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Full-Text Articles in Performance Studies

Necessitating Autonomy: Performing Black Womanhood., Krystal Chavonne Waller May 2025

Necessitating Autonomy: Performing Black Womanhood., Krystal Chavonne Waller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Black womanhood should autonomously be represented on the stage and/or the screen. By defining the theories of Black Feminist Thought, Black Performance, Trap Feminism and Sankofa, I create a praxis that provides Black femme performers with tools for authentic characterization. By acknowledging and respecting that Black women are not monolithic, this thesis also explores the evolution of theatrical representations of Black Womanhood—particularly U.S. Black womanhood from the late 19th century to modern day. Using historical narrative, analysis, acting techniques learned during my MFA program, and personal reflection, I advocate for Black women …


A Black Sherlock Holmes: An Exploration Of Nonconforming Characterization., Faith Janaye Artis May 2025

A Black Sherlock Holmes: An Exploration Of Nonconforming Characterization., Faith Janaye Artis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of diversity initiatives in the greater American theatre landscape, we are now including more Black actors than ever. Whether that be through the inclusion of diverse playwrights or implementing new casting protocols, we now have Black people in the room. However, when portraying the Black “version” of a character (i.e. Black Annie, Black Ariel, Black Juliet) a question still plagues the Black Actor’s mind: how am I meant to fit here? I evaluate my process of portraying Sherlock Holmes as my thesis role. By challenging the implied white perspective in this “universal” story (despite its feminist retelling), …


Creating New Points Of Access: How Integrating Black Acting Methods Strengthens The Western Theatre Canon., Darrin Edward Dispenza-Mosley May 2025

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 …


A Legal Analysis On The Link Between Pornography Consumption And The Perpetuation Of Abuse, Madelyn Garrett Apr 2025

A Legal Analysis On The Link Between Pornography Consumption And The Perpetuation Of Abuse, Madelyn Garrett

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

This essay examines the connection between the overconsumption of pornography and the growing demand for violent and extreme types of pornography. This essay also looks at the abuse this demand perpetrates.


Transforming Into A Politically Engaged Actor Through Gem Of The Ocean., Tajleed Steven Hardy May 2024

Transforming Into A Politically Engaged Actor Through Gem Of The Ocean., Tajleed Steven Hardy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores my transformation into a politically engaged theatre artist through my performance as Citizen Barlow in the University of Louisville's Department of Theatre Arts’ 2024 production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. My thesis defines the characteristics of a politically engaged theatre artist and proposes specific ways actors can prepare to perform in any production of any play. My transformation into a politically engaged theatre artist resulted from a combination of the skills I gathered as an undergraduate student at Norfolk State University and the new analytical and acting techniques I learned as an MFA in …


“The Urgent Necessity For More Original Creative Works By Transgender And Gender Expansive Artists" Is Not The Title Of My Thesis., Alicia Fireel May 2023

“The Urgent Necessity For More Original Creative Works By Transgender And Gender Expansive Artists" Is Not The Title Of My Thesis., Alicia Fireel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a mix of personal reflection, academic research, and an examination of The Girl Crazy Queer and Other Fairy Tales, a play I wrote and performed in October of 2023, co-produced by The University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts and Pandora Productions, a Louisville-based theatre company dedicated to Queer theatre. This thesis and the play mirror each other; both contemplate Queer experiences, Queer histories, Queer trauma, and Queer stories. In the thesis I accomplish this through examining four subjects: myself, my play, the connection between modes of storytelling and aspects of transgender Queerness, and the perils that …


Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice In Theatre Education., Sarah Elston May 2023

Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice In Theatre Education., Sarah Elston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Regeneration: Restorative Theatre Practice in Theatre Education aims to harness the holistic benefits of theatre as a discipline and create an intentional restorative practice for performers. This thesis serves as a proposal; an attempt to prioritize restorative and self-care practices within the theatre industry, specifically pre-professional training programs. This proposal takes the form of a curriculum that builds upon the current model of theatre training (Voice, Movement, Acting) with the addition of Regeneration. Regeneration provides theatre artists with specific areas of study to offer the psychosocial support a theatre artist may need during their pre-professional training. This thesis will discuss …


Working For Yourself: A Guide For Performers With Learning Difference., Sa'id "Nxttime" Kelly May 2023

Working For Yourself: A Guide For Performers With Learning Difference., Sa'id "Nxttime" Kelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Working For Yourself a Guide For Performers with Learning Differences is a combination of advice and tips that are intended to help performers especially those living with learning differences. The thesis helps performers find ways to work with their true selves on stage as well as in preparation for a role. There is no final result to this process, just multiple ways to be more confident with the choice you’ll make while performing and preparing for a role.


