Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Costume Design Portfolio: A Journey Through Undergraduate To Professional Design, Karly Foster

Honors Program Theses and Projects

My focus on costume design began during my sophomore year at Bridgewater State University. It all started with volunteering to work on a show during a time when I needed a creative outlet. I was taught how to manipulate thermoplastics to create masks for the production, Conference of the Birds. My work on that show paved the way for even more creativity and learning. Although I was not a theatre major at the time, I began taking courses related to costume and makeup design with the hopes that I would have the opportunity to work on another production. It wasn’t …

What Is The Function Of Theoretical Theatre Ideas, Given The Content Presented In Modern Theatre?, James Carson Jester, Robert Earnest

Honors Theses

ABSTRACT

In this work, I will look at the implications and history of theatre theory, then lay the

ground work for what works will be used in this examination. Then, I look at the definition

of form and content in theatrical terms and introduce the issue of this work, what is the

function of Theoretical Theatre ideas, given the content presented in modern theatre?

Then, I will talk about the work of Aristotle, giving brief biographical information and

some of his theory on creating theatrical work, citing his work known as The Poetics. I will

then look at the implications …

Musical Ability And Accent Imitation, Maria Murljacic

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigates the intersection of musical ability and accent imitation, more specifically defining what factors cause a relationship between the two. The study was run on 50 participants, who each completed an accent imitation ability assessment, a musical ability assessment, and an articulation ability assessment. The scores for the accent imitation portion were rated by anonymous online raters. Each participant filled out a questionnaire on prior musical experience and were either classified as a musician or non-musician. The analysis found that those in the musician group performed better on the musical ability, articulation, and accent ability assessment than non-musicians. …

Savoring The Moon: Japanese Prints Of The Floating World, Madison B. Dalton

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Guided by the Director of the Madison Art Collection and Lisanby Museum, Virginia Soenksen,I served as the Curatorial Assistant for the Lisanby Museum’s forthcoming exhibition Savoring the Moon: Japanese Prints of the Floating World. The exhibition will highlight the Madison ArtCollection’s impressive Japanese woodblock prints in the ukiyo-e style. Ukiyo-e translates to“pictures of the floating world.” This style proliferated in Japan during the Edo period (1603 - 1868) and Meiji period (1868 - 1912), with visual themes that ranged from flora and fauna, Japanese ceremonies, kabuki actors, mythology, courtesans, and cultural pastimes. The estate of Charles Alvin Lisanby gifted over …

Female Leaders Navigate The Arts, Post 'Me Too', Peyton Kennedy

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

As the lights dim and the curtain rises on a theatrical production, there are roles to fill onstage and off. Perhaps the most important roles in modern theatre are those of leadership. Leaders in the arts have the power to influence company communication, shape the culture of the rehearsal room and navigate through a crisis. However, leadership and power can be manipulated, as the world witnessed through the ‘me too’ movement. As allegations rose against prominent leaders, the push for change strengthened. We are now three years past Hollywood’s ignition of the ‘me too’ movement, which prompts the question: have …

Touch As Bond: Exploring The Use Of Contact Improvisation In An Ensemble Process, J Travis Cooper

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This document serves as a contextual and reflective essay detailing the work done on J Travis Cooper’s Honors Capstone Project, Touch as Bond: Exploring the use of Contact Improvisation in an ensemble process. It is a process focused creative project exploring the potential of Contact Improvisation [CI] as a tool for ensemble development and content creation in a theatrical production. Contact Improvisation is a dance practice created by Steve Paxton and other collaborators in the 1970s. The form demands dancers improvise movements while in contact with each other, creating spontaneous lifts and requiring the ability to adapt to a …

Utilizing Creative Dance Pedagogy And Concepts For Teaching And Learning English As A Foreign Language, Riley Lathorp

