Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Trespassing Physical Boundaries: Transgression, Vulnerability And Resistance In Sarah Kane’S Blasted (1995), Paula Barba Guerrero, Ana Mª Manzanas Calvo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Sarah Kane’s Blasted has been analyzed from various perspectives that address the layers of destruction it exposes. From the questioning of its title and meaning, to the unravelling of the protagonists’ abusive relationship, the analyses have emphasized the depiction of vulnerability as the defining human trait that Jean Ganteau observes in contemporary British literature. However, a key aspect has been overlooked in the critical response to the play: for Kane vulnerability does not equal helplessness, but rather stands in opposition to it. Hence, this article concentrates on how Blasted formulates a new understanding of vulnerability that fits Judith Butler’s later …

The Mixed Reception Of The Hamilton Premiere In Puerto Rico, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders about the challenges of premiering the famed Broadway musical, Hamilton, during a time of political discord in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico.

“The Ground On Which I Stand” Healing Queer Trauma Through Performance: Crafting A Solo Performance Through The Investigation Of Ritual Poetic Drama Within The African Continuum, Ashley W. Grantham

Theses and Dissertations

“The Ground On Which I Stand”

Healing Queer Trauma through Performance:

Crafting a Solo Performance through the investigation of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum.

By: Ashley W. Grantham

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Performance Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University

April 16^th, 2019

Thesis Adjudicator: Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates

Committee: Dr. Keith Byron Kirk, Director of Graduate Studies and Karen Kopryanski, Head of Voice and Speech

How does this method of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum, by extension, solo performance, …

Who Is Paying For God: A Thematic Analysis Of Henry Arthur Jones's Religious Plays In Relation To The Modernist Trend, Jay Tyler Sharma

All Master's Theses

This thesis project argues for the value of Henry Arthur Jones’s work in the late 1890s and seeks to illustrate that Jones’s contribution to the larger Modernist movement in the theatre. Using a close textual analysis of Jones’s plays Michael and His Lost Angel, Judah, and Saints and Sinners, this project examines Jones’s use of popular theatrical genres to provide commentary on the religious and fiscal tensions in the surrounding Victorian society. The critical commentary in Jones’s plays is then used to draw a connection between Jones’s work and his fight for dramatists to have greater freedom in the topics …

Dramatic Themes: Active Learning And Thematic Teaching In The Theatre History Classroom, Brandon Lareau

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores major texts dealing with pedagogical theory and active learning in the context of a theatre history class. By comparing a class which is taught in the traditional, chronological format relying heavily on lectures to a class taught in a newer, thematic format utilizing active learning the thesis defines what student-centered learning means. Active learning, its benefits, and its implementation are explained and explored, along with the advantages and benefits of teaching thematically instead of chronologically. All of this is applied to a theatre history class in the resulting syllabus in chapter three. The syllabus creates a curriculum …

Story & Style: Pursuing Excellence On The Academic Stage, Ryan M. Decker

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis is a brief view of the 2017-2018 production of Marco Ramirez’s contemporary play The Royale, as produced by Theatre UNO, the theatre production arm of the University of New Orleans’ Department of Film & Theatre. This thesis will include initial responses, analysis, interpretation, production synthesis and communication, and reflection with conclusions on performance, directing, and pedagogy in academic theatre. This thesis is supported by documentation of the production process, including a scored script. The play was performed in New Orleans, Louisiana at the University of New Orleans Performing Arts Center’s Robert E. Nims Theatre, November 9-19, …

Anna Larpent And Shakespeare, Fiona Ritchie

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Anna Larpent (1758-1832) is a crucial figure in theater history and the reception of Shakespeare since drama was a central part of her life. Larpent was a meticulous diarist: the Huntington Library holds seventeen volumes of her journal covering the period 1773-1830. These diaries shed significant light on the part Shakespeare played in her life and contain her detailed opinions of his works as she experienced them both on the page and on the stage in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century London. Larpent experienced Shakespeare’s works in a variety of forms: she sees Shakespeare’s plays performed, both professionally and by …

