Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

In Search Of A Stimulating Visual Dance Art Medium: Overlapping Realities In Live And Screen Dance, Yael Levitin Saban

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper captures research into historical examples of artistic performance pioneers who integrated multiple layers of imagery into complex dialogue and describes how this research inspired and influenced the creation of an original 17-minute video work, “Overlay.”. My interest throughout my MFA Thesis Project has been to understand the effect of fusing or layering multiple movement-based art forms, the application and integration of modern technology to established traditional stage performance, and the creation of engaging new art form.

The Launch 2020: A Senior Cabaret, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

No abstract provided.

Taking Student Artists And Audiences To The West Side: Exploring The Value Of Creative Adaptation In An Arts Context Through A Case Study Of “West Side Story”, Rebecca G. Bateson-Brown

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the practical application and conceptual acceptance of deliberate creative adaptation within the purview of the performing arts and arts education. More specifically, it centers this conversation around stagings of the iconic musical West Side Story, as my role as a choreographer and arts educator is used to further explore, examine, and emphasize these topics through the documentation of my production planning process, choreographic creation, and ultimate execution of performance material for a local high school production of the show. As such, this project builds with greater specificity off of my previous investigations of “adaptation” as …

In The Next Room, Or The Vibrator Play

Theatre Programs

No abstract provided.

Dance 2020: The Wild Within, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

The Dance Concert, inspired by Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic, “Where the Wild Things Are,” will include a collection of solos, duets and trios which will illuminate the immense power of imagination and prove without a doubt that there’s a wild thing within us all.

An Enemy Of The People, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

When a water contamination crisis puts their community in peril, siblings face off in a battle of political ambitions and moral integrity.

The Theory Of Relativity, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

Whether you're allergic to cats, in love for the first or tenth time, a child of divorce, a germaphobe, or simply a unique individual, you’re sure to find yourself in this fresh new musical.

Reframing The Family Portrait: The Surrogate Mother In U.S. Theatre And Film 1939–1963, Alison Walls

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reframing the Family Portrait: The Surrogate Mother in U.S. Theatre and Film, 1939–1963 investigates the U.S. plays, films, and musicals of this period that abound with heroines who mother children to whom they are not genetically tied. This dissertation asks why such a figure was so resonant in this era between the beginning of World War II and the emergence of more radical 1960s politics. Newly in the spotlight as a romantic protagonist, the “surrogate mother,” as I have chosen to call her, re-envisions the archetypal mother through a contemporizing lens, distinctive in her mother/not-mother status. Critical analysis of Penny …

Exploring Inclusion In A Therapeutic Theater Production, Angelle Cook

Expressive Therapies Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the lived experiences of participants in an inclusive therapeutic theater production. This study was approached through a post-intentional phenomenological lens, informed by critical dis/ability theory. Ten participants with various dis/abilities took part in semi-structured interviews and eight of the ten participated in a focus group. The researcher followed a post-reflexion plan during the data collection and analysis process to bridle her biases and assumptions. Data were analyzed using the phenomenological method of thematic analysis. An art-based research process was undertaken, and a script, using direct quotes from the participant’s interviews and the …

The Good War?: Reinterpreting The Second World War In Contemporary Musical Theatre, Leana Sottile

SURF Posters and Papers

For years, American musicals have contributed to the mythologization of the Second World War and upheld ‘Greatest Generation’ nostalgia in mainstream war memory. For example, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific is effectively silent on the brutality and dehumanization of the Pacific Theater and exoticizes the experience of service members. In the past five years, the New York theatre scene has seen three shows that portray the Second World War more accurately and less romantically: Allegiance, Bandstand, and Alice by Heart. While none of these shows ran for longer than a few months in New York, in that short …

A Quantitative Study Of Transformational Leadership And Safety Incidence In A Unionized Public Utility, Ronald D. Schoff

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Worker Safety is an area of high focus. Costs and impacts associated with incidents of workplace injury or fatality can have powerful effects on the organization. Workplace leadership style studies have shown statistically significant relationships between leadership style and rates of OSHA incidence and severity. One such example is transformational leadership. Studies have been completed in various industries, including high hazard industries that confirm this positive relationship. Organized labor offers many benefits of value to the employment sector. Such benefits as higher wages and better workplace safety practices contribute to society in economic and health related ways, among others. Transformational …

Evaluating Audience Engagement Of An Immersive Performance On A Virtual Stage, Victoria J. Kraj, Thomas Maranzatto, Joe Geigel, Reynold Bailey, Cecillia Ovesdotter Alm

Frameless

Presenting theatrical performances in virtual reality (VR) has been an active area of research since the early 2000's. VR provides a unique form of storytelling, which is made possible through the use of physically and digitally distributed 3D worlds.

