Playwriting Commons^™

Pantomime: The History And Metamorphosis Of A Theatrical Ideology, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This book offers perhaps the most comprehensive history of pantomime ever written. No other book so thoroughly examines the varieties of pantomimic performance from the early Roman Empire, when the term “pantomime” came into use, until the present. After thoroughly examining the complexities and startlingly imaginative performance strategies of Roman pantomime, the author identifies the peculiar political circumstances that revived and shaped pantomime in France and Austria in the eighteenth century, leading to the Pierrot obsession in the nineteenth century. Modernist aesthetics awakened a huge, highly diverse fascination with pantomime. The book explores an extraordinary variety of modernist and postmodern …

Rewriting Greek Tragedies As Immigrant Stories, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this piece originally published in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner writes about Mojada, Luis Alfaro's adaptation of the Greek tragedy, Medea. Mojada is part of a trilogy from Alfaro that attempts to bring his Latino community into modern theater by writing them into classical plays.

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

The Mixed Reception Of The Hamilton Premiere In Puerto Rico, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders about the challenges of premiering the famed Broadway musical, Hamilton, during a time of political discord in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico.

Direction Of The Imaginary Invalid By Molière Translated By Charles Heron Wall Adapted By Kimberly Dorman, Kimberly S. Dorman

All Graduate Projects

This project comprises of the selection, research, casting, adaptation, production and post-production process of The Imaginary Invalid. Documentation and research include adaptation, analysis of the play as a production vehicle for our program, research, script analysis, outcome goals, a record of the production period, and a postproduction evaluation.

Did Hollywood Take Theatre "By Hook Or By Crook?", Catherine S. Wright

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Hollywood and Theatre have been partners in producing entertainment for over 100 years. The relationship was fruitful for both parties, but Hollywood moguls and playwrights battled over ownership of the work and crafting of its creative nucleus, story and character. Theatre was the dominant entertainment right before the rise of motion pictures. Once Hollywood’s talkies closed the curtain on silent films, playwrights had a high creative worth to movie makers. In the cinema, story and dialogue were essential for its survival and growth. Playwrights were courted by the Hollywood studio heads but were not offered equal partnership as they were …

Defending Eulalie, Mimi Ayers

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Hidden History Of 'Oklahoma!', Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner explains that contemporary reinterpretations of the classic American musical Oklahoma! may be getting back to its root: it's based on a play by a gay Cherokee man.

From London With Love

DePaul Magazine

No abstract provided.

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 …

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.

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.

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.

A Production Process For Developing A Web Series, Snaptv, Toebey T. Caldwell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

My project for this Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, studying Film Theories and Media Production methods, details “A Production Process for Creating a Web Series, called SNAPtv”. This media production was designed to demonstrate my experience and knowledge I gained through this degree, by specific areas of developing and producing media, including script writing, filming and editing media content, to construct an original web series from Pre-Production to Post-Production.

SNAPtv is a hybrid, sketch comedy, talk show produced as an online web series that mimics the characteristics of a semi-scripted Reality-Television series and combines the elements of a talk show …

Thinking Before You Act: A Constructive Logic Approach To Crafting Performance-For- Development Narrative, Angela Duggins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this thesis was to test the feasibility of constructing performance-for-development narrative using a constructive logic approach. I created an equation which expressed the sum of non-human-elements as the sum of a narrative with each element serving as a variable. I used a review of persuasion literature to provide insight into the selection and manipulation of each variable. I provided my family as a hypothetical example and used my knowledge of their preferences and communication styles in conjunction with the literature and the equation to craft a narrative which might increase pro-school attitudes in other families like my …

"We Are Family": The Influences Of American Culture On The Representation Of Family In Modern American Drama, Deandre C. Short

Student Scholar Showcase

The dramatic works that subject usually deals with the family unit reflect a particular issue in American culture—politically or socially. American playwrights often use their work to challenge popular ideologies and values embedded into American society. Often modern American drama incorporates political, social, and cultural issues as a means to develop the relationship between the family unit. The familial relationship(s) in modern American drama are influenced by the political, social, and cultural environments in the United States.

Sibling Affection And Domestic Heterosexuality In Lodovick Carlell’S The Deserving Favorite, Mario Digangi

Publications and Research

Lodowick Carlell’s play The Deserving Favorite (1629) deploys the ideological strategy of using erotic “likeness” to validate marital unions as consensual and erotically compatible. In an era before the normalization of heterosexuality, the play suggests that sexually passionate marital relations earn legitimacy to the degree that they emulate the affectionate relations between women and between siblings. Although eroticized female friendship approaches the ideal of a consensual and sensual partnership, intimate relations between women seem best to thrive in a separatist environment removed from courtly social and economic exchanges, including the marital negotiations crucial to cementing dynastic and political alliances. Brothers …

The Three Year Clock, Sam Roeck

Theses and Dissertations

Roeck: I mean, it’s “a” future. It’s like half what I want to be and half completely not what I want. I didn’t want to create a future that I was entirely excited about because I’m not actually that excited about the future. It looks pretty fucking grim.

The Importance Of C.S. Lewis To Faith-Based Theatre As Seen In The Silver Chair, Andrew J. Wilkinson

Senior Honors Theses

The paper contains an adaptation of the book The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis and details the purpose for why this particular story is important for the faith-based theatre community. There are a number of Christian themes that are evident in the story that are examined as well as the elements of the story that make it apt for adapting to a play format.

