Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Review Of Sidwell, Aristophanes The Democrat, In New England Classical Journal 38 (2011), 290-92., Kenneth S. Rothwell Jr.

Classics & Religious Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Circus: An Integrated Curriculum Unit, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

An integrated curriculum is an instructional approach that connects the disciplines to an underlying theme or topic. Immersing students in an integrated-thematic unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. Shaping coursework around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students, however using an integrated-thematic curriculum is appropriate for all learners as it develops students' abilities to make connections, to solve problems by looking at multiple perspectives, and to integrate information from different fields of experience. An integrated-thematic curriculum permits students to be active participants in their own learning as they design their own explorations and take …

A New Way To Learn: Exploring Museum Theatre, Shelly Hanson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Serving 99 To 149 Years For Wearing Butt-Huggers And Resisting To Subscribe To Cable Tv: The Presence Of The Law In Chicano Theatre, Maria Patrice Amon

Studio for Law and Culture

In the canon of Chicano theatre, the law holds a prominent role; the relationship between Chicanos and the law is a theme explored widely across Chicano theatre in both comedy and tragedy. This paper discusses how the comedy of Chicano theatre conceals the insidiousness of unchallenged racial stereotypes and acts as a safety valve to release the pressures of an abjected community. Yet, where comedy conceals the structure of abjection, drama critically challenges the status quo Chicano drama is capable of questioning the authority of the dominant hegemony over the cultures it oppresses. Beginning from a framing of the law …

Directing Beyond The Boundaries: A Director's Journey To Personal Style In Directing Diaspora, Mary Elizabeth Wlodarczyk

Theses

Even though, the text of Diaspora was technically "mine" in the sense that J wrote Diaspora, the play text itself became a separate creature at its completion. So the production of Diaspora was not so much my directing a play I wrote, as much as it was an agreement between me and the new text, an autonomous life. In this exacting negotiation, I had to chose where I reside on the spectrum directing philosophies, whether I would embrace complete fidelity to the text or would I see the directing process as more intuitive and flexible (Benedetti 14-15)?

The writers and …

"We Endure Around Truths Immemorially Posited”: A Dramaturgical Research Analysis On Brian Friel’S Linguistic-Historical Drama “Translations”, Meredith Levy

Undergraduate Research Awards

A dramaturgical analysis of Friel's Translations intended to provide an overview of the play to a director staging it. The paper focuses on topics such as Friel's life, the history of Northern Ireland relevant to the play, and thematic analysis. The PDF includes the author's entry submission essay for the 2011 Undergraduate Research Awards.

Lighting Design And Development Process For The Strayer-Wood Theatre's Production Of On The Verge, Michael Franklin Brown

Honors Program Theses

I chose to do this project because it was the logical final step in my theatre education at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). I began my education at UNI with the goal of working as a mainstage lighting designer at the Strayer-Wood Theatre, and I worked my way through the ranks to reach this position. I have aspirations to design lights for professional theatre, and I believe this fully realized project will be a great example of my work to show potential employers.

This portfolio will showcase the steps I took to complete the project and written and visual …

Spectacle, Pageantry, And Parading, Whitney Whetstone

LSU Master's Theses

We celebrate the arrival of spring with revelry in search of catharsis. Carnival’s roots trace from the ancient Greek and Roman pagan celebrations, to the pageant wagons of the Medieval theatre and the French masquerades, and on through the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans. Mardi Gras is part of Louisiana’s rich cultural history of parading and spectacle, as well as public art and performance, as a civic responsibility, and as an economic booster. Blaine Kern’s Mardi Gras World builds parade floats, large-scale sculptures, and props for Mardi Gras, theme parks, and casinos around the world. I interned with Kern …

Finding Inspiration In Invitation To A Beheading: A Thesis On The Creation And Development Of A One-Person Play, Joshua Ryan Dawes

LSU Master's Theses

Writing and performing a one-person play was selected as the basis for a thesis project in the spring semester of 2010 to be presented to to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in the Department of Theatre. The thesis will include an introduction, a review of the literature that inspired the original production, the full text of both scripts that were used, a chapter on the process of discovering a new play, a section about future plans for the …

Permission To Perform: A Waltz With Zelda, Sarah E. Smith

LSU Master's Theses

This paper discusses an artistic journey of creating a one-woman show. It is the purpose of Sarah E. Smith, creator and performer, to marry private human experience to public theatrical expression. In this project, Smith is experimenting with character development generated by abstract, physical, absurd, and unconventional explorations. This exploration will create a distance from the literal translation of the story and will allow the audience to gain a better perspective of the character and her dilemma. It is the intention of the creator to make the action and need of the character more visceral, immediate and striking by expanding …