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Creative dance/movement pedagogy in an English language learning classroom can help nurture self-identity and build cognition. English language teaching through volunteer tourism is growing along with the expectation for English acquisition. Since English teachers abroad are most often not required to have teacher training, this can lead to teacher-centered classrooms, passive learning for students, and a lack of use of creative processes. Research indicates that creative dance/movement pedagogy and concepts as teaching methodology can aid English acquisition and build self-identity. This research is based in an action research case study (IRB approved) which analyzes and evaluates the use of movement/dance …

En Croix: A Choreographic Study Of Translation, Gillian T. Ebersole, Kristin Smiarowski

Honors Thesis

This thesis, entitled “En Croix,” began in Paris as a choreographic exploration of my struggle to reconcile my feminist and queer identity with my Roman Catholic upbringing. The strictness of my conservative religious background became an entry point to choreography, enabling me to create a solo with movements based on the Sign of the Cross—up, down, side, side. After returning to Los Angeles, I translated the choreography from the first solo into a second, breaking open the precise patterns and structures from solo one, and adding improvisation as a choreographic device; then, I completely abandoned the form of …

Toxic Masculinity In Henry V, Abigail King

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Toxic masculinity motivates the characters and plot of Henry V by William Shakespeare. The play revolves around King Henry V and how he is a model leader of England during the Hundred Years War. Henry uses what a “true” man should be to inspire his soldiers when morale is low. Further, manlihood is seen in the characters or lack thereof. Characters that fail to follow the high expectations of masculinity are killed. Audience members recognize the importance of masculinity throughout the play, although the outcomes of those stereotypes are dangerous seen in the superficial friendships and suppression of authentic self.

Gaming Intentionally: A Literature Review Of The Viability Of Role-Playing Games As Drama-Therapy-Informed Interventions, Jonathan Mendoza

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGS) and live-action role-playing (LARP) games have recently risen in popularity in the cultural zeitgeist with the advent of popular gaming shows like Critical Roll and The Adventure Zone, as well as popular media like Community and Stranger Things. While some literature exists linking the concepts of roleplaying to theater and psychotherapy in the pursuit of deeper game design, little exists that attempts to bridge the gap by examining the potential of role-playing games (RPGs) as therapeutic tools informed by drama therapy practices and theories. This literature review provides a brief overview of basic RPG …

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Dramatic Example: Spectacle, Theatricality, And Performance In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, Patrick Joseph Caoile

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The political implications of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy have been noted by many scholars and commentaries, the majority of whom view the trilogy specifically through the lens of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. As Jacques Derrida notes about 9/11, the “maximum media coverage . . . spectacularize[d] the event” (qtd. in Stubblefield 3). In Nolan’s trilogy, Batman’s crusade to save Gotham from its criminals and villains takes on similarly spectacular qualities, as Gotham City becomes “ground zero” for acts of terrorism, vigilantism, and theatricality. Rather than engaging in a strictly political analysis of these films, this thesis …

Speak The Speech: Lessons In Projection, Clarity And Performance, James Hagerman

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

This study compared two classes and their responses to a controlled curriculum versus an experimental curriculum based on teaching high school students in acting classes to project and speak with clarity during onstage performances. The experimental group had fifteen days of instruction, extensive feedback and an additional two lessons, while the control group participated in two out of the four lessons and had eight days of instruction with limited feedback. The driving question of this study was, “How do you get teenagers to project and speak with clarity on stage, so the audience is not left asking, ‘What did they …

The Art And Craft Of Aerial Dance, Vianna Isbister

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Art and Craft of Aerial Dance discusses my personal experiences training and performing aerial dance, along with my study of safe practices in aerial rigging. My journey as a Theatre and Dance Honors-In-Discipline Scholar at East Tennessee State University from 2016-2020, culminated with my senior thesis capstone performance at Azure Aerial Arts on Friday, December 6th, 2019. This exploration into the world of aerial dance began in the spring of 2017 and has not ceased. If anything, the drive and motivation to continue pushing forward despite many obstacles continues to grow and manifest itself into new forms in my …

Lighting The Stage: The Lighting Design Process And Production Of Will Eno's Middletown, Levi Bradford

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The world of theatre focuses on presentation and showmanship, but what audience never sees is often the most vital parts of the show. Behind the curtains, in the backstage of the theatre is where the real magic happens. This paper focuses on shedding some light on one aspect of the backstage. Without light, nothing would be seen. Follow along as the process of being chosen, creating, research, and production are revealed and explained to make the backstage more appreciated.

