Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Using Laughter To Inspire Change: Absurdist Theatre In Oppressive Societies, Mia Villeneuve

Honors Theses

The 1959 play Rhinoceros by French playwright Eugène Ionesco is one of many plays considered by Martin Esslin to be a part of "Theatre of the Absurd" a genre of plays written by mostly European playwrights in the late 1950's. These plays typically center around ideas of existentialism, and seem to lack any type of logical consistency. Rhinoceros centers around a small French town in which all the inhabitants slowly turn into rhinoceroses, and was a response to the uprising of fascism in Nazi Germany and a commentary on how social ideas spread.

This thesis will discuss the use of …

Devising Performance & Queer Futurity, Brendan F. Leonard

Honors Theses

This project argues that devising performance is an inherently queer and utopian form. In response to recent political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, which seek to stage dissatisfaction with the systems of late capitalism, I turn to devising performance as a site. Informed by the queer and performance theories of Jose Esteban Munoz, Lee Edelman, and Jill Dolan, I argue that devised theater allows us to process disillusionment, rehearse collectivity, and stage futurity. In conversation with Munoz, I define futurity as an imaginative site that considers what will follow what some scholars suggest will be …

A Creative And Scholarly Exploration Of Edna Obrien’S Iphigenia, Danya Gee Martin

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I will document the creative work I completed for my Senior Acting Project. I will also explore my Senior Acting Project from a more ‘conventional’ academic standpoint. I will explore various definitions of tragedy and argue my own definition; I will also investigate who Euripides was as a writer and human being. I will then apply my findings to three different versions of Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis: a classical translation, a more contemporary translation, and the adaptation I performed for my SAP. I will argue whether or not each meets my criteria for a tragedy, …