Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Playing Back Spirituality: Using Applied Theatre Practice For Spiritual Exploration An Meaningful Community Building In College, Ann Kinnebrew

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Higher Education in the U.S. today is experiencing a theoretical and practical shift toward educating the "whole person" and to that end, is investigating ways to include spirituality in all facets of the academy. This requires focusing on the concept that "in addition to material knowledge, spiritual, emotional, and ethical knowledge is imparted to students" (Khan 2009). Many colleges and universities are searching for avenues to answer this call and better prepare students as business, political and social leaders in a new millennia that defines religion very differently than it did twenty years ago. Today, students are exposed to a …

The Actor Process: Playing Multiple Characters, Danielle Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the process used while preparing for the role of Daughter in Jim Helsinger's adaptation of A Christmas Carol: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, performed at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater (OST). Within the framework of the play, Daughter is a character who is transformed into multiple roles. Her characters include Charity Collector, Belle, Martha Cratchit, Miner, Fred's Wife and Quarreler #1. Presented with the challenge of playing multiple roles in the same production, I sought efficient and straightforward character development and analysis methods to strengthen my performance. Using Uta Hagen's nine questions as a scaffold, I composed …

Christ On The Postmodern Stage: Debunking Christian Metanarrative Through Contemporary Passion Plays, Joseph Dambrosi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As a Christian theatre artist with a conservative upbringing, I continually seek to discover the role of postmodernism in faith and how this intersection correlates with theatre in a postmodern society. In a profession that constantly challenges the status quo of Christian living, and a faith that frowns upon most "secular" behavior, I find myself in a position of questioning the connection between these two components of my life. Furthermore, I am troubled by the exclusive nature of the evangelical Christian community for people who do not meet its expectations of absolute truth—namely, the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community and …

Creating The Role Of Frederick Barrett In Titanic: The Musical, Adam Val Yankowy

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a thesis submitted in fulfillment of the master of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre. It is a detailed account of author Adam Yankowy’s artistic process in creating the role of Frederick Barrett in the Minnesota State University, Mankato’s production of Titanic: The Musical in the Fall of 2015. The thesis follows the actor’s process beginning with the early production analysis in the first chapter. The actor then discusses the work in its historical context followed by a detailed journal of the acting process in chapters two and three. Chapter four is the post-production analysis and the …

The Sound Design Of Antigone, Luke Jacob Walchuk

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This document is a project submitted in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in theatre. It provides an account of author Luke Walchuk’s process in creating and implementing the sound design for Minnesota State University, Mankato’s production of Antigone in January and February of 2016. The paper gives a chronological overview of the designer’s process in four chapters: an early production analysis, a historical and critical perspective, a process journal, and a post-production analysis. A fifth chapter provides a process development analysis of the designer’s career as a student of theatre. Appendices featuring production paperwork and other …

Cuban Routes Of Avant-Garde Theatre: Havana, New York, Miami, 1965-1991., Eric Mayer-Garcia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation interrogates how the movement of artists between Havana, New York, and Miami shaped experimental theatre aesthetics, formed a shared discourse of theatrical thought, and introduced a particular vein of experimental practices into U.S. American avant-garde theatre, especially as it intersects with U.S. Latina/o theatre and LGBTQ theatre. I interrogate the theatre history of these three cities as horizontal and contiguous, challenging historical narratives of U.S. American neocolonial dominance and superiority, as well as narratives of diaspora that position Havana as an authentic origin. The central contribution of my dissertation is to synthesize the archival evidence that documents connections …

Unmarked Boxes: A Solo Show, Nicole Dietze

Theses and Dissertations

Unmarked Boxes is an original solo show, written during the fall of 2015 and performed on December 2, 3 and 4, 2015 at the Center for Performance Experiment, 718 Devine Street, Columbia, SC, along with seven other solo shows in the showcase, Light Through a Pinhole. Examining American perspectives on grief and dying, Unmarked Boxes tells the story of a young American woman who struggles to plan and perform a sky burial in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

Pedagogy In Performance: An Investigation Into Decision Training As A Cognitive Approach To Circus Training, Jonathan Burtt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research project represents the first formal research conducted into the potential application of Decision Training in an elite circus arts school environment. The research examines the effects of the introduction of Decision Training—a training model developed for sports applications—into the elite circus arts training program at the National Circus School (NCS), a key circus arts school in one of the world’s most vital circus domains, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Decision Training, a cognitive-based training model, has been shown through extensive sports-based research to support the development of decision-making ability and self-regulatory learning behaviour, both of which are fundamental for the …