El Nostre Dramaturg: In Memoriam Jmbij, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

La figura del dramaturg Josep M. Benet i Jornet mort el 6 d'abril passat, és evocaddae des de la llunyania geogràfica i l'amistat personal per una de les millors estudioses del teatre català contemporani.

Hysteria, Fear, And/Or Delight, Alessandra Ferrari-Wong

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

My Bachelor of Fine Arts thesis statement, Hysteria, Fear, and/or Delight, establishes the forms and concepts of my art practice as it stands as of May, 2020: performance-based and interdisciplinary. My practice implies narrative while acknowledging the audience. Physical language, in both dance and gesture, can be a means of communication or subversion. Pieces exist as ephemeral, often private, performances and then separately in archival forms ranging from video, to photography, to installation. The body of the statement details my thesis project, a remaking of Giselle, a 19th century Romantic-era ballet, into a performance series and video trilogy. …

Critical Veganism: A Posthuman Understanding Of ‘Becoming With’ Others, Kensey Dressler

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

This thesis lays the groundwork for a critical vegan orientation to posthuman communication research. Critical veganism attempts to do the least amount of harm to nonhuman beings, a shift that decenters the human in scholarship and focuses on the material realities of nonhuman beings. This orientation helps create a praxis for posthuman research that is in line with a new materialist approach to ontology, is anti-capitalist, and strives to do the least harm. Previous research methods tend to be anthropocentric in nature, thus leaving out nonhuman experiences from communication research. Using both autoethnography and multi-species ethnography as my methods, I …

Putting It Together: Musical Theatre As An Academic Discipline, Madison Finney

Honors College Theses

Musical Theatre is an art form that integrates singing, acting, dancing, and production for the purposes of storytelling. It is an artistic field that is extremely interdisciplinary, and it draws upon many different areas of knowledge for performance and education. Additionally, Musical Theatre has evolved into a viable academic field of study. It incorporates artistry and academic analysis as a way to enhance performance and higher education. This paper will use Practice as Research theory, creativity theory, and disciplinary discourse theory to explore the ways Musical Theatre successfully functions as an art form and an academic discipline.

Peter And The Starcatcher: Creating The Character Of Peter Pan Via Rehearsal, Script Analysis, And Personal Journals, Delaney Jackson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Theatre, as an art, does an incredible job at making stage life look as organic as the lives we lead on a daily basis. That’s thanks in part to a methodical rehearsal process that the public rarely has a chance to see.

My goal with this creative project was to give the general public an opportunity to join myself and the rest of the cast of UNO’s Peter and the Starcatcher on a journey through our rehearsal process via journal keeping and character analysis before presenting the show on April 15, 2020.

Unfortunately, we had to give a painful goodbye …

“More Beautiful Than God!”: Hair And Makeup Design For Eugene O’Neill’S Ah, Wilderness, Jackson L. Jones

Honors Theses

This thesis follows an undergraduate theatre designer’s process of designing and realizing hair and makeup for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Spring 2020 production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! The student conducted a thorough script analysis, researched Edwardian style and society, and collaborated with the production’s artistic team to produce effective hair and makeup designs and fulfill practicum requirements.

The Legend Of Georgia Mcbride: Change In Light Of Passion, Bryce Bassett

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

This thesis describes the research and production processes of the lighting design for the play, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, performed in the Johnny Carson Theatre at the Lied Center for Performing Arts from October 2^nd through October 13^th, 2019. The play was directed by guest artist Steve Scott with scenic design by Marty Wolff, costumes by Rebecca Armstrong, sound design by Jeff O’Brien, technical direction provided by Austin Elledge, and master electrician Joshua Mullady.