The Reading Of Sir Toby Belch: A Queer And Black Exploration Of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night., Jahi E Bogard May 2022

The Reading Of Sir Toby Belch: A Queer And Black Exploration Of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night., Jahi E Bogard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This MFA thesis explores queer, black representation in William Shakespeare’s drama and in the University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts Fall 2021 production of an adaption of Twelfth Night (1601). Directed by Jennifer Pennington, the repurposed script and non-traditional casting targeted a modern audience. Cast as Olivia’s drunk uncle, Sir Toby Belch, I aimed to discover if my identify as a black, queer, cis man could be incorporated into Shakespeare’s text. Sir Toby Belch’s raucous, heterosexual, and sometimes violent, traits are often imagined today as innately masculine. I argue that Shakespeare’s plays can be appropriated by queer, black actors …


Black Codes Re-Envisioned: The Dred Scott Majority Opinion As An Antiblack Performative Speech Act., Tiffany Dillard-Knox Dec 2021

Black Codes Re-Envisioned: The Dred Scott Majority Opinion As An Antiblack Performative Speech Act., Tiffany Dillard-Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a discursive analysis of the decision in the Dred Scott v Sandford, 1857 case written by Chief Justice Roger Taney. It begins with an overview of the literature on performative speech acts, focusing on the aspects of performatives that relate to Louis Miron and Jonathan Xavier Inda’s thesis that race is a performative speech act. Breaking from their use of race as the analytic, this analysis is situated within a black/nonblack paradigm. This provides a framework that focuses on the unique ways in which the discourse of the text enacts, accumulates and renders blackness fungible. The …


An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu May 2020

An Actor's Process In Bridging The Gap Between First-Generation And Multi-Generational African-American Identities., Mutiyat Ade-Salu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reflects my process assimilating into the role of Chelle in the production of Detroit '67 at the University of Louisville. Although there have been instances of actors crossing lines of gender, nationality, race, and even sexuality, to perform roles in contemporary theatre, discussion about generational differences is almost non-existent. Through historical research, first-hand interviews, and conventional acting methods, I explore the world of my role, searching for spirituality, authenticity, and identity. Additionally, I explain my use of The WAY Method ®, a process I began creating in 2014 to help actors be clear with who they are before …


Hotel De Vagabundos: Reviewing African American Theatre Journey., Manuel Francisco Viveros May 2020

Hotel De Vagabundos: Reviewing African American Theatre Journey., Manuel Francisco Viveros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This analysis examines how Hotel de Vagabundos, a play written by a black playwright from Colombia, fits into the core of definitions of Black Theatre in the United States. I will examine six documents I consider relevant to shape the idea of Black Theatre in the US from 1900 through 2005. The author's experience in New York during the 1940s inspires Hotel de Vagabundos. The author navigates the globalized ethos idea unleashing clashes about identity to criticize aspects of American culture about immigrants, poor people, and internalized racism within African American and Black diasporic communities. The play “like a …


Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney Aug 2019

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …


The Actor’S Rhythm, Internal Beat., Lashondra Cherell Hood May 2019

The Actor’S Rhythm, Internal Beat., Lashondra Cherell Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a conversational document that will examine the manifestation of the auditory(hearing) and motor(physical motion) cortex of the cerebrum and how this connection influences character physicality in theatre. In this thesis, The Mountaintop, written by Katori Hall, is used as a gateway to conduct research on music and rhythm as it affects the body and creating physical character choices. By reflecting on personal musical exploration,that of my peers, and students, its concluded that this method can be used for all stages of character building and performance experiences. The various backgrounds of the subjects — students and peers — …


Under Construction : Acting, Creativity, Collaboration, And Siti Company., Carol Stewart May 2019

Under Construction : Acting, Creativity, Collaboration, And Siti Company., Carol Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a case study of New York’s Saratoga International Training Institute (known as SITI Company), one of the most innovative American theatre companies of the last twenty-five years. Research for this study was based in part on the author’s experience with the work of SITI throughout those years, including participation in intensive training with the company and observations of rehearsal and performance of the 2014 world premiere production of Steel Hammer at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, at Actors Theatre of Louisville. SITI Company is defined by their dedication to actor training, and to a democratic …


