in their ideals, resulting in both defeat and triumph. The four plays considered, Rosmersholm, The Lady From the Sea. Hedda Gabler and The Master Builder, depict characters that are unable to sustain ordinary existence. This inability produces equivocal and contradictory human emotions that both restrict and impel the characters as they journey toward their downfall and salvation. The ambiguous nature of these four plays is examined in order to …

Nicholas Rowe's Writing Of Woman As Feminist Hero, Henry Herbert Sennett Jr.

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Nicholas Rowe was a playwright of some success during the first quarter of the eighteenth century in London. Rowe's importance to the theatre can be seen in his contribution to the development of strong female roles. He was part of that group of Whig writers who championed individual freedom, some rights for women, and a stronger parliament. It is my contention that Rowe was an "incipient" feminist and an innovator of theatrical practice through his use of the female protagonist. By "feminist" I mean that Rowe wrote about the plight of women in a society that afforded very few rights …

Theatre As A Change Agent: An Analysis Of High School Theatre Education And Its Benefits In Communication And Problem Solving, Cory Losenicky

Graduate Research Papers

Theatre education in the high school has an interesting past. Theatre has a long presence in schools as entertainment, but its benefits to educational outcomes has been largely overlooked. In the United States around the turn of the last century, this schema began to be questioned. In 1936, Columbia University published a book discussing the use of theatre in the United States and its possible uses in education: "The Production of Later 19th Century American Drama" by Garrett Leverton. This book was the first to discuss the beginning of the changing role of theatre in education. Columbia University was not …

Agustín Gómez-Arcos, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Agustín Gómez-Arcos, a bilingual dramatist and novelist, was born in 1933 in the village of Enix (Almeria). The origins of his theater can be traced to his childhood experiences, in which he witnessed firsthand the horrors of the Spanish Civil War and the dark clouds of oppression of the Francoist regime, images that left indelible imprints on his literature and his life. Although in the future he would leave behind both native country and language, his memories of the Civil War and postwar period would continue to surface in his plays.

Catalunya Invisible: Contemporary Drama In Barcelona, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

During the winter of 2000, Lluís Pasqual staged a Catalan version of Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard at Barcelona's Teatre Lliure, the historic home of Catalonia's most stable, accomplished, and distinguished repertory theatre company. In Chekov's play, Madame Lyobov Andreyevna Ranyevskaya, an emblem of the fading elegance and dwindling supremacy of the Russian aristocracy, is compelled by her situation of financial despair to sell her estate and cherry orchard to the nouveau-riche Lopakhin and then return to Paris on the eve of the Revolution. The orchard that was once admired for its beauty eventually will be destroyed in order to …

Directing The Threepenny Opera, Alexander G. Harrington

LSU Master's Theses

This production thesis on directing Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera is divided into two sections. The first section consists of four research/critical chapters. Chapter 1 discusses the director’s understanding of the theories of Bertolt Brecht. Chapter two discusses potential differences between the director’s aesthetic point of view and Brecht’s theories. Chapters 3 and 4 lay out the findings and opinions based on those findings of research into two issues that influenced production decisions: Chapter 3 focuses on Brecht’s relationship with totalitarian communism and Chapter 4 looks into questions raised about the authorship of The Threepenny Opera. Section …

Subversive Aspects Of American Musical Theatre, Donald Elgan Whittaker Iii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Critical discourse regarding musical theatre takes, for the most part, the form of a profound silence, due presumably to a dismissal of the genre as simplistic and insubstantial. Not only have the elements of musical theatre been present in the majority of theatrical history, but many of the greatest theories regarding theatre have included these elements, including Brecht and Wagner. Musicals have also often concerned themselves with the Other, centering and sympathizing him/her in a manner unavailable to non-musical works. The Others that have thus been positioned are often delineated from hegemonic groups which are concretely those in power, but …

The Threepenny Opera: Designing Lights With Brecht A Production Thesis In Theatre Design And Technology, Brent Landry Glenn

LSU Master's Theses

The lighting design for this production of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht was selected and approved for my thesis in the autumn of 2001. This thesis represents a written account of the lighting design as it was conceived, developed and executed. It contains a brief analysis of Brechtian theory, a production journal describing the major events of the design process, a cue description, records of research, photographic and literary evidence of the realized product, and a personal evaluation of both the process and outcome.