Antitheatricality And Irrationality: An Alternative View, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Articles and Research

"Over the last three decades, antitheatrical authors like Stephen Gosson, Phillip Stubbes, and William Prynne have become increasingly visible in the literary and cultural studies of the early modern period. Even so, the tendency has been to treat these authors as ideological extremists: reactionary hacks whose opposition to stage plays originates in outrageous ideas of the self, impossible notions of right and wrong, and bizarre beliefs about humanity’s susceptibility to external suggestion. This characterization can be traced back to several of the pioneering studies in the field, including Jonas Barish’s The Antitheatrical Prejudice (1985) and Laura Levine’s Men in Women’s …

Is He Dead?, Otterbein University Department Of Theatre And Dance

2015-2016 Season

This play was written by Mark Twain in 1898 and first published in print in 2003. The play focuses on a fictional version of the great French painter, Jean-François Millet, as an impoverished artist in Barbizon, France who, with the help of his colleagues, stages his death in order to increase the value of his paintings, and afterwards dresses as a woman to keep his secret safe. Combining elements of burlesque, farce, and social satire, the comedy relies on such devices as cross-dressing, mistaken identities, and romantic deceptions to tell its story, which raises …

Autobiographical Poetry To Plays: Taking Memoir To A Theatrical Level, Ryan P. Tofil

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Pulitzer prize winning playwright John Patrick Shanley wrote, “Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done.” For my Capstone Project, I have compiled my autobiographical poetry, prose, and performance monologues into a theatrical manuscript to be used as the basis for a play. The final Capstone Project is a manuscript of an anticipated theatrical production based on the grieving process surrounding my brother's suicide, as well as an exploration of my sexuality and the relationships I developed during the years surrounding his death.

The Capstone Project’s theatrical manuscript is also accompanied by a …

Devising Performance & Queer Futurity, Brendan F. Leonard

Honors Theses

This project argues that devising performance is an inherently queer and utopian form. In response to recent political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter, which seek to stage dissatisfaction with the systems of late capitalism, I turn to devising performance as a site. Informed by the queer and performance theories of Jose Esteban Munoz, Lee Edelman, and Jill Dolan, I argue that devised theater allows us to process disillusionment, rehearse collectivity, and stage futurity. In conversation with Munoz, I define futurity as an imaginative site that considers what will follow what some scholars suggest will be …

A Patra Lovitura De Gong, Teatru Scurt, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Volumul de față reia, grupate sub un titlu provocator, A PATRA LOVITURĂ DE GONG, piesele de teatru scurt ale lui Florentin Smarandache, cuprinse inițial în volumul DESTIN (Craiova: Aius, 2000), un volum de texte-amalgam (nuvele, povești, eseuri, proză memorialistică, interviuri, versuri experimentale, culegeri de folclor, teatru scurt), astfel:

No exit! evocă alegoric atmosfera de închistare a perioadei de dictatură comunistă.

Destin și Conversația sunt două miniaturi experimental-sugestive, fără actori.

Aventurile dragostei e “un spectacol de versuri în versuri“, un dialog parapoetic și transtextual între câțiva dintre poeții români în vogă în anii 80.

Tragedie antică este o meditație generală asupra …

"Pitiful Creature Of Darkness": The Subhuman And The Superhuman In The Phantom Of The Opera, Jessica Sternfeld

Music Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter focuses on The Phantom of the Opera, the megamusical that perhaps most boldly faces the idea of disability head-on, as it stars a character whose face, as one journalist described it, looks 'like melted cheese' (Smith, 1995). The musical's approach to the Phantom's disability is remarkably layered and inconsistent; the Phantom is portrayed in numerous ways (monster, criminal, genius, god, ghost) and his physical disability blurs regularly with his 'soul;' which is where numerous characters locate the origin of his problems. His face and its famous mask covering are both feared and thrilled over, but with a reassuring …

Fresh Shakespeare From The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

Some critics have argued against the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's contemporary English translation project, but Daniel Pollack-Pelzner argues it's part of the process of keeping Shakespeare alive.

"Debate: Millennials Don't Stand A Chance" Devised, Documentary And Immersive Theatre: The Story Of Everymillennial, Sean R. Byrne

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This thesis aims to discover how communitas can be created through theatrical performances by blurring the line between audience and performer as well as performer and character. The topic of the Millennial generation is used as a thematic element in performance to emphasize the creation of community. A theatrical form will be introduced, called the “Living Biography:” a method of devising based on devising, documentary, and immersive theatre. This form will be shown as one possible option in creating communitas in a performance. While other forms of audience inclusion are frequently used, it will be argued that the “Living Biography” …

L’Anar I Venir Dels Dramaturgs Catalans: Un Nou Cosmopolitisme, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

La conjunció entre viatges i traducció ha estat un baròmetre habitual de la vitalitat del panorama teatral català. A Catalunya la mobilitat acostuma a ser sinònim de prestigi, i l'èxit en teatre sovint es mesura en funció de l'abast i el reconeixement internacionals. A més a més, en el cas dels dramaturgs que escriuen en català, sempre conscients de la precària situació de la seva llengua i la seva identiat cultural, la posició paradoxal tant de distància com de proximitat política que mantenen amb Espanya n'ha accentuat, potser, l'anhel de pertànyer a una efera global més gran.

Choose Your Own Oz, Tommy R. Jamerson Ii

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.