Gestures Of Creative Recovery For The Egocentric Actor Through Performance In Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good., Ross Joel Shenker May 2018

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 …


Finding Exuberance For The Role Shelby In Baltimore., Danielle Smart May 2017

Finding Exuberance For The Role Shelby In Baltimore., Danielle Smart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents my discovery of exuberance as the key to a successful performance and reveals the challenges I faced in developing a character whose major actions in the play fall into the category of masking (i.e. hiding, avoiding, dodging). I define exuberance and discuss how I came to understand that sustaining exuberance requires a great deal of technical expertise specifically in acting, movement and voice in order to accommodate the demands of the character. I contend that exuberance also requires commitment and nurturing of the actor’s personal artistic vision. This thesis will discuss some of the difficulties I faced …


Fantastical Body Narratives : Cosplay, Performance, And Gender Diversity., Tiffany M. Hutabarat-Nelson May 2017

Fantastical Body Narratives : Cosplay, Performance, And Gender Diversity., Tiffany M. Hutabarat-Nelson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to explore how the phenomenon of cosplay has been able to produce and sustain a diversity of gender expression due to its emergence from an activity-based community that emphasizes creative play. This creative energy is manifested through cosplay as an active, ritualized practice in which gender diversity is invited to be realized as a distinct possibility, resulting in a display of a full range of masculinities and femininities as well as crossplays and genderbend cosplays. I argue that cosplay can therefore be understood as a phenomenon that destabilizes the gender binary—its active practice promotes the production and …


Rhetoric And Performing Anger : Proserpina's Gift And Chaucer's Merchant's Tale., Joseph Turner Oct 2016

Rhetoric And Performing Anger : Proserpina's Gift And Chaucer's Merchant's Tale., Joseph Turner

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Although scholars have historically minimized the relationship between medieval grammatical and rhetorical traditions and Chaucer's poetics, Proserpina's angry speech in the Merchant's Tale represents the intersection of medieval classroom grammar exercises, Geoffrey of Vinsauf's theory of delivery, and poetics. Proserpina's angry speech reveals that her rhetoric is calculated to subvert the masculine power structures that surround her. Such a focus on Chaucer's depiction of women's persuasive tactics helps to highlight Chaucer's deep engagement with rhetoric beginning in the 1380's. Moreover, this investigation asks for increased attention to the overlap between classroom grammatical traditions, rhetorical theory, and medieval poetics.


Negotiating Resistance With The Character G In Naomi Izuka’S Polaroid Stories., Konrad Ormand Davis Jr. Aug 2016

Negotiating Resistance With The Character G In Naomi Izuka’S Polaroid Stories., Konrad Ormand Davis Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will analyze my portrayal of G (Zeus) in Polaroid Stories by Naomi Iizuka through my psychological journey as an actor. In my investigation of G, I will discuss the specific techniques used to create my performance in Polaroid Stories, which include influences from my Commedia, Improv, and ensemble training. I will examine the connection these tools acquired during my candidacy at the University of Louisville as well as real-life experiences that shaped my professional development as an artist and performer. In this thesis you will discover the influence of my early youth, my blackness, the artistic technique, …


Presence And The Actor's Craft., Casey Richard Moulton May 2016

Presence And The Actor's Craft., Casey Richard Moulton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to establish that Presence is essential to an actor’s craft. This thesis makes considerable mention of my own work on Naomi Iizuka’s Polaroid Stories, playing the part of SKINHEADboy, as well as making mention of the theoreticians and practitioners of Acting who have dealt with the subject of Presence. The parallels I draw between actor training and the sources from outside of the field of Acting feed not only into an understanding of how consequential Presence is for the actor, but also how Presence can affect the lives human beings. This thesis also contains …


Developing Actor Expertise : The Presentation And Representation Of Man In Will Eno's The Flu Season., Conrad Harding Newman 1984- May 2012

Developing Actor Expertise : The Presentation And Representation Of Man In Will Eno's The Flu Season., Conrad Harding Newman 1984-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines my work on the role of Man in the University of Louisville's 2011 production of Will Eno's The Flu Season directed by James Tompkins. It is composed of three primary chapters: rehearsal process, character development, and performance. The rehearsal chapter compares and contrasts my experiences working with Dr. Amy Steiger on Charles Mee's A Perfect Wedding and Professor James Tompkins on The Flu Season, highlighting the value of both collaborative and individual aspects in rehearsal. The styles of the directors are observed and discussed concerning their effect upon my acting process and development. In character development I …