The Picture Of Dorian Gray: An Immersive Experience, Natalie Love

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

This project studied the effects of immersive theatre on an audience using a script adapted from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. This project explored how to best adapt a literary work into a performance piece, and rather than creating a traditional piece of theatre, creating an immersive work. The process included research in literature, new work creation, and theatre devising as well as the rehearsals and preparation necessary for the production. Using a small cast of Otterbein performance students, the piece was performed four times in one day with different audience groups in so that I could …

Rethinking Ionesco’S Absurd: The Bald Soprano In The Interlingual Context Of Vichy And Postwar France, Julia Elsky

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Rereading Eugène Ionesco’s postwar play La cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) in the light of the original, wartime Romanian version alongside archival materials concerning his political activity in Vichy France allows us to reconsider his role in the theater of the absurd. Instead of staging the emptiness of language in a conformist world, the Romanian play dramatizes how language and language exchange created meaning but also upheld state violence during the Second World War. Although the French version of the play adapts this theme to the postwar context, traces of state power over language remain. This new approach …

The Lines Between The Lines: Stage Directions As Fluid, Affective Collaborations Between Theatre Texts And Theatre Makers, Sarah Bess Rowen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project contends that certain kinds of stage directions can affectively engage the bodies of actors, and the imaginations of directors and designers, resulting in a collaboratively created performance of a given theatre text. As opposed to more literary treatments of stage directions, this project contends that theories of embodiment, especially affect theory, is a useful lens through which to explore the range of potential performances present in various stage directions. By analyzing the ways in which stage directions allow for more agency than has traditionally been considered in theatre scholarship, I seek to encourage theatre makers and scholars alike …

Paul Ibell: Tennessee Williams, Verna Foster

Department of Fine & Performing Arts: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A review of Paul Ibell's Tennessee Williams, written by Verna Foster.

The Dissemination Of Responsibility: Exploring The Audience As Bystander In Theatre, Helen Rooker

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study focuses on finding how theatrical technique and process changes when the audience is reframed as bystanders. I hoped to find ways that theatre artists could fight against the bystander effect in life by bringing it into our theatres. The study was written in conjunction with a production of Nine by Jane Shepard. Nine is a piece about two women who are imprisoned. The audience does not know where they are, how long they have been there, or who has taken them—just that they are regularly raped and tortured. The play is treated as a focal point for my …

“We Are Going Live In 3, 2, 1...”: Examining Liveness Amidst Streaming Technology, Jessica Jeanne Johnson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The products of the theatre, film, and television industries are becoming increasingly homogenized. The modes of entertainment which feature a live audience experience (film and theatre) have seen a gradual decrease in ticket sales to these experiences, while simultaneously there has been a rapidly increasing number of subscriptions to streaming services providing access to productions from all three mediums (film, theatre, television). This fact represents the public’s divergence from the idea of traditional “liveness.” Many scholars believe that liveness has the ability to manifest itself in many mediatized forms (such as in 3D, surround sound, etc.), and while this is …

A Dramaturgical Exploration: Setting Oliver Goldsmith’S She Stoops To Conquer In Post-Civil War Virginia, Amanda Ward

Senior Honors Theses

A reputable theatrical company will hire a dramaturg to implement historical research and to provide reputable information where the director or staff desires it. They ensure that the play’s elements are as truthful to the time period as possible and aid in a performance’s overall success. If a theatrical company were to set Oliver Goldsmith’s play She Stoops to Conquer in 1870 Virginia, it could strengthen the play’s underlying religious, political, and cultural elements.

The paper is comprised of seven sections: a biography of the playwright, a religious exploration, a political analysis, a cultural comparison, a delineation of suggested script …

Théâtre Burkinabè Contemporain Et Dramaturgie De L’Entre-Deux : Aristide Tarnagda Et Sophie Kam, Christophe Konkobo

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

What do contours of contemporary Burkinabe drama look like? By attempting to answer such a question, we analyzed a number of plays written by both Aristide Tarnagda and Sophie Heidi Kam, two young playwrights from Burkina Faso. The works examined in this article show first and foremost aesthetic approaches and thematic concerns not often seen in previous dramatic writings. The contemporary plays are always set in symbolically defined “empty spaces” where characters seek to define their identity against internal and external pressures.

