Performance Studies Commons^™

The “Campification” Of Old-School Broadway: Review Of Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling, And Abe Burrows’S Guys And Dolls, Kara Riley

Best Integrated Writing

This review examines the Stratford Festival’s 2026 production of Guys and Dolls and argues that director Donna Feore transforms a familiar Golden Age Broadway musical through a distinctly camp aesthetic. It explores how set design, costumes, and performances exaggerate mid-twentieth-century gender conventions and theatrical traditions, creating a playful reinterpretation of the source material. Special focus is given to the production’s visual design, its treatment of gender roles, and the standout comic performances of Jennifer Rider-Shaw as Miss Adelaide and Mark Uhre as Frank Detroit. Through close analysis of performance elements, the review demonstrates how contemporary productions can renew as well …

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2026 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

“Anything Can Have Life”: An Interview With Everett Quinton About Charles Ludlam’S Ridiculous Puppetry, Jungmin Song, John Bell, Everett Quinton

Ballard Institute Publications

This Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry conversation, via Zoom, with

Everett Quinton, Dr. John Bell, and Dr. Jungmin Song was recorded March 21,

2021, and edited by Tom Tuke and John Bell. Everett Quinton (1952-2023) was an

actor, director, and—after the death of his partner Charles Ludlam (1943-1987)—

the leader of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, the landmark ensemble which

helped define queer theater in the late 20th century. While mostly known for his

acting, playwriting, and directing, Charles Ludlam was also an active puppeteer

and ventriloquist. Many of his puppets are now part of the Ballard Institute and

Museum …

A Puff's Exploration Of Wayne Hopkins, Ethan G. Mullen, Leon Wiebers

Honors Thesis

This thesis is a synthesis of modalities I have studied during the course of my Theatre Arts degree, applied to the realization of the principal character, Wayne Hopkins in the award-winning play Puffs (Or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic) a LMU Theatre Arts Department production. This work is divided into three major sections. First, I reflect on how I applied acting tools I have studied at LMU to the development of my character and performance. These include script analysis, story structure analysis, breath work, and Viewpoints training. Second, I share media displaying my …

“Una Vita In Maschera”: Exploring Modern-Day Venetian Carnival Through Photographs, Amy Hecht

Honors College Theses

This project aimed to explore the historical and cultural significance of Carnival in Venice, the festival preceding Lent that is characterized by a temporary breakdown of the social order. The main elements of Carnival include mask-wearing, elaborate costumes, and artistic showcases, especially theater and street performances. In particular, the 16th-century practice of commedia dell’arte is revived during the Carnival, featuring iconic masked characters and humorous storylines. In the current global political climate, where people are more divided than ever, Carnival is an escape from the drags of everyday life. Masses of tourists visit Venice during Carnival to experience the unique …

Accessible Theatre In The Face Of Transition: A Collaborator's Journey Through Sarah Ruhl's Orlando, Ty R. Robbins

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the various types of accessibility observed in practice during a production of Orlando by Sarah Ruhl at the University of New Orleans. Throughout

the chapters to come, I will focus on gathering theatrical dramaturgy, my process as a company

actor, the successes and setbacks of accessibility in theatre, and reflections from community

artists on how they view accessibility in the workplace. I will evaluate my findings and those of

fellow theatre makers to outline the strengths and weaknesses of accessibility in relation to

collaboration in theatre, an art form that is continually given a cold shoulder in …

A Crown In Death: An (Expanded) Dramaturgical Approach To The Trojan Women Of Euripides, Stephanie Lester

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

In the action-packed, visually-oriented market for modern media, some may assume a 2,400-year-old Greek tragedy to be slightly past its expiration date, especially if it features little to no action onstage like in Euripides’ The Trojan Women. However, it is important to remember that literature is lost when the world fails to cherish it, so if a text survives that long, it may be worth another cursory glance. In this case, that glance involved a full dramaturgical study featuring qualitative script analysis of multiple translations of The Trojan Women with related texts to explore context, themes, common literary devices, and …

Stanislavski And Operatic Acting: What Caused The Divide Between Stanislavski’S Ideals And The Opera World?, Max Smith

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

There is a difference between the realism of acting in opera and in other theatrical art forms. One reason for this might be due to theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski’s ideals not being readily adopted in the opera world. Due to translation and publication issues in both the West and in the USSR, his work on opera has been largely neglected by theatre and opera historians. Certain demands of opera as an art form limit or make more difficult the ability for realism in portraying a character, but Stanislavski and others show that it is possible. A look at literature reflecting …

Staging Violence With Intentionality, Toby O'Brien

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the role of the fight choreographer in the theatre while addressing the potential issues staged violence has in distracting an audience from the intended narrative of the play. Avoiding the instruction manual approach of stage combat in favor of expounding on the theory of violent entertainment, I have constructed a thesis that informs the reader of certain types of violence found in both classical and modern productions and have researched the psychological ramifications of violent spectatorship and the necessity for content acknowledgements as well as consideration for the performer’s well-being. By exploring the history of violent entertainment …

