Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Edges, Brandon Bogle

Theses and Dissertations

Edges is an adaptation of Three Sisters set at the twilight of the Harlem Renaissance, a once-influential black family faces the looming shadow of the Great Depression, throwing into question all of their dreams. With inspiration from Purpose by Branden Jacob-Jenkins and Is God Is by Aleshea Harris, this play explores family, desire and the depths to which people struggle to define themselves and survive.

House Meeting - A Play With Music, Levi J. Shrader

Theses and Dissertations

‘House Meeting’ Synopsis & Related Works

Levi J. Shrader

House Meeting

Brother Preacher’s been away on his mission to find a way to heal Little Brother’s deadfoot so he can walk again and live for the Lord. Family and neighbors gather for a Holiness house meeting to offer their thanks to God. When the cure seems to be deadlier than the affliction, Sister tries to remind them that, although this life is a suffering one, it isn’t worth destroying for a power God never intended for them.

Plays I believe House Meeting is in conversation with:

Beggars In the House …

The Importance Of Being Earnest: A Costume Designer’S Process, James Hunter Rock

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

This thesis is a comprehensive breakdown of the costume design process for Nebraska Repertory Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde during the fall semester of 2024. The author logs the production’s processes in collaborating on the concept and aesthetic of the play to present the Victorian era story for a modern audience. In this thesis, insights into the costume designer’s conceptualization, research, previsualization, and final design process are explored, providing an in-depth look into the creation of characters that remain true to the director’s original vision while being engaging for contemporary theatre. The various challenges …

Toujours Beaucoup: Representations Of Childhood And Education In 20th Century French Literature And Cinema, Delaney Drury

Poster Presentations

This project explores French literature and cinema with significant representations of education for the purpose of examining to what extent educational ideals are upheld or undermined.

Encanto The Musical: An Exploration Of Translating Media From Film To Stage, Isabel Perez-Flores

Whittier Scholars Program

I’m going to be honest: I did not go into this project with the intent of radically changing Encanto. I had some points I wanted to expand upon, some improvements and edits that I felt the film could have utilized, but overall, I was satisfied with the way the story was told. The real change, I’ve come to realize, lies not in the story and the script itself, but in the way the story is told. The obvious change is that this version of Encanto, in an ideal world, would be performed in front of a live audience, in a …

V.1 Spring 2025, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Spring 2025 issue has the theme "Take It as a Sign" and features pieces on baby fever, spreadsheets and recording information, aura and technology, a trip to Horseshoe Bend, the new Art and Computation department at RISD, home and belonging, Illustration student projects related to sensitive experiences, red brick architecture in Providence, and technology and the English language, along with interviews of students in their studios, poetry, and other creative writing.

Who Cares For The Caregivers? How Dance And Movement Can Benefit Caregiving Parents Of Children With Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities: A Literature Review, Haley E. Gilbert

Expressive Therapies Theses

Caregiver parents of people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) are not able to care for themselves as often as they should be able to for their own mental and physical wellness due to their caregiving responsibilities that often carry into adulthood. These can lead to anxiety, depression, grief, and dysregulation for the parent. Dance and movement practices have been found to relieve the symptoms of these experiences while helping the child with IDD and the parent connect more, building stronger relationships. This thesis will include a comprehensive literature review of body-based theories such as the Polyvagal Theory (Polyvagal Institute, 2025), Bowlby’s …

The Playground: Redefining The Artistic Experience And Expression With Technology, Meghan Hutto

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Throughout the artistic community, many creators are exploring new ways to generate innovative works for growing audiences. With the emergence of endless technology, dance makers are searching for mediums to include new lighting techniques and music composition. Across this past year, I have researched and explored new frontiers of artistic mediums to further my project’s artistic expression. By developing and investigating new systems of lighting and musical composition, I created a fifteen-minute work called “Metaphysical Mindscape”. When solidifying the through-line that carried the expression of my piece, I uncovered a piece of myself. The themes that I explored were thoughts …

A Feasibility Study Of Creating A Model For A Dance Outreach Program In Chesterfield County Public Schools, Katelyn Elizabeth Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Exposure to dance at a young age has many proven benefits for children and their communities, including healthier brain development, deeper cultural understandings, and higher rates of supporting the arts in the future. Unfortunately, most dance education options are costly, greatly limiting which families have access to the opportunity to allow their children to experience training in dance. Dance outreach programs, which focus on introducing dance to communities and children that may otherwise never have access to dance education, are one way the arts community is working to dismantle this elitism. Partnering with public schools is the most common way …

Selected Projects: Set Design And Projection Design, Audrey Kearl Coleman

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Theatrical scenic and projection design for the stage.