Thinking Before You Act: A Constructive Logic Approach To Crafting Performance-For- Development Narrative, Angela Duggins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this thesis was to test the feasibility of constructing performance-for-development narrative using a constructive logic approach. I created an equation which expressed the sum of non-human-elements as the sum of a narrative with each element serving as a variable. I used a review of persuasion literature to provide insight into the selection and manipulation of each variable. I provided my family as a hypothetical example and used my knowledge of their preferences and communication styles in conjunction with the literature and the equation to craft a narrative which might increase pro-school attitudes in other families like my …

Theatre For Social Change: Histories & Applications, Samantha J. Hageman

Theater Summer Fellows

Theater is not only an art form, but also a method of communication and community-building. My research investigates how theater can be used to create social change. I study approaches to using theater as a vehicle for social change and a tool to communicate diverse perspectives and cultivate empathy. My work focuses on a history of theater for social change, examples of theater for social change including plays and performance pieces, and ways of both creating and teaching theater for social change. My project culminates in an annotated bibliography, a research paper, an original theater for social change monologue, and …

4000 Matches On Fire At Once: Studies In Memory And Performance, Lauren Chapman

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In examining the journey that has brought me to the position I am in as a dramaturg, artist, and person, it would be at best rude and at worst irresponsible not to acknowledge the universe of people, productions, and ideas that have molded me. Just as plays are composites and amalgams of ideas, emotions, styles, and themes, so is an emerging dramaturg. My experience is both entirely my own, and not my own at all. In reflecting this experience for my thesis exhibit, I feel it’s important to isolate those individuals and ideas that have molded me.

By presenting their …

The Shadow Puppets Of Elsinore: Edward Gordon Craig And The Cranach Press Hamlet, James P. Taylor

Mime Journal

Taylor considers the role that book arts may play in Craig’s theories of the new theatre, or the Art of the Future. He expands our understanding of Craig’s design work to include print culture, examining his engravings for the monumental editions of Hamlet published by Count Harry Kessler’s Cranach Press in 1929–30. Taylor explores the relationship of Craig’s designs for the 1912 Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet to his engravings for the German and English-language Cranach Press editions of the play. He suggests that it was only with this print publication that Craig finally achieved the absolute artistic control …

Rivalry In Toyer: The Impact Of The Male Gaze And The Final Girl On Theatrical Conflict, Sento Ashby

Liberal Arts Capstones

Although much progress has been made in recent years, traditional gender roles still permeate society. This project investigated gender constructs in relation to choreographed violence and found that females are often victims unless they adopt masculine survival styles, while males are usually aggressors – particularly towards females. Analysis of the characters in the play Toyer by Gardner McKay supported this conclusion.

Playing With Croxton, Molly Mccann

Selected Honors Theses

The Croxton Play of the Sacrament is an often overlooked, yet highly important piece for understanding the social climate of England in the fifteenth century.

This time period was riddled with religious and nationalist anxieties ingrained in the text of Croxton. This paper is designed to give an overview of these tensions and explain how our production of this drama sought to navigate and translate these tensions for a modern audience.

Three Readings Of Reading, Pennsylvania: Approaching Lynn Nottage’S Sweat And Douglas Carter Beane’S Shows For Days, Courtney Mohler, Christina Mcmahon, David Román

Scholarship and Professional Work – Arts

No abstract provided.

Autobiographical Poetry To Plays: Taking Memoir To A Theatrical Level, Ryan P. Tofil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pulitzer prize winning playwright John Patrick Shanley wrote, “Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.” For my Capstone Project, I have compiled my autobiographical poetry, prose, and performance monologues into a theatrical manuscript to be used as the basis for a play. The final Capstone Project is a manuscript of an anticipated theatrical production based on the grieving process surrounding my brother's suicide, as well as an exploration of my sexuality and the relationships I developed during the years surrounding his death.