The Theater Of Maria Aurèlia Capmany And The Reverberations Of Civil War (History, Censorship, Silence), Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Maria Aurèlia Capmany (1918-1991) was one of the most prominent Catalan writers of the twentieth century, occupying a singular place in the intellectual and cultural life of Catalonia during the period of the Franco dictatorship and the democratic transition. Her theater is aesthetically daring in its integration of an ample range of contemporary dramatic modes, from intellectually complex to more popular forms of spectacle. Epic theater, monologue, documentary theater, historical drama, and "literary cabaret" (a genre of her own invention)~ all make repeated appearances throughout her theatrical trajectory. Moreover, on the whole her work stands as a testament to her …

The Visual Staging Of Audio Plays, Alex P. Burkart

Theses and Dissertations

The Visual Staging of Audio Plays explores the directing practice of radio dramas that are staged for viewing purposes rather than their typical solo-auditory purposes. The thesis is comprised of three separate parts: a brief history of theatrical sound, an introduction to radio drama theory and practice, and application. The application portion is a detailed first-person account of my personal experience staging It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play by Joe Landry for TheatreVCU’s Mainstage winter special event in 2015. It is also in this section where I integrate history, theory, and practice to formulate technique for directing the …

The Actor Behind The Camera, Zechariah H. Pierce

Theses and Dissertations

Through an accidental discovery of an interest in the film making process, I decided to explore the opportunities that would come through self-education in the field. Along the way, I found that the process of working behind the camera can, in fact, help the actor’s career in front of the camera and provide a chance to train in a nontraditional way. After directing two projects (one simple and one more complicated), I decided to propose a class in which students would be required to self- produce their own video projects online. The class was vastly popular, and the students’ responses …

Courageous Solstice: Reconstructing Fairy Tales For A Black Youth Aesthetic, Tanya Boucicaut

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis interrogates the historical, philosophical, and existential implications of the Black Arts Movement and its major artists on the recurring themes of social injustice, Western hegemony, and the fight for aesthetic authenticity to reimagine fairy tales for the youth Black Aesthetic. As a personal reflection and foundational document for a larger project, this work weaves these implications through the practical application of the varied stages of program development for youth artists. This project also is a handbook that encompasses scholarly research, reflective analysis and anecdotal journal evidence. The subsequent chapters explore the theological and theatre pedagogical educational influences that …

Choreographic Space, Kelsey Sheaffer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis, Choreographic Space, and accompanying exhibit is an arrangement of contemporary work being done in the cross-over between movement, drawing, sound and architecture. The thesis develops a lineage of choreographic thinking through a fissure in the classification of a dance as necessarily the body in motion. Through the link of the “choreographic object,” Choreographic Space asks how an interdisciplinary exploration of the principles of movement can reveal novel ways to think about the body in space.

Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis, Neal Anderson Hebert

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Professional Wrestling: Local Performance History, Global Performance Praxis, is a work of interdisciplinary scholarship (combining elements of theatre history, performance studies, and philosophy) that addresses an area of performance currently under-researched within the liberal arts and humanities: professional wrestling. My dissertation directs much-needed attention to the fact that professional wrestling is the only kind of live drama many Americans ever see (or even want to see). Although it is no doubt easy for theatre historians and performance theorists to dismiss this performance practice because of its location somewhere between “illegitimate sport” and “lowbrow popular entertainment,” I contend that United States …

Violent Conventions: An Analysis Of The Unintended Aesthetics Of On-Stage Accidents, Jeremy Matthew Reynolds

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In theatre scholarship, the event of the on-stage accident is a fairly neglected area of research. Aside from brief archival detailing of some of the more tragic events, scholars have not approached the accidents from a theoretical or historiographical position. Many, I surmise, find little of interest in an on-stage accident due to its lack of aesthetic purpose or intentionality. In this project, I focus on those neglected accidents and, more specifically, accidents that take place due to a violent failure of theatrical convention. I discuss three specific moments where a theatre convention – established to concretize the world of …

Aquell Estiu Del 66. L'Actuació De Merce Cunnigham A Sitges, Ara Fa 50 Anys, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