The Synergy Of Visual Projections And Contemporary Dance, Hannah Molly Timbrell

Theses : Honours

Projections are becoming an increasingly common part of contemporary dance performance, however, I believe that choreographers do not always integrate the media to form a dependent synergy. My research addresses the principal question: What are the factors that indicate that there is a critical relationship (synergy) between projection, including art work, moving images or light and the dancer in a contemporary dance performance? A brief history explains the background and development of lighting technology, through to film and more recently motion capture technology. Through sources of pre-existing literature and my interpretation of video excerpts of contemporary dance, I explore various …

[Introduction To] A L'Ull De L'Huracà: Teatre Català Contemporani, Sharon G. Feldman

Bookshelf

Catalunya viu actualment el període més dinàmic, extraordinari, opulent i polèmic de la seva història teatral moderna. Barcelona és el centre d’operacions d’una enèrgica escena teatral que, en el decurs de les dues darreres dècades, ha presenciat una sorprenent eclosió de nous autors dramàtics, un crescendo constant en l’assistència al teatre i un increment continu de la presència de directors, dramaturgs i companyies catalans a nivell internacional. El camí al llarg del qual l’escena teatral catalana contemporània ha lluitat per recuperar i reconstituir la legitimitat i visibilitat professionals que havia perdut durant la dictadura ha estat un procés complex, no …

Myth, Method And Masturbation: The Hysteria Of Woman's Sexuality, A One-Person Play, Josephine Hall

LSU Master's Theses

The assigned task was to create a one-person play of approximately 20 – 45 minutes in length. There were no other guidelines to follow. Having never performed a solo play, I found the assignment somewhat daunting. My first challenge was to overcome my basic dislike of solo performances. However, during the process I found new appreciation for such works. I was rather overwhelmed when trying to find a suitable topic for my piece until I came across an on-line article entitled “Vaginas with teeth – and other sexual myths”. This spurred me to create the one-person play Myth, Method and …

Modern Myth In Performance: Claiming Identity Through A Reading Of Fantasy Withcraft, Jessica Satterwhite Gray

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I create a Wiccan dramaturgical lens to analyze three key fantasy sites: The Wizard of Oz film and stage adaptations (especially the Broadway musical Wicked), The Chronicles of Narnia film and theatrical adaptations, and the Harry Potter films and paratheatrical adaptations. These three fantasy stories have significant cultural impact and strong images of folkloric witches. My alternative reading shows how a subgroup can appropriate popular images for their own identity formation. I will analyze how signs, themes, and narrative tropes that otherwise seem ancillary or even anti-witch become highlighted and privileged, creating a different but equally legitimate …

Torture And Fear As Tools For Maintaining Power In The Germophobe: A Thesis On Creating A One-Man Show From The Author-Actor Himself, Alexander Stephen Galick

LSU Master's Theses

The project was to create a 20-45 minute one-man show and stage it. This thesis describes the process of creation and documents the project’s multiple permutations from the search for a topic and setting parameters, to research, initial improvisation experiments, to a growing and reorganizing text, to the conversion into verse to the final script, the performance, and planned future development. The resulting show is about a man whose irrational fear of germs has ballooned out into an irrational fear of the outside world, fear of being infected, and affected by foreign things and ideas. This fear drives him to …

An Aloha State Of Mind: Performing Hawaiian Cultural Identities, Kirsten E. Ogden

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

There are many Hawaiian identities currently in effect. This dissertation explores several representative and contested Hawaiian identities, and how these identities develop through key performances, plays, and other representational practices by Hawaiians and by Locals. Due to its unique situation as one of only two U.S. states formerly with its own government, and as one of only two U.S. states not connected to the main land-mass of the United States, Hawaiian identity is complicated by multiple factors: sanitized historical constructions, sovereignty, intermingling ethnic identities, tourism, and reclaimed cultural practices. Additionally, Hawaiians as a native people hold a unique place in …

Regarding Westernization In Central Africa: Hybridity In The Works Of Three Chadian Playwrights, Enoch Reounodji

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The second half of the nineteenth century played a determining role in the political, economic, social, and cultural spheres of Africa. The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 witnessed European interests bargaining over the territories of Africa and arbitrarily dividing much of the continent into different countries under European control. This historical moment may be regarded as the height of Western influence over Africa, though it only continued the colonial tradition of viewing Africa as a land without culture, theatre, literature, or history (prior to the advent of the white man). The legacy of this outlook has placed African intellectuals and literary …

The Creation Of "Echolalia: A Conversation" A Production Thesis In Acting, Olga Michele Guidry

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis, submitted to the Graduate School of Louisiana State University as partial requirement for graduation with the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre, follows the creation of a solo performance piece by Michele Guidry, called “Echolalia: A Conversation.” This solo project is an exploration of communication through the experience of autism from the perspective of parents, siblings, and therapists of children with autism, and the children themselves. The thesis includes topics of inspiration for creating this solo performance piece, interviews with experts and theatre artists who have personal experience with autism, a copy of the script with explanation …

"Baby, Dream Your Dream": Pearl Bailey, Hello, Dolly!, And The Negotiation Of Race In Commerical American Musical Theatre, Charles Eliot Mehler