Redeemed: A Dance Composition And Analysis On Transformation, Kasia D. Oliver

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I have created a film entitled Redeemed, which utilizes the medium of dance to explore emotional devastation and restoration present throughout life. My experience as a kinesiology major with an exercise science concentration, dance minor, and fine and performing arts student at East Tennessee State University from 2021-2025 has ignited my desire to connect kinesthetic awareness, somatic movement, dance choreography, and improvisation in a way that is cathartic for both me as the choreographer/performer and the audience. My goal is to touch viewers on a soul level by embodying how it feels to truly and fully exist. This film consists …

Flatter Or Annihilate, A Focus On The Act Of Collaboration In A Production Of Jen Silverman's Gothic Comedy The Moors, Madison C. Smith

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This Thesis is an exploration of the methods of collaboration employed while directing a production of Jen Silverman’s The Moors at The University of New Orleans. I will discuss my work as the director, leading a team of designers that included both faculty and students, as well as working with a cast of actors whose skill set ranged from professional performers to an actor making their stage debut. I will examine various methodologies of collaboration and directing I employed throughout the process, determine in what areas I was successful or not, as well as the overall response to the production.

Projects In Lighting Design And Technical Direction, Hannah Rose Whorton

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

A report of realized lighting design, projection design, and technical direction theatre projects.

Finding A Choreographic Relationship Between Music And Dance Performance, Grace Dugas

Honors Theses

The choreographic project increase emerged from a choreographic curiosity about how the relationship between dance and music can influence each other within a contemporary dance performance. The choreographer was also interested in whether or not the audience can perceive the choreomusical relationship. The exploration of literature considered the aesthetic, educational, and accessibility differences between dance and music. This is followed by a detailed exploration of related terminology and ideas that choreographers can utilize. Lastly, the literature studied how the audience can perceive the choreomusical relationship presented in a dance performance. The choreographer, with the assistance of the dancers, generated movement …

It’S Not A Phase, It’S A…Musical?: The Innate Theatricality Of The Emo Movement Of The 2000s, Kylie Alyssa Price

Honors Theses

This project is an exploration of the rock subgenres emo and pop-punk and how they interact with musical theatre conventions. Emo, short for emotional hardcore, is a descendant of hardcore punk music that is characterized by its focus on the emotional core of lyrics as well as softer, more pop-influenced sounds musically. In this project, the history of emo is delineated alongside the history of rock musical theatre. Subculture is also defined as it relates to this thesis. The natural theatricality of emo is then characterized as being through emo/pop-punk’s performance culture, through the existence of the concept album, and …

Urinetown: A Lighting Designer’S Process, Caroline Nowak

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

This thesis describes the design and production process of the lighting design for the musical Urinetown, written by Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, featuring music by Mark Hollmann, produced by The Nebraska Repertory Theatre in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Glenn Korff School of Music, performed in the Howell Theatre from April 25th, 2025, to May 3rd, 2025. Urinetown was directed by Ann Marie Pollard, with musical direction by Suna Gunther. The creative team included scenic designer Sariah Roberts, costume designer Breeanna Pierce, and lighting designer Caroline Nowak. The production team included technical director Ashley Faulkner and stage …

Bringing A Ghost Story To Life: Actualizing A Production Of The Woman In Black, Benjamin Cudmore

Honors Theses

Working with the support of faculty mentors Maja E. White and Johann Stegmeir, Benjamin Cudmore helped develop THTR 312: Production and Collaboration to foster a collaborative environment where students could design a production of "The Woman in Black" and allow for student actors to be involved in the creative process from the beginning to the end. Benjamin worked as the Director, Makeup Artist, and headed publicity.

Cultural Of Authenticity And Commodification: Analyzing The Aesthetic Waves And Collective Culture In The 2010s And 2020s, Stefanny Leung Yu

Student Theses

The “authentic self” is curated, aestheticized, and most notably, commodified. Digital algorithms, likes, views, and engagement are more than just digital metrics, they are the management of performance. For millions of other users — including the author herself — social media is the locus of personal expression. Most notably, sites like Tumblr, where users in the 2010s posted hazy images or overly filtered graphics along with melancholic song lyrics that match the vibe of the moment, expression was earnest and idealized. Today, social media in the 2020s, new creators like Hannah Neelaman, better known as Ballerina Farm, dress in pastoral …

Kansas City, Kansas, Vida Davidović

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS is a thesis that operates in the tradition of expressionist dramaturgy and playwriting, taking up themes of abuse, imperialism, war, trauma, womanhood, Balkan identities, history of the Balkans, as well as the discourses of psychoanalysis and postcolonial theory. The use of different theoretical frameworks related to both international and personal politics, which are shown to be intertwined, suggests a strong relationship between political processes in the Second World Countries that had experienced many occupations throughout their history and the way women in those countries relate to the questions of body, authority, feminity, and interpersonal relationships. The play …

Belly Dance In Nebraska: Identity, Social Acceptance, And Perseverance, Alex R. Mohr

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Belly dance is an art form as well as an often-contested practice due to tensions over dress, terminology and cultural practices within the belly dance community because the dance originated outside the United States. Additionally, there is often a need to prove the legitimacy of the dance to those outside its sphere because it is often stigmatized due to the early association with exotic dancing. Belly dance is inherently geographic, as seen through its places of origin, music and movement styles, global spread, practitioners, and spaces of practice. However, it has not been well-represented in geography, and there is also …