We describe a methodology for determining audience engagement in a virtual theatre performance. We use a combination of galvanic skin response (GSR) data, self-reported positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS), post-viewing reflection, and a think aloud method to assess user reaction to the virtual reality experience.

In this study, we combine the implicit physiological data from GSR with explicit user feedback …

The Scenic Design Of "A Little Night Music", Kathleen Holmes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Little Night Music by Hugh Wheeler and Stephen Sondheim was produced by the University of Arkansas Department of Theatre in 2018-2019 academic school year. The scenic design process entailed a series of private meetings, design meetings, independent research, and analysis that all culminated into a full scenic design package. The show itself has many locations that quickly transition into one another. It was my challenge as the designer to cohesively design the scenery so that it could be transitioned easily and in time with the music. The major themes of the show that I based the design around were …

Technology Attributes, Organizational Learning Attributes, Service Attributes, And Electronic Health Record Implementation Success, Anuradha Rangarajan

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a technology innovation which has the potential to offer valuable benefits to the healthcare industry such as improved quality of patient care and safety, optimization of healthcare workflow processes and availability of electronic data for clinical research. The implementation success of EHR is therefore significant to the healthcare industry in the United States and around the world. Prior studies in research literature have considered the impact of technology attributes, organizational learning attributes, and service attributes on information technology implementations in various other domains based on theories such as Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), Theory of …

Scenic Design For “Topdog Underdog”, Austin Aschbrenner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 2019 production of Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks at the University of Arkansas was produced with a guest director who, throughout the process of the production, experimented with the typical perception of the Pulitzer Prize winning play and added conceptual spins to help open the eyes of the mostly small town and rural based audience. This thesis will explore the various elements of this particular production and which of these elements contributed to exploring the depths of Topdog/Underdog.

This document will analyze the design process of the University of Arkansas’s production of Topdog/Underdog, and will analyze specific design choices which …

Desegregation Through Entertainment: Rodgers And Hammerstein’S South Pacific As An Instrument Of Military Policy, Leana Sottile

Voces Novae

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific became a staple of mainstream popular culture. However, the musical also served a specific function within the American military where its usage by the United Service Organizations and Department of Defense was widespread. This case study examines how South Pacific arguably served a way to ease the blow of desegregation on the military by other means, in this case, entertainment. This was achieved by combining the show’s progressive views on racial tolerance with the prevalent wartime nostalgia and romanticism in the piece. All of …

Critically And Creatively Engaging With Trauma-Informed Mental Health Research And Treatment Of Lgbtqia+ Communities As Expressive Arts Therapists: A Literature Review, Kelli Lavallee

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Expressive Arts Therapists are uniquely situated as both artists and mental health counselors working in psychological pedagogy rooted in systems of oppression. Given the arts-based approaches to the therapeutic relationship, it can be unethical to offer these approaches without acknowledgement of the ways in which the arts intersect with social justice, and justice is only viable if practitioners critically review the clinical mental health education they are consuming from the institutions they learn in, specifically trauma-informed mental health research assimilation and treatment approaches for Expressive Arts Therapists in training, practice, and education. A review of the literature in this paper …

Kinesthetic Language: A Dialect Of Kinesics, Terrill Suzanne Corletto

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Human communication requires the disciplines regarding physical fitness, codified language, and the performing arts to overlap, and exist symbiotically. Within the realm of artistic performance, the three disciplines working together deliver a deliberate message in a way unique to performing artists. The general tendency to compartmentalize sports, communication, and the performing arts into their pigeonhole categories of Kinesiology, Linguistics, and Theatre Arts is impractical, particularly for performing artists simply because all of the disciplines are mutually dependent in the context of all kinesthetic communications.

The purpose of this paper is to define and discuss several concepts and the ways in …

Providing Useful Feedback, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This reflection is based on an educational assignment from my Oral Interpretation of Literature course at California State University, San Bernardino, April 2019.

Assessment is an essential part of education. However, assessment shouldn’t necessarily come from only one source-the teacher. I believe students benefit from receiving feedback from not only their instructor, but from their peers and lastly from themselves. This layered reflection allows one to learn from what others feel about their work. It is essential to have a second eye if we are to grow as learners.

This multi-perspective view allows the student to offer critical analysis to …

Planning An Effective Class Session, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This reflection is based on an educational assignment from my Intro to Theatre course at California State University, San Bernardino, April 2019.

As an educator, I am always interested in combining new techniques with tried and true approaches. My hope is twofold- enhance my students learning and keep me inspired.

The concept of a beginning, middle and end in all classes, provides structure for your students and keeps the pedagogy focused.

