Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory Commons^™

Gestures Of Creative Recovery For The Egocentric Actor Through Performance In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good., Ross Joel Shenker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This document serves as a travelogue for the creation of two roles for the U of L Fall 2017 Production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good. At odds throughout the process were intellect and vulnerability. In an attempt to find openness with my primary scene partner, I tried a variety of techniques including, but not limited to: Konstantin Stanislavski’s “Bits and Tasks”; Michael Chekhov’s “Psychological Gesture”; Carl Jung’s theories on Archetype; F.M. Alexander’s notions of “Inhibition” and “Nondoing” as expounded upon by Betsy Polatin; and Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages.” My original goal of achieving vulnerability on stage became consumed …

A Director's Approach To Annie Baker's The Aliens, Evin Mcquistion

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A summary of the experience of directing The Aliens by Annie Baker including the process of research on the play and playwright, casting the production, rehearsing the play, and performing it.

A Director's Approach To Annie Baker's The Aliens, Evin Mcquistion

Undergraduate Honors Theses

An exploration of Annie Baker's play The Aliens through the perspective of student directing. This includes the process of research, casting, rehearsal, and performance of the play in the Spring of 2017 at East Tennessee State University.

The Socially Deviant (M)Other In Euripides' "Medea" And Two Modern Adaptations, Christina Faye Kramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For centuries male-dominated societies have developed their own culturally constructed images of the socially acceptable and socially deviant mothers. The thesis explores how the Grecian, Caribbean, and Irish cultures of Euripides’ Medea (431 BC), Steve Carter’s Pecong (1990), and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats (1998) respectively, all based on the Medea myth, commonly define the social deviant (m)other and condemn her for her “otherness.” It also discusses the limitations of each society’s decision to label the Medea-figure as socially deviant. Euripides creates an impossible dichotomy between the culturally constructed concepts of heroism and motherhood, which he locates in …

The Other At War: Performing The Spanish-Cuban-American War On U.S. And Cuban Stages, Juan R. Recondo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish-Cuban-American War, declared by the United States on April 25, 1898, marks a colonial shift in the history of the Caribbean and solidified the expansionist thrust of the United States outside national borders. Theatres in turn-of-the-century New York, which at this point was one of the theatrical centers of the nation, debated for audiences the imperialist character of the U.S. The Cuban struggle and the resulting Spanish-Cuban-American War permeated U.S. drama, thereby portraying a Caribbean in need of salvation by the military intervention of the United States. New York stages of the time became locations where various cultural representations …

Telling Room: Color In Action, Ryan Poag, Meaghan Gonsior

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

The Telling Room is a nonprofit writing center in Portland that helps young writers ages 6 to 18 build confidence, strengthen literacy skills, and provide real opportunities for students to display their creativity for audiences. Every year they approach creative writing through a unique theme to help keep young writers engaged. Their anthology’s theme this year is COLORS. Colors can symbolize and illustrate various aspects of life including human emotion, energy levels, and cultural phenomena. Using the connection between color and creativity, we have embarked on a project to produce a series of six short videos based on the colors …

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 …

Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Changing The Social Order, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner views the first four plays of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2018 season (Karen Zacarías's Destiny of Desire, Kate Hamill's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Othello, and Henry V) as expressions of social change.

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 …

An Historical Analysis Of The Relationship Between Organized Religion And Dramatic Theory, Emily Bubeck

Undergraduate Distinction Papers

Theatre artists and organized religion both use the same tactics and strategies in order to connect to their audiences. This isn’t a coincidence: Over the course of human history organized religion and performance traditions developed, grew and evolved together. Performance practices grew out of religious traditions and often incorporated elements of spiritual celebration and religious ritual into their practices. In ancient Greece dramatic practices developed as a celebration of the god Dionysus, Sanskrit theatre of Ancient India evolved as a means of communicating Hindu myths to the masses and Noh theatre of ancient Japan started as shamanistic dance traditions. During …

From London With Love

DePaul Magazine

No abstract provided.

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 …

The Personal Is Political: Performing Saint Joan In The Twenty-First Century, Susan Frances Russell

Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Contemporary theater makers aiming to present feminist-inflected interpretation of Shaw's Saint Joan could benefit from the practice of intertextuality: examining feminist playwrights' versions of Joan's story. Two plays by contemporary writers, Carolyn Gage's The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Martha Kemper's Me, Miss Krause and Joan can illuminate the most pressing contemporary issues, highlighting the ways that Shaw's version overlaps with current feminist concerns, including intersectionality, positionality, and sexual assault. Such a process would empower performers and audience members alike, and would help playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs avoid some of the pitfalls exhibited in the recent rock musical …