This thesis contains the entire lighting process including the initial meetings, research, conceptualization, technical rehearsals, critical response, paperwork, and …

The Glass Menagerie: Lighting Design Analysis And Reflection, Adam Jezl-Sikorski

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The Nebraska Repertory Theatre, in partnership with the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, designated Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie as its second production for the 2019-2020 season. The production began previews on Wednesday, November 06, opened Friday, November 08, and ended their run on Sunday, November 17, 2019. As the lighting designer for this production, it was my responsibility to provide the master electrician with the plans and paperwork necessary to physically realize my artist vision. This included a drawn-to-scale light plot, channel hookup, and instrument schedule denoting the placement of lighting equipment …

The Gambler's Son: A Scenic Design, Jill S. Hibbard

Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film: Theses, Student Research, and Creative Work

The purpose of this thesis is to provide research, supporting paperwork, production photographs, and other materials that document the scenic design for the University of Nebraska, Glenn Korff School of Music opera premiere production of The Gambler’s Son by Tyler Goodrich White. This thesis contains the following: research images indicating an artist’s studio, historical Cozad, Nebraska photos, selected Robert Henri paintings and sketches, shapes, and forms; preliminary sketches and photographs of the ¼” scale model; a full set of drafting plates, projections design, paint samples, a props reference book; paperwork generated during the rehearsal process; and additional touring information. Archival …

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …

The Green Poem: An Original Play In Two Acts, Emily Arancio

College Honors Program

An original play in poetic dialogue based on the philosophy of Lucretius.

The Child Dreams: An Examination Of Gil Shohat’S Adaptation Of Hanoch Levin’S Play, Karin Hochman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

On January 18, 2010, Gil Shohat's operatic adaptation of Hanoch Levin's 1993 play, The Child Dreams, had its world premiere at the Israeli Opera. The opera was commissioned for the opening of that company's twenty-fifth season. Levin's play holds a central place in Israeli culture; given the play's stature, Shohat's musical work raises a number of essential questions about adaptations and their consequent reception. This document will examine the critical perception of the effort: did the critics reviewing the production understand Shohat's intentions and did they "read" the work in the same way that he did?

We possess a wealth …

Managing Cosplay Performance: The Forms And Expectations Of Convention Roleplay, Isaac V. Price

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Costume play (i.e. cosplay) is a performance of fandom rife with rituals and communication practices. Cosplay roleplaying performances are cultural practices that reveal how cosplayers interact with one another and among non-cosplaying members of their fandoms. This study examines the expectations that cosplayers hold for roleplay, the forms of roleplay, and the ways in which roleplay can become an instigator of harassment. Through the lens of Face-Negotiation Theory, the author discusses how roleplay functions to maintain or threaten the public images of cosplayers and their audiences, and what strategies cosplayers implement to avoid the loss of face.

A Poetic Ethnodrama: Discussing The Impact Of The Pressure To Publish On Creative Writers' Production, Abby N. Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the presence of the pressure to publish while in college as an undergraduate or graduate student, and the impact that pressure has on students’ ability to produce creative work. After interviewing participants, the researcher created an ethnodrama to best represent participants’ emotions and unique experiences with publishing while in school. An examination of the literature reveals that master’s-level students are often overlooked in scholarly research on the subject of publishing. This study uses a qualitative research method to identify key emotional experiences from students at the master’s and undergraduate level in the hopes of providing a platform …

Staying In The Moment: Acting Methods Through Video For The Novice And Veteran Actor, Cortland D. Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

High school is a great place to start acting and learn about theatre, but it can also be a place where actors develop substandard practices. Nevertheless, there are several acting methods that can be used to combat these habits. By delivering videos that focus on these techniques and are tailored to both young and seasoned actors, actors can obtain a better understanding of acting and can be more well-equipped as they approach their work. In order to create these videos, research into the different acting methods and their respective creators was conducted. The information gained from this inquiry was then …