I incorporated the “I do, we do, you do” approach to support a well-balanced framework for the class period. This technique is a creative take on a beginning, middle …

Developing And Using Grading Guides, Checklists, And Rubrics, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This reflection is based on an educational assignment from my Intro to Theatre Arts course at California State University, San Bernardino, May 2019.

Providing students guidance when taking on a new assignment is essential. This direction may be achieved through a variety of sources: lectures, videos, examples of past students work, rubrics etc.

One approach, which may benefit the learner in the immediate and have a lasting impression, is teaching students to use the grading tool at hand (rubric/checklist) to improve assignments.

Following an example you have provided, the instructor will work with their students to use either a checklist …

Aligning Assessments With Course Outcomes, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This reflection is based on an educational assignment from my Oral Interpretation of Literature course at California State University, San Bernardino, May 2019.

A consistent focus and goal for me as an educator is to align assessments with course outcomes.

The learning outcome for this class session focused on the cognitive approach- “students will develop the skills to communicate an oral interpretation of literature to an audience with believability, dramatic action and honesty.”

The intention of this class period was for my students to clearly understand the difference between acting, reading and oral interpretation. Oral Interpretation is a type of …

Providing Clear Directions And Explanations, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Giving students an opportunity to do group work in a Public Speaking course allows for an exchange of ideas from various points of view. This activity based on Persuasive Speech can further the students understanding of the assignment in a safe collective.

Working as a team develops strong foundations from which to build a powerful argument based not only on value but factual claims. The outcome of this group activity encourages the steps of building a problem/solution organizational pattern presentation.

The hope of this assessment is to scaffold into a solo presentation building from what the learner has employed from …

Responding To Writing By Responding To Learning By Giving Effective Feedback, Carol Damgen, Carol L. Damgen

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This paper was a reflection on responding to your students writing by beginning the process with positive feedback. As writing instructors, it is important to focus on what our students are doing correctly with academic writing submissions and then offer suggestions for improvement.

Female Leaders Navigate The Arts, Post 'Me Too', Peyton Kennedy

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

As the lights dim and the curtain rises on a theatrical production, there are roles to fill onstage and off. Perhaps the most important roles in modern theatre are those of leadership. Leaders in the arts have the power to influence company communication, shape the culture of the rehearsal room and navigate through a crisis. However, leadership and power can be manipulated, as the world witnessed through the ‘me too’ movement. As allegations rose against prominent leaders, the push for change strengthened. We are now three years past Hollywood’s ignition of the ‘me too’ movement, which prompts the question: have …

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Lighting The Stage: The Lighting Design Process And Production Of Will Eno's Middletown, Levi Bradford

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The world of theatre focuses on presentation and showmanship, but what audience never sees is often the most vital parts of the show. Behind the curtains, in the backstage of the theatre is where the real magic happens. This paper focuses on shedding some light on one aspect of the backstage. Without light, nothing would be seen. Follow along as the process of being chosen, creating, research, and production are revealed and explained to make the backstage more appreciated.

“More Beautiful Than God!”: Hair And Makeup Design For Eugene O’Neill’S Ah, Wilderness, Jackson L. Jones

Honors Theses

This thesis follows an undergraduate theatre designer’s process of designing and realizing hair and makeup for the University of Southern Mississippi’s Spring 2020 production of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! The student conducted a thorough script analysis, researched Edwardian style and society, and collaborated with the production’s artistic team to produce effective hair and makeup designs and fulfill practicum requirements.

The Legend Of Georgia Mcbride: Change In Light Of Passion, Bryce Bassett

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

This thesis describes the research and production processes of the lighting design for the play, The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, performed in the Johnny Carson Theatre at the Lied Center for Performing Arts from October 2^nd through October 13^th, 2019. The play was directed by guest artist Steve Scott with scenic design by Marty Wolff, costumes by Rebecca Armstrong, sound design by Jeff O’Brien, technical direction provided by Austin Elledge, and master electrician Joshua Mullady.

This thesis contains the entire lighting process including the initial meetings, research, conceptualization, technical rehearsals, critical response, paperwork, and …

The Glass Menagerie: Lighting Design Analysis And Reflection, Adam Jezl-Sikorski

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 and Film at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, designated Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie as its second production for the 2019-2020 season. The production began previews on Wednesday, November 06, opened Friday, November 08, and ended their run on Sunday, November 17, 2019. As the lighting designer for this production, it was my responsibility to provide the master electrician with the plans and paperwork necessary to physically realize my artist vision. This included a drawn-to-scale light plot, channel hookup, and instrument schedule denoting the placement of lighting equipment …