Radical Black Drama-As-Theory: The Black Feminist Dramatic On The Protracted Event-Horizon, Jaye Austin Williams

Faculty Journal Articles

In this essay, I elaborate my present project, grounded in what I call drama theory, the critical theoretical dimensions of dramatic writing, and address the deeply troubling intramural tensions across Black Studies, between those who read blackness, and black cultural production, through largely futurist, celebratory lenses; and those who apply a structural analysis to blackness as the site against, upon, and through which the world coheres its soci(et)al apparatuses and machinations. I situate myself within the latter constellation, and sample here two plays by Suzan-Lori Parks to demonstrate how I translate the analyses of antiblack violence by black feminist …

Dadless: Dead Dads In Hamlet And The Effects On Their Children, Erin Diiorio

Student and Faculty Research Days

This research is a close look at the methods of grief as depicted by the children who lose their fathers in William Shakespeare’s classic, Hamlet. The goal is to track each child’s reaction to the sudden bereavement in a variety of physical and emotional manifestations. This has been done by first examining current literature on the text, followed by a review of historical context of the period in which the play was written, and finally analyzing each character’s behavior. In doing so, this research seeks to highlight the importance of the presence of fathers within Hamlet and provide insight …

Theology, Phenomenology, And The Divine In King Lear, Kent R. Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"In what follows, then, I would like to think through Levinas's ideas on transcendence and ethics in such a way as to map out a new pathway for approaching Shakespeare's great tragedy. As unorthodox as it may sound, I propose to shed light on the darkling religiosity of King Lear by turning-not to the theological doctrines of early modem Christians-but to the postmodern ethics of a twentieth-century Jew."

Anything But Crazy: How American Musical Theatre Can Change Societal Stigmas Against Mental Illnesses, Benjamin Walton

Honors Undergraduate Theses

There is a societal stigma that villainizes or degrades anyone diagnosed or associated with any mental illness. While many different forms of media have attempted to destroy this stigma through psycho-centric narratives, I wanted to argue that musical theatre has the greatest potential as a live entertainment source to deconstruct and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. For my research, I theorized that musical theatre can most effectively change societal stigma about mental illness by communicating a clear understanding of the disease through music, and achieving popularity in the public eye longer than other live forms of theatre. I chose …

The Making Of A Raisin In The Sun, Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun premiered on the Broadway stage in January 1959 just as the edifice of national segregation was cracking open. Response to the momentous 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Bd. of Education included both the important early challenges to long-accepted practices of white supremacy and the intensified mobilization of widespread white defiance to the ruling. Black Bus boycotters in Montgomery, Alabama, and their young minister leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black high school students attempting to attend Little Rock’s Central High and their families faced organized harassment and dangerous forms …

Splitting Hair: Reviving The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical In The 1970s, Bryan M. Vandevender

Faculty Journal Articles

When Hair premiered on Broadway in 1968, the musical garnered attention

for its reflection the current cultural moment. Critics acknowledged

this congruence of form, content, and zeitgeist as the production’s greatest

asset. This alignment with the Vietnam era proved a liability nine

years later when Hair received its first Broadway revival, particularly

when the musical’s authors replaced many of the libretto’s cultural references

with allusions to the 1970s, further illuminating the musical’s

inherently time-bound qualities.

Whispering Together In The Dark: Rereading Samuel Beckett's Homosociality Through Harold Pinter, Aaron Botwick

Publications and Research

In a 1960 letter to a friend, Harold Pinter wrote of Samuel Beckett, “I’ll buy his goods hook, line, and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty; his work is beautiful.” What do we learn if we take the word “beautiful” seriously? Rereading Waiting for Godot backward through Betrayal, this article argues that Beckett’s landscape, typically read as a realization of postwar angst, is in fact one released of the pressures of contemporary living and for Pinter a homosocial Eden. Jerry’s joke upon discovering the adultery—“Maybe I should …