The Capstone Project’s theatrical manuscript is also accompanied by a …

Staging (Within) Violence: A Conversation With Frank Wilderson And Jaye Austin Williams, Jaye Austin Williams

Faculty Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

In Pursuit Of Women Scientists: Using Science Plays To Promote Women Entering Stem Disciplines, Danielle Hartman

Theses and Dissertations

Higher education currently seeks to increase female enrollment in STEM. Women face many challenges attempting to breach this male dominated arena with misconceptions, gender stereotypes, and few female role models. With the recent trend in higher education to encourage more women to enter the STEM disciplines and K-12 schools cutting funding for arts programs, theatre may be losing its value in the education system. The value of interdisciplinary studies is beginning to be forgotten during the grade school years as school boards battle budget cuts, but we can remind society of it through science plays. Theatre artists use other disciplines …

Maria Rosa, Adaptada Al Cinema Per Cecil B. Demille, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En l'época actual, en la qual l'éxit teatral s'acostuma a mesurar en funció del reconeixement internacional, molts dramaturgs contemporanis han somniat un muntatge a Nova York o, fins i tot, un triomf a Hollywood. Potser els sorprendria saber que fa aproximadament cent anys, Ángel Guimerá, sens dubte el dramaturg catalá més prominent del seu temps, ja havia complert aquest somni gairebé impossible quan dues de les seves obres teatrals més famoses, Maria Rosa (1894) i Terra baixa (1896), es van estrenar en versió anglesa sota els focus de Broadway. De fet, entre els anys 1903 i 1914, les obres de …

A Patriot For Men: The Politics Of Masculinity In John Osborne's "A Patriot For Me", Joshua Kelly

All Master's Theses

By applying David Savran’s scholarship on the politics of masculinity to John Osborne’s play A Patriot for Me (1965), I demonstrate that Osborne exemplified contradictory sexual politics in the play, and was criticized as homophobic and praised as revolutionary in similarly contradictory original reviews. I argue that play very much typifies the heteronormative politics of masculinity by placing a dominant homosexual (Redl) as protagonist, and inverts the positions of the period woman and the staged effeminate man. Redl is historically represented as a heroic homosexual, but is actually a heteronormative object. I provide evidence for this interpretation by employing Savran …

The Naïve Ingénue, The Plucky Everyman's Hero, And The Ingénue Gone Awry: The Satirical Deconstruction Of Theatrical Character Tropes In Urinetown: The Musical, Victoria Montecillo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis looks to explore Urinetown: The Musical through a critical and theoretical framework, analyzing the show's presentation and deconstruction of theatrical character tropes through musical satire. Using the theories of theatre theorists such as Bertolt Brecht, Peter Brook, and Augusto Boal, this thesis discusses the use of theatre as a device for political and social commentary. Additionally, this thesis focuses more specifically on the show's character of Penelope Pennywise as a new kind of character in the theatre: an "ingénue gone awry," within the context of approaching a performance of the character in a performance of the musical.

Drama Has Issues: A Brief Retrospective On The American Theatre Critic In New York From 1925 To Present, Teresa M. Kilzi

HIM 1990-2015

Theatre criticism has evolved with the advancement of technology and the decline of print journalism. As consumers are given increasing agency by which they can filter the news and reporting they read and occasionally replace it with their own, the idea that a sole voice on a certain topic brandishes more dominance over it than the masses of people involved in its creation and sustainment becomes progressively absurd. Conversely, however, readers rely on theatre critics to make theatergoing decisions for them explicitly because critics are supposed experts on the subject and their opinions are to be respected and observed accordingly. …

Dramaturgos Catalanes: Un Nuevo Cosmopolitismo, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Las giras y traducciones, normalmente de manera conjunta, han servido como barómetros de la vitalidad de la escena del teatro catalán. En Cataluña la movilidad es sinónimo habitual del prestigio, y el éxito en el teatro se mide de manera frecuente en función de su alcance y reputación internacionales. Además, para los dramaturgos que escriben en catalán, siempre conscientes de la precaria situación de su lengua e identidad cultural, su paradójica posición política de distancia y proximidad en relación con España ha podido acentuar el anhelo de pertenecer a una mayor esfera global.