Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Laramie Project, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

The Laramie Project is a play by Moises Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project. “On November 14, 1998, members of Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, and conducted interviews with the people of the town.” The Play is “edited from those interviews, as well as from journal entries by members of the company.” (The Laramie Project, "Introduction") The Play is about the town of Laramie, its citizens, and their reaction to Matthew Shepard’s murder.

A Guy, A Girl, And Gershwin!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

No abstract provided.

Direction And Production Of Shakespeare's Comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Lisa Kraus Morford

Master of Theater Production Graduate Projects

This project includes the selection, background research and documentation, direction, production, and post-production analysis of Sammamish High School's production of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Documentation includes research, analysis of the play, and an evaluation of the comedy as a production for Sammamish High School.

Scapino!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

Rave reviews from every critic on Broadway! With the first line of the play, we plunge into the situation as Octavio cries, "I am lost! I am ruined! What am I to do? My world is crumbling around me. Disaster after disaster!" Into this comes Scapino who states, "The good Lord has blessed me with quite a genius for clever ideas and inspired inventions which the less talented, in their jealousies, call deceits and trickery!" At one point, with the girl's father hiding in a huge sack, Scapino pretends to be a Japanese waiter shouting, "Ah so—Kung Fu—there is something …

Direction Of The Play: Steel Magnolias, Kimberly Anne Starr Mears

Master of Theater Production Graduate Projects

This project included research, documentation, casting, direction, and evaluation of Valley Theater Company's fall 2002 production of Steel Magnolias. This production thesis includes documentation of research about the play, analysis of the play's language and dramatic action, evaluation of the play as a production vehicle, the director's concept statement, and evaluations of the final production.

Theatre In Pioneer Utah, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

The performance of theater and drama in Utah and the buildings that housed them are described. Theater was an important community project from the earliest days of Mormon settlement in Utah, beginning with the Social Hall. The Salt Lake Theatre opened in 1862 and until its demolition in 1928 was an important theater in the American West. Theater was a community project by the Mormon settlers of the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young.

The Miracle Worker

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 2002 performance of The Miracle Worker by William Gibson.

The Miracle Worker is based on the autobiography of Helen Keller.

The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a hilarious, interactive whodunit mystery musical that allows the audience to enter the action and become the ultimate detectives. The show is based on Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel of the same name. In small town of Chesterham, England, the young and charming Edwin Drood has been mysteriously murdered. But by whom? His leering romantic rival, John Jasper? The infamous purveyor of opium and vice, Princess Puffer? The mysterious Landless twins, newly arrived from Ceylon? Or someone else even more dastardly and villainous? Dickens passed away before he was able to reveal the culprit. Rupert …

Direction Of The Production Fools By Neil Simon, Anna Jane Hudgens

Master of Theater Production Graduate Projects

This project entailed background research and documentation, casting, direction, and post-production assessment of Ellensburg High School's production of Fools. Included in this thesis documentation are three areas of research: preliminary information, pre-production analysis, and post production evaluation.

The Secret Garden, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

When young Mary Lennox loses her parents to a cholera outbreak in India, she is sent to live with her uncle, hermit Archibald Craven, who lives in an imposing, secluded manor on the British heath. Inside the haunting house upon the hill, Mary finds a reclusive, long-suffering collection of souls. Surrounded by spirits from the past, who both warn and welcome her, determined Mary begins to peel away the layers of sadness that cover the house and the garden, showing us the power that “one small girl” can have when she “wants things to grow.”

https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1435/the-secret-garden

Ctrl + Alt + Delete, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

Tech whiz kid Eddie Fisker joins forces with a new technology leader to create what amounts to a billion dollar house of cards. Surrounded by corporations that remember books as “little paper websites” and remind each other of various characters from the Muppets, the two try to survive the shockwaves, real and imagined, that threaten to topple their new product’s success.

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/ctrl-alt-delete/

Making Sense Of Matter In Deleuze's Conception Of Cinema Language, Roger Dawkins

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Writing in the 1960s and early 1970s, Christian Metz's work on the cinema favoured systematic exactitude, and was concerned with uprooting film theory from what he saw as the generalized approach of the early twentieth century (Andrews 213). Metz thought that a more scientific approach to the cinema was to be found with the question of language, and although this question was metaphorically present since the 1920s [1], Metz was the first to apply modern linguistic models to this problem (Guzzetti 292). What resulted was a methodology of analysis based on the formalism inherent to …

The Mikado, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

Since its premiere in 1885 at the Savoy Theatre in London, The Mikado (or The Town of Titipu) has become one of the most-performed pieces of musical theatre in history. As with many of Gilbert and Sullivan’s productions, the show satirizes aspects of Victorian Britain’s politics and aristocracy; in The Mikado, however, the duo cleverly cloaked these criticisms behind a charming story set not in Britain, but in exotic Japan. Nanki-Poo, the son of the Mikado (the Japanese emperor), has fled in disguise to avoid marrying a much older suitor, and to find and marry his own beloved, the …

Book Of Days, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

When murder roars through a small Missouri town, Ruth Hoch begins her own quest to find truth and honesty amid small town jealousies, religion, greed and lies. This tornado of a play propels you through its events like a page-turning mystery.

https://www.samuelfrench.com/s/13099/book-of-days

Direction Of The Musical Production "Little Shop Of Horrors", William Alva Lytle

Graduate Student Projects

This thesis production includes pre-production research and documentation, auditions, casting of actors, direction, and post-production evaluation of The Dalles High School's winter production of "Little Shop of Horrors." This documentation also includes analysis of the play and its origins, evaluation of the play as a production vehicle, the history of the play, research of the playwright, lyricist, and composer, and the vision the director anticipates for the production.