Through The Eyes Of A Daughter: Blues City Cultural Center And The Black Arts Movement, Ayana Williams

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This creative dissertation examines the Blues City Cultural Center (BCCC) as a living continuation of the Black Arts Movement in the American South. Founded in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1979 by Deborah Frazier and Levi Frazier, Jr., BCCC emerged from the cultural and political momentum of the Black Arts and Black Power Movements and continues to sustain their principles through original theater, community-based arts education, and grassroots cultural organizing. Challenging the notion that the Black Arts Movement is a concluded historical period, this study argues that the movement remains ongoing, adaptive, and deeply embedded within Southern Black communities. Using a creative …

An Evolution Of Drag In Theatre: A Historical Reflection, Krista Peters

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will serve as an overarching analysis and historical discussion on the art of drag within the traditional theatrical space. By employing queer theory, I will analyze how the use of drag has evolved throughout the history of Broadway and the United States and how it is responding to the contemporary social attitude. Drawing from the arguments of Butler, Lorde, Rich, Foucault, and others, this thesis uses historical survey to examine the direct representation of drag in theatrical spaces in conjunction with each representation’s sociopolitical and cultural environments. Sociopolitical contemporary contexts of each representation influence not only the form …

Evaluating The Impact Of Policy In Theatre: The Influence Of Public & Political Policy On The Theatrical World, John Q. Rhodes

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the second half of the twentieth century, there is distinct evidence to exhibit a direct correlation between daily occurrences and matters of public policy. This paper serves to analyze the impact of U.S. public policy on theatrical practices. To provide a detailed and targeted analysis of the exponential impact public policy had upon the theatrical industry, this examination will look at theatre beginning in 1961 and will extend towards the current administration of President Donald Trump and is organized in ten-year segments. Each decade will be generalized for its direct or indirect changes that occurred within the period and …

Julieta Lanteri And Political Caricature: The Democratic Reach Of Commercial Theater And The Expansion Of The Public Sphere, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kristen Mccleary

International Journal on Responsibility

In the early twentieth century, popular theater in Buenos Aires appealed to a diverse audience, including immigrants, men, and women from all social classes, workers, as well as the most elite members of the oligarchy. By analyzing one work in particular, La doctora de Lantera, by Armando B. Rillo and Victor Dolard, one of the most well-attended plays of 1919, this article focuses on how theater reveals the social tensions surrounding the role of women in society during an era of dramatic change. It also shows how theater provides an outlet from which to identify, negotiate, and, at times, …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

The Onnagata: A Note Regarding The Male Actor Of Female Roles In Japanese Theatre, John M. Metcalf

The Ozark Historical Review

This paper discusses the influence of the Kabuki onnagata, male actors portraying female characters, on Japanese culture.

Interspecies Responsivity In Early Modern Drama And Animal Performances, Taylor C. Culbert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation proposes an expansive, interspecies definition of performance that uses behavior rather than cognition as the decisive feature and illustrates how such a definition can reshape our approach to theatre and performance history. Using the concept of responsivity, which refers to the embodied and affective ways that humans and non-human animals acknowledge and react to one another, I trace human–animal interactions across a variety of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century performance genres, from the aristocratic stag hunt and entertainments involving trained animals to the plays of Molière and Shakespeare. Drawing on my experience training animals, I offer a new perspective on …

Class Act

DePaul Magazine

As The Theatre School at DePaul University turns 100, past and present administrators and faculty and illustrious alumni comment on the school's enduring legacy of hands-on learning, collaboration and critical dialogue.

Selected Projects In Scenic Design And Technical Direction, Ky Trupp

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

A selection of projects in scenic design and technical direction produced by Utah State Theater involving Ky Trupp and others. Each chapter studies the design process and production process of three individual shows where Ky was the Scenic Designer or Technical Director.

An Exploration Of Elderly Representation & Stereotypes In Animation, Tyler Kidd

All Theses

In the world of animated features, supporting cast members are often reduced down to simple character traits in order to give the audience a simple idea of their personality or role in the story, or to support the creation of a work that is easier to understand for people of all ages. However, this can often result in the application of negative tropes that do not reflect kindly on those being depicted. The elderly are a group that often get caught in these stereotypes, being depicted as wrinkly, clumsy, overweight villains. While you can still find many positive portrayals in …