El desembarcament a Sitges de la MCDC ara fa cinquanta anys exactes, es considera un punt crucial en la cultura catalana i espanyola tant en art com en música. Carles Santos ha titllat aquella actuació de «traumàtica» pel que va suposar per a la música espanyola. I a més a més, molts estudis erudits recents sobre l’art conceptual, la música electrònica i la dansa experimental consideren l’actuació a Sitges com un dels inicis de tots aquests moviments a l’estat espanyol. Al final, Clive Barnes va acabar per tenir raó: al Departament d’Estat l’havia subvencionat un pintor europeu, almenys la gira …

Maria Rosa, Adaptada Al Cinema Per Cecil B. Demille, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En l'época actual, en la qual l'éxit teatral s'acostuma a mesurar en funció del reconeixement internacional, molts dramaturgs contemporanis han somniat un muntatge a Nova York o, fins i tot, un triomf a Hollywood. Potser els sorprendria saber que fa aproximadament cent anys, Ángel Guimerá, sens dubte el dramaturg catalá més prominent del seu temps, ja havia complert aquest somni gairebé impossible quan dues de les seves obres teatrals més famoses, Maria Rosa (1894) i Terra baixa (1896), es van estrenar en versió anglesa sota els focus de Broadway. De fet, entre els anys 1903 i 1914, les obres de …

Ponts Théâtraux Et Transferts Temporels: Théâtre Du Xixe Siècle Pour Le Xxie Siècle (Catalogne), Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En 1992, Richard Schechner, metteur en scène et théoricien nord-américain, faisait dans les pages de la revue TDR (The Drama Review) une observation qui fut jugée scandaleuse, en déclarant : « [T]heater as we have known and practiced it —the staging of written dramas— will be the string quartet of the 21^st century: a beloved but extremely limited genre, a subdivision of performance » (Schechner 1992, 8). Six ans plus tard, en 1998, encore étourdi par la fameuse affirmation (la condamnation plutôt) de Schechner, le théoricien et critique nord-américain W. B. Worthen attirait l’attention sur ce qu’il considérait un …

L'Aventura Nord-Americana De «Maria Rosa» De Guimerà, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En l'època actual, en la qual l'èxit teatral s'acostuma a mesurar en funció del reconeixement internacional, molts dramaturgs contemporanis han somniat en un muntatge a Nova York o, fins i tot, en un triomf a Hollywood. Potser els sorprendria saber que fa aproximadament cent anys Àngel Guimerà, sens dubte el dramaturg català més prominent del seu temps, ja havia acomplert aquest somni gairebé impossible quan dues de les seves obres teatrals més famoses, Maria Rosa (1894) i Terra baixa (1896), es van estrenar en versió anglesa sota els focus de Broadway. De fet, entre els anys 1903 i 1914, les …

Multimodal Communication, Idealization, And Relational Quality In College Students' Parental Relationships: A Model Of Partner Idealization In Ongoing Relationships, Erin M. Bryant, Artemio Ramirez Jr.

Human Communication and Theatre Faculty Research

This study tested the partner idealization component of the hyperpersonal perspective, and extended this perspective to the study of an ongoing relationship – college students and their parents. We proposed a model to encompass the cognitive and behavioral idealization mechanisms that past research identified as provoking positive relational outcomes. Results indicated that mediated communication frequency was positively related to both idealization and relational quality, and that idealization partially mediated the statistical relationship between mediated communication frequency and relational quality. Face-to-face communication frequency was inversely related to one indicator of idealization (positive affect thinking), but was not directly related to relational …

Decayed Drama, Increased Inclusivity: Beckett’S Theater In The 1960s, Ryan Diller

The Expositor: A Journal of Undergraduate Research in the Humanities

No abstract provided.

Conceptualizing Female Punk In The Theatre: The Riot Grrrl Revolution As A Radical Force To Inspire A Devised Solo Performance, Summit J. Starr

Senior Independent Study Theses

My Independent Study focuses on the technique and aesthetic of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, and how those elements effectively continued the 90s underground punk scene. The movement was a response to masculine domination of the punk sound and space. Though zines and music, Riot Grrrl provided girls and young women a medium of reclaiming the punk scene, finding a community, and discovering an avenue of female empowerment. I have researched these techniques and aesthetics and devised a one-woman performance to continue the ideals of Riot Grrrl.