Creed And Variations: Tracing The Divergence Of Christian Traditions In Select Piano Works Of Arvo Pärt, Olivier Messiaen, And J. S. Bach, Rebekah E. Stiles

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Within the classical music universe, the works of J. S. Bach, Olivier Messiaen, and Arvo Pärt stand apart as particularly evocative of the divine. Much has been written on these three men’s integration of faith with musical practice, exploring how their music is not only spiritual in nature but distinctly Christian. But in comparing the three, one encounters deeply rooted distinctions between their religious worldviews, a distinction not only found in their personal testimonies but actually heard in their music. Their compositional languages reflect three traditions: Protestantism (specifically Lutheranism), represented by Bach; Roman Catholicism, represented by Messiaen; and Eastern Orthodoxy, …

Ghostlight: A Fargedy, Ethan Thomas Shaw

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Frequently, throughout art media, artists rarely venture from realism. With the stylistic tools and artistic innovations made over the last 150 years that venture past realism, it is time for artists everywhere to take the next big step and begin the ombre of style and genre within works, challenging society in new ways. The goal of this project is to research the function and effect of different genres and styles within theatre and find what is required to successfully communicate them both textually and within a production. This includes reading and researching plays, theatre history, and the influence/evolution of style …

Urinetown: The Technical Direction Process, Ashley N. Faulkner

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, Film, and Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, chose to produce Urinetown: The Musical by Greg Kotis as the fourth and final show of the 2024-2025 season. The production was scheduled to be mounted on the Howell stage, a 300-seat proscenium theatre located in the Temple Building on the University’s downtown Lincoln campus. As technical director, I was responsible for budgeting materials and labor, drafting and engineering scenery, managing personnel, maintaining safety, installing and removing scenery from the stage, communicating and collaborating with other …

Necessitating Autonomy: Performing Black Womanhood., Krystal Chavonne Waller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Black womanhood should autonomously be represented on the stage and/or the screen. By defining the theories of Black Feminist Thought, Black Performance, Trap Feminism and Sankofa, I create a praxis that provides Black femme performers with tools for authentic characterization. By acknowledging and respecting that Black women are not monolithic, this thesis also explores the evolution of theatrical representations of Black Womanhood—particularly U.S. Black womanhood from the late 19^th century to modern day. Using historical narrative, analysis, acting techniques learned during my MFA program, and personal reflection, I advocate for Black women …

A Black Sherlock Holmes: An Exploration Of Nonconforming Characterization., Faith Janaye Artis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of diversity initiatives in the greater American theatre landscape, we are now including more Black actors than ever. Whether that be through the inclusion of diverse playwrights or implementing new casting protocols, we now have Black people in the room. However, when portraying the Black “version” of a character (i.e. Black Annie, Black Ariel, Black Juliet) a question still plagues the Black Actor’s mind: how am I meant to fit here? I evaluate my process of portraying Sherlock Holmes as my thesis role. By challenging the implied white perspective in this “universal” story (despite its feminist retelling), …

Creating New Points Of Access: How Integrating Black Acting Methods Strengthens The Western Theatre Canon., Darrin Edward Dispenza-Mosley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Western acting techniques have historically disregarded the contributions and techniques of black and non-Western performance to the detriment of black actors. This disregard has created barriers for black actors when engaging in what has now become standard theatre training. This training is enforced by implementation of acting techniques in academia that favor codified techniques of Eurocentric acting. Despite black acting techniques being codified and taught within the black community and academia, outside of a few historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), predominately white academia has implemented valuable training methods that black/African American Acting techniques can offer. By looking at American …

Dancing In The Digital Age: How Social Media Shapes The Commercial Dance Industry, Luke Lisowski

Honors College Theses

Social media has fundamentally transformed the commercial dance industry, reshaping how dancers establish careers, connect with industry professionals, and promote their artistry. This thesis examines the impact of social media platforms – such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube – on career growth by facilitating networking opportunities, increasing visibility, and redefining industry standards. The research explores how digital platforms have shifted the traditional pathways to success, enabling dancers to showcase their work independently while also creating challenges related to self-promotion, competition, and mental health.

Through a series of in-depth interviews with professional dancers and choreographers actively working in the industry, this …

#Helpplz: Mental Health Representation In Theatre For Young Audiences, Kate Elizabeth Dirrigl

Theses and Dissertations

#HELPPLZ is a play for young theater audiences that depicts four teenagers with various mental health challenges. It’s target audience is for children ages ten to fifteen and should be performed by actors of similar ages. #HELPPLZ is an immersive theatre experience, as a audience members watch four actors perform from four different lifestyles and point of views, all while broadcast on screens behind the actors. Every seat is a good seat in the house. This play follows a shift in trends of mental health depiction in contemporary theatre. No longer demonized and much more accessible, plays such as Dear …

The Shift In Children's Dance: From A Culture Of Innocence To A Battlefield Of Hypersexualization, Mary Bawden

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.