Creating New Points Of Access: How Integrating Black Acting Methods Strengthens The Western Theatre Canon., Darrin Edward Dispenza-Mosley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Western acting techniques have historically disregarded the contributions and techniques of black and non-Western performance to the detriment of black actors. This disregard has created barriers for black actors when engaging in what has now become standard theatre training. This training is enforced by implementation of acting techniques in academia that favor codified techniques of Eurocentric acting. Despite black acting techniques being codified and taught within the black community and academia, outside of a few historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), predominately white academia has implemented valuable training methods that black/African American Acting techniques can offer. By looking at American …

The Space Defines The Phrase: An Analysis Of How Performance Venues Helped Shape Classic Play Texts, Carl Sage

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Within the world of scenography there is an axiom that states:

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with the playwright.” That is to say that designers need to derive their worlds from what the authors present. Scenographers do, of course, engage in research, segments of which include such questions as: What was occurring in the world at the time the piece was written? What stories might the author have been exposed to as inspiration? How have other scenographers interpreted this particular text? Such dramaturgical questions – and others – have a reasonable scenographic utility. However, no …

The Survival Of An American Theater: An Intrinsic And Historical Case Study Of The Success Of Arena Stage, Kay Oliver

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Arena Stage was founded in 1950 in Washington, DC, by Zelda Fichandler, Tom Fichandler, and Edward Mangum. Today, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000 people. It is the largest theater company dedicated to American plays and playwrights in the country. This study presents a single intrinsic historical case study of Arena Stage to examine the internal organizational structure and leadership dynamics that guided the theater through seven decades of turbulent American history. Arena Stage has provided world-class programming while the nation was grappling with the Vietnam War (1950–1975), Brown v. Board of Education (1954), political …

The Fight Master, Fall 2024, Vol. 43 Issue 2, The Society Of American Fight Directors

Fight Master Magazine

No abstract provided.

Historiography Of The Body And Corporeality In Indonesian Theatre: The Search For Decolonial Aesthetics, Mohamad Ugoran Prasad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A study on Indonesian theatre historiography, this dissertation explores how and why the body and corporeality serve as the dominant means of theatre-making in Indonesia. Tracing and locating the bodily practice in theatre and performance from Indonesian independence until the turn of the twenty-first century, it locates the frictional relationship between the body and corporeality with modernity and the coloniality of language. That friction occurs in the process of adapting and translating modern theatre in the 1950s as much as during the heyday of folk popular theatre in the 1960s, preferring the body and corporeality as a refuge from ideological, …

The Mystic Chords Of Memory: The Civil War Musical As Historiography, Christine Snyder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The U.S. American Civil War is arguably the defining event in the nation’s history; it was the bloodiest war in that history, but also the means by which the United States ended slavery within its borders. Musical theatre, the major U.S. American contribution to popular and commercial theater, might seem a natural partner for chronicling these vital and epic events, but unlike the founding of the nation, which spawned two popular musicals, 1776 (1968) and Hamilton (2015), Civil War musicals have struggled to find audiences or become a part of the musical theatre canon. In this dissertation, I examine how …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

Scare If You Dare: A Look Into Scare Acting, Hana Goss

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Scare acting has always been the unsung villains of the entertainment industry. For three months of the year, for about five minutes of a haunted house, they get attention. However, the work scare actors do to is way more than just a five second “boo.” Scare actors have been at the beginning of theatre and continue to influence modern entertainment. Even though the patrons may be the ones feeling the danger, scare actors may be even more in danger than them. Each scare actor is unique from their looks to their moves. It might be take a lot of nerve …

An Actor's Approach To Contemporary Theatre, Ethan Harbin

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper is a composite of research and reflection in regards to Comemedia dell'arte as well as contemporary theatre. It is a personal exploration of the life and legacy of Aurand Harris. My personal application of the research is documented in this thesis.

Child Soldiers Of Verona: The Antiauthoritarian Antiwar Subtext Of Romeo And Juliet, Carl L. Sage

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Common practice has Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet identified as a tragic love story, which has antecedents tracing back as far as Pyramus and Thisbe by Ovid. Though valid, this interpretation plumbs only a limited portion of the text. It is the position of this paper that, like Shakespeare’s later work Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet was written with a political subtext in mind. Both texts play on the social memory of the War of the Roses, as well as continuing sectarian strife between Protestant and Roman Catholic adherents contemporaneous to the era. However, while Macbeth served to prop up the …

Wole Soyinka: A Life Of Arts And Advocacy, Maggie Feduccia

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The life and work of playwright, novelist, and activist Wole Soyinka (born in 1934) serves as a perfect example of the marriage of the arts and advocacy, through the telling of stories of the Nigerian people. Soyinka grew up surrounded by Christianity, Islam, and the tribal religion of the Yoruba people. Additionally, Soyinka’s parents exposed him to Nigerian and other West African literature, Western literature, and ancient Greek drama. Soyinka’s intellect was formed at the intersection of these various theologies and literary traditions, and further developed through studies at the University of Ibadan and the University of Leeds, from where …