Other Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

Play From The Heart: On Crafting A Community Of Empathy In The Theatre, Kevin Kingston

The Theatre School MFA in Directing Theses

The power of story goes beyond mere escapist entertainment. Yes it should entertain, but that is not the ultimate goal. It may even offer a bit of escape, but again this is not the holy grail. When we experience a well-crafted narrative, we are called to cross a threshold. We pass through the door of our own life and enter into the experience of another. This is what we mean when we say we "got lost" in the story. We take on the experience of another as our own. When a group of people experience a narrative they cross this …

A Method To The Madness: My Quest For A New System Of Acting, Michael Osinski

The Theatre School MFA in Directing Theses

How does one get actors to embrace work and imbue it with the same truth they bring to realistic theatre and how does one prevent them from turning into robots performing meaningless gestures? How does one work in experimental ways while still giving actors something human to hang onto? This thesis will examine a new system of acting to embrace the demands of the work and explore how to articulate and collaborate with actors to create the work.

Side Show: The Musical Direction, Morgan D. Hurd

Music

No abstract provided.

Shimmers Of Truth In The Art Of Theatre, Natasha M. Goetz

Senior Honors Theses

Many Christians have noted Romans 1:20’s statement that God is reflected in His creation. As a theater student, I have found this to be true even in how theatrical artists actually execute their craft. Thus, for my senior honors thesis I have decided to further study this connection between the Lord and theater, for which I expect to find more of what I have already found in parallels between the Christian walk and theater arts. For the completion of this thesis, research for theatrical content will include acting and design, and research for biblical content will include the Bible and …

Suzan-Lori Parks: Essays On The Plays And Other Works Edited By Philip C. Kolin (Review), Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

The anthology Suzan-Lori Parks: Essays on the Plays and Other Works offers new perspectives to the growing body of scholarship about Parks’s artistic achievements. The text features a contextualizing preface and twelve new essays about her plays, novel, and screenplays. It also contains two new interviews, one with Parks herself and another with her longtime friend and collaborator, director Liz Diamond, as well as a timeline featuring major productions of her works from her first play reading in 1984, to projects anticipated for future production on stage and screen. While Parks’s works, and works on Parks are widely anthologized in …

The Gods Come For Play: Visualizing The Divine In Balinese Theatre, Chandler Payne, John Park

Featured Research

Playwrights, practitioners, and art historians have been shocked and inspired by Balinese theatre time and time again because it reveals the extent of devotion the Balinese have for their religion. Although many researchers have investigated the functionality through the performance aspect of the play, there is a lack of published research devoted how the functionality of the ritual and play are influenced by the physical aesthetic properties of the Barong and Rangda mask. The theatrical aspects are to be considered through investigating these masks in relation to the temple space of the Taman Aran. By investigating the aesthetic properties of …

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Harriet Jacobs Kansas City Repertory Theatre (Review), Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This is a review of the play based on Harriet Jacobs, a slave in nineteenth-century America, who documented her life and the ordeal of her escape in her memoir Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

The Madrigal Dinners: A Modular Study, Karina Carlson

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

A Study Of The Active Amateur And Semiprofessional Theater Groups In Central California, Phyllis Jane Nusz

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In the last several years lists of theater organizations in California newspapers hare grown steadily. This writer asserts a need for study of active amateur and semiprofessional theater groups in California for gaining knowledge and understanding of cultural activities taking place about the Western United States. Such material would help students and adults interested in drama gain information where theaters remain active according to particular tastes.

After receiving a list of nonprofessional theater members of American National Theatre and Academy's California regions, theater activity presented itself to be of such quantity within the state that it became necessary to make …

The Epic Theater Of Bertolt Brecht, Robert Julien Lacampagne

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

A completely new idea in any field of artistic endeavor is a rare phenomenon and is, in most instances, worthy of study. Bertolt Brecht, in his theories, writings, and productions, has given the world a theater that is the antithesis of present-day theatrical aims and ideals. It is to the study of this new form of theater that this thesis is devoted.

A History Of The Productions Of The Little Theatre, 1933-1935, Demarcus Brown

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The growth of interest in drama and the realization of the educational value of dramatics has developed a new place for the college theatre. Pacific Little Theatre was organized eleven years ago to fulfill a definite need and has since grown slowly and steadily into a most active producing unit, serving both school and community. Indeed Pacific Little Theatre can be taken as an excellent specific example of the contribution which can be made to campus and community life by the college aside from its main function as fundamental ground for students in the theatre arts.