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In October of 1967, producer David Merrick closed his successful production of Hello, Dolly! Merrick reopened the show one month later with an all-black cast that featured the talents of performers Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway. While this Bailey Dolly! was a mammoth commercial success, this production brought attention to various problems concerning the interaction of black and white creative and performing talent in the venue of commercial American musical theatre. One such problem involved the risk of possible loss of genuine black culture and ignorance of recalcitrant intra-black-community difficulties and the extent to which African Americans should have desired …

Process As Product: The Culture Of Development And The Twenty-First Century American Dramatist, John Patrick Bray

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Simply stated, my research and my experiences as a playwright have led me to believe that the present condition of the playwright is that of a relic: that is, because of the notion that all plays need a developmental workshop, playwrights have not only lost authority over their art, but have also been driven to write plays meant for staged-readings rather than production. I argue that playwrights who create self-producing companies not only reclaim confidence in their craft, but also learn how to engage with the larger community via the collaborative process theatre. In this dissertation, I employ a theoretical …

Lavapiés, Madrid As Twenty-First Century Urban Spectacle, Matthew Isaiah Feinberg

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Informed by the theories of Henri Lefebvre regarding the production of space and the theories of scale found in current scholarship in Cultural Geography, my methodology analyzes both dramatic texts and theater spaces to investigate how cultural production and capital converge in the “spectacle” of urban space. While employing this term “spectacle” to describe how dramatic texts, theater productions, and modern architecture transform the urban landscape into a metaphoric theater space for the production of local, national, and global identities, this project examines the relationship between theater and urban change in Lavapiés, an iconic, multicultural, and oftenunderserved neighborhood located in …

(Im)Possibilities Of Theatre And Transgression: The Critical Impact Of Transgressive Theatrical Practices, Christopher J. Krejci

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While performance practitioners often rely on socially, aesthetically, and politically transgressive practices to critically impact the socio-political climate outside the theater walls, transgression is fraught with contradiction. Historically, acts of transgression have led to both the expansion and suppression of democratic rights. (Im)possibilites of Theatre and Transgression employs a critical lens that takes into account the historical and ideological specificities of individual productions in Austin, TX and Baton Rouge, LA to argue that transgressive theatrical practices both counter and reproduce normalizing discourses and discourses of domination in local and regional culture. This study focuses on the types of aesthetically, socially, …

"Spending The Day In Front Of The Mirror", Lauren Friedlander

Honors Papers

In this paper, I analyze the processes my group of collaborators and I underwent in direction, production, collaboration, acting, and writing in order to perform my original solo performance piece, JOHN.

Negotiating Comedy And Rape Culture In Gina Gionfriddo’S After Ashley, Jenny Gaeng

Honors Papers

Introduction and Background: A summary of the play’s genesis and important themes, including an introduction to the production’s goals – Interpretation- An explication of rape culture in the play, including my personal point of view on its themes and message, and the application of my research to the text – Aesthetic Intent: A description of the stylistic choices unique to this production, namely the use of video projection, and an explanation of its purpose – Script Analysis: A scene-by-scene description of the play’s events as applied to the overall arc and important themes – The Process: A summary of casting, …

Mieko Gavia: The Dog Project, Mieko Gavia

Honors Papers

This thesis chronicles my journey with my original theatrical piece, Dog, from inception to the end of its Oberlin College run, and includes a reflection of my experience and ideas for the future of the piece. I will provide both sociological and literary context for several important aspects of the show, as well as personal reflections on the process and discoveries made therein.

They Reckon I Need A Dramaturg : Examining The Value Of A Dramaturg To Both The Playwright And The Professional Theatre Company In Australia, Polly Low

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines aspects of dramaturgy delivered by a dramaturg, and the practical contributions of dramaturgs to both the writer and the theatre industry in Australia. It investigates elements of the working relationship between dramaturgs and playwrights, looks at the chameleon-like nature of the theatre dramaturg and examines how Australian writers, directors and dramaturgs perceive the role/s of the dramaturg. The thesis is partly a reflective investigation of personal practice, partly an historical investigation of the emergence of Australian ideas about dramaturgy, and partly an active investigation into what can help to make a constructive playwright/dramaturg relationship. A major aim …

Power To The Panza!: Feminist Body Politics In The Panza Monologues (Video Performance Review), Patricia Herrera

Theatre and Dance Faculty Publications

Grise relates to the audience with another dose of humor when she attempts to suck in her panza to fit into a pair of jeans. Alas, after all the jumping and tugging to fit into the jeans, Grise faces her biggest challenge: the roll of flesh bulging out from the zipper. Here, handy dandy pliers are brought to the rescue. She uses them to pull up the zipper and then victoriously stuffs the panza into her pants. This triumphant moment reveals women’s obsession with controlling and literally constraining the body so as to succumb to the hourglass figure young women …

Teaching Acting: Not As Simple As It Looks, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Lana Hagan Teaching Acting A Hard Act To Follow, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Jarrell Keeps Dancing Traditions Alive At Siue, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.