Direction Of The Play: Steel Magnolias, Jana Shea Petersdorf

Graduate Student Projects

Steel Magnolias, by Robert Harling, is a poignant tragicomedy set in the fictional town of Chinquapin, Louisiana from 1983 to 1985. The play's setting is a beauty salon that serves as psychiatrist's office, confessional and home away from home for several women of the town. This play reflects the strong sisterhood needed by women as they struggle through life's tragedies and rejoice during life's triumphs. The play presents characters that learn to grow stronger as they face each new obstacle. They are able to persevere because of the strong community of women to which they belong.

Direction Of The Musical: Quilters, Elizabeth A. Madsen

Graduate Student Projects

This project entailed background research and documentation, casting, direction, and post-production evaluation of Roosevelt High School's winter 2002 musical production of Quilters. The production thesis documentation includes research and analysis on the play and its literary origins, evaluation of the play as a production vehicle, and a discussion of the directorial vision for this production.

A Co-Curriculuar Theatre Arts Handbook: Tips And Techniques To Use When Directing A Production At The High School Level, Paul Vernon Wickline

All Graduate Projects

This project is a handbook of techniques and strategies for beginning directors of high school drama programs. Included in this handbook are sections on selecting the best productions for your actors, strategies for directing the young actor, helpful hints on how to build a successful extra-curricular drama program, and more. This project was based on a review ofliterature (including extant curriculum guides and articles and textbooks on directing and acting) and the author's fifteen years experience as an actor, director, and theatre arts educator.

Direction Of The Production: David And Lisa, Meredith Rachael Sylling

Master of Theater Production Graduate Projects

This project entailed background research and documentation, casting, direction, and the post-production assessment of Sunnyside High School's production of David and Lisa. Included in this thesis documentation are the three areas of research: preliminary information, pre-production analysis, and post-production evaluation.

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 …

A Midsummer Night’S Dream, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

In one of the most famous of literary love quadrangles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the tale of Hermia, Demetrius, Lysander, and Helena; four misguided lovers whose journey into the woods lands them in even more trouble, as members of the fairy kingdom decide to use them as veritable pawns in their own love games. Against the backdrop of the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, and the fiery battle of wills between the Fairy King and Queen, Oberon and Titania, the four lovers are challenged by magic and trickery to finally work out what love is all about.

https://stageagent.com/shows/play/450/a-midsummer-nights-dream

Oklahoma!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

The first collaboration of famed partners Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Oklahoma! set the American musical theatre standard. Set in Western Indian Territory just after the turn of the 20th Century, the spirited rivalry between the local farmers and cowboys provides the backdrop for the love story between Curly, a handsome cowboy, and Laurey, a beautiful farm girl. The road to true love is anything but smooth, but there is no doubt that these two romantics will succeed in making a life together. As the road to romance and the road to statehood converge, Curly and Laurey are poised …

Our Country's Good, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

A leading London critic describes it as "highly theatrical, often funny and at times dark and disturbing, it sets an infant civilization on the stage with clarity, economy and insight [as] it relates the true story of the first theatrical performance in Australia." In June 1789 in the penal colony that was later to become the city of Sydney, a marine lieutenant decides to put on a play to celebrate the king's birthday. He casts the play with the English convicts who populate this distant Australian prison camp. Few of them can read, let alone act, and the play is …

Charlotte's Web, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

This exciting, musical version of Charlotte's Web brings a new dimension to E.B. White’s beloved classic. All the enchanting characters are here: Wilbur, the irresistible pig who desperately wants to avoid the butcher; Fern, a girl who understands what animals say to each other; Templeton, the gluttonous rat who can occasionally be talked into a good deed; the Zuckerman family; the Arables; and, most of all, the extraordinary spider Charlotte who proves to be a “true friend and a good writer.” With music and lyrics by Charles Strouse (Annie, ‘Bye, ‘Bye Birdie) and book by Joseph Robinette (national award-winning children’s …

Blood Brothers, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

Set in Britain, Willy Russell's Blood Brothers tells the story of fraternal twins who are separated at birth. One brother is raised in a family of great privilege and one brother is raised in poverty. Even with their different socioeconomic backgrounds, the two boys end up becoming best friends -- until a misunderstanding leads to a tragic end.

https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1640/blood-brothers

Ginger, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

No abstract provided.

West Side Story, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

A musical in which a modern day Romeo and Juliet are involved in New York street gangs. On the harsh streets of the upper west side, two gangs battle for control of the turf. The situation becomes complicated when a gang members falls in love with a rival's sister.

Dance 2000 (Damn Yankees), Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

No abstract provided.

Marvin’S Room

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 2000 performance of Marvin’s Room by Scott McPherson.

Twelfth Night, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

Duke Orsino of Illyria is in love with Olivia, but his advances are rejected. A shipwrecked Viola arrives on his shores, and with the help of a Captain,disguises herself as a boy, calling herself Cesario, and enters Orsino's service. Orsino takes to Cesario, and sends 'him' to woo Olivia for him. https://www.playshakespeare.com/twelfth-night/synopsis