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 …

การพัฒนาทักษะการแสดงเพื่อสร้างตัวละครผู้หญิงจีน ในการแสดงเรื่อง รายละเอียด ไม่ได้ ร่างกาย อยาก ของชิน วุน ปิง ตามหลักการแสดงของไมเคิล เชคอฟ, กุนทรา ไชยชาญ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยชิ้นนี้มีจุดประสงค์เพื่อศึกษาและสังเคราะห์การนำหลักการแสดงของไมเคิล เชคอฟมาใช้เพื่อสร้างตัวละคร ผู้หญิงจีนในการแสดงเรื่อง รายละเอียด ไม่ได้ ร่างกาย อยาก โดยมุ่งเน้นไปที่การค้นหาและสร้างความเข้มข้นทางความรู้สึกภายในที่ มีลักษณะซับซ้อน เนื่องจากการหล่อหลอมอัตลักษณ์ทางวัฒนธรรมที่มีความแตกต่างจากตัวผู้แสดง ผู้วิจัยเริ่มต้นจากการทำงานศึกษาบทละครเพื่อนำมาประกอบการสร้างตัวละคร หลังจากนั้นใช้หลักการแสดงของไมเคิล เชคอฟเป็นหลักในการค้นหา พัฒนาและสร้างสรรค์ตัวละครระหว่างการฝึกซ้อมจนกระทั่งถึงวันนำเสนอผลงาน โดยเก็บรวบรวม ข้อมูลเพื่อนำมาประเมินผลจากการจดบันทึก บันทึกวีดีโอ แบบสอบถาม การเสวนาและบทสัมภาษณ์ผู้ชมและผู้เชี่ยวชาญด้าน ศิลปะการแสดงในวันนำเสนอผลงาน ระหว่างการดำเนินงานผู้วิจัยค้นพบว่าหลักการแสดงของไมเคิล เชคอฟเป็นหลักการแสดงที่ช่วยพัฒนาทักษะการแสดง ของนักแสดงและทำให้นักแสดงตระหนักถึงพลังแห่งจินตนาการ นำไปสู่การทำงานกับตัวละครอย่างสร้างสรรค์และไร้ขีดจำกัด ช่วย ให้นักแสดงสามารถก้าวข้ามข้อจำกัดของตนเองไปสู่การสร้างตัวละครอย่างสร้างสรรค์ จากการประเมินผลการวิจัย ผู้วิจัยพบว่าหลักสำคัญของนักแสดงในการทำงานกับตัวละครที่มีความแตกต่างทาง วัฒนธรรมกับนักแสดง คือ การศึกษาบทละครเพื่อทำความเข้าใจบริบททางสังคม การเมืองและวัฒนธรรมเพื่อสร้างตัวละครให้มี ความสมจริงน่าเชื่อถือ และการศึกษาเทคนิคการแสดงที่เหมาะสมกับนักแสดงและตัวละครเพื่อช่วยให้นักแสดงสามารถเข้าถึง บทบาทของตัวละครได้อย่างสมบูรณ์ สิ่งเหล่านี้จะสามารถทำให้นักแสดงเชื่อมโยงการทำงานกับตัวละครได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ ส่งผลให้ลักษณะตัวละครที่ แสดงออกมีความน่าสนใจ มีลักษณะเฉพาะ และทำให้ผู้ชมสามารถเข้าถึงตัวละครได้ง่าย สามารถสร้างตัวละครได้สอดคล้องกับบท ละครได้อย่างน่าเชื่อถือและสมจริง

One-Third Of A Nation, The Second Amendment, A Living Newspaper Play, Linda Ann Watt

Theses and Dissertations

One-Third of a Nation, the Second Amendment, a Living Newspaper Play

Thesis By Linda Ann Watt for a MFA Degree in Theatre Pedagogy

Documentary theatre, including living newspapers and verbatim theatre, use socio-political commentary at critical moments in history to disseminate facts and offer ideological critique dramatizing the crisis through the lens of emotion, which can incite societal change. This thesis explores this didactic medium with a written play about the second Amendment and gun violence.

Manipulated Manipulation: The Political Origins And Implications Of Shakespeare's Henry V, Kate Morton

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Shakespeare’s Henry V has long been one of the most ambiguous adaptations of the story of England’s most celebrated historical figure: King Henry V. This adaptation raises the question of why Shakespeare presents Henry V in a way that not only differs significantly from the other accounts of Henry V’s life, but is also entirely ambiguous as to whether this presentation of Henry V’s character is optimistic or pessimistic in nature. In my thesis, I will argue that the ambiguities present in Henry V are actually a result of Shakespeare's own stress over the political succession looming over England at …

Immigrant Communities, Cultural Conflicts, And Intermarriage In Ann Marie Di Mambro's Tally's Blood, Ian Brown

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the stage history, structure and themes of Anne Marie Di Mambro’s play Tally’s Blood (1990), especially in terms of the cultural stresses on Italian immigrant families in Scotland in the 1930s and the impact on them of the Second World War.

“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 …

Mutations Dans L’Écriture Théâtrale Au Burkina Faso De 1980 À Nos Jours, Hamadou Mandé

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article takes an analytical look at the evolution of drama writing in Burkina Faso from 1980 to the present. Based mainly on a corpus of five dramatic texts of five renowned authors, it shows how in form as in content, the theatrical text has undergone important changes that respond to a socio-cultural rooting need but also a determination to stick to current realities. The study is based on methodological resources of the theatrical text analyses resulting from mixed approaches combining the work of Anne Ubersfeld, Patrice Pavis and Sylvie Chalaye.

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.