Playwriting Commons^™

The Rape Of Blanche: An Examination Of Critical Analysis & Sexist Overtones, Audrey Thayer

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The first people to ever listen to the words of A Streetcar Named Desire were two women, Margo Jones and Joanna Albus. Tennessee Williams read them an uncompleted first draft of the play. Margo Jones was “supportive of the play but urged him to rewrite it and to soften Blanche's hysteria. He listened, and ignored her” (Rader 199). The very first people who were privy to the violent, sensual, chaotic world of Blanche and Stanley were two women who found fault in Stella's character. They saw her hysteria, no doubt an unbecoming trait, as “far out,” or perhaps unbelievable. Much …

Eye For The Gap: Frenzy, Liberty, And The Nietszchean Chorus In Conor Mcpherson's The Weir And Shining City, Frances Krieg

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study situates The Weir and Shining City by Conor McPherson as embodying elements of Dionysian aesthetics as elucidated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Working through the lenses of Samuel Beckett’s linguistic philosophy and the premium of theater as established by Nietzsche, Artaud, and Brecht, the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how McPherson pierces the boundaries of language in drama by establishing his audience as chorus. Background information on Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and McPherson’s own comments on the plays are included with the research on the plays themselves. This work articulates the chorus itself but also the choral, …

Writing The Wrongs: How Gay And Lesbian Playwrights Use The Paranormal In Autobiographical Writing, George William Zorn

Dissertations

Playwrights have been using ghost and spirit-characters in stage works since the classical era. From their beginnings as speechless, vengeful catalysts and informational narrators, the ghost-character has evolved to something that would not be recognizable to Greek playwrights. This is no more evident than in the works of contemporary gay and lesbian dramatists. Examining the selected works of playwrights Claudia Allen, Larry Kramer and Victor Bumbalo will illuminate the use of ghosts and the paranormal by these playwrights as a way to overcome personal trauma by either creating closure with autobiographical scenes or by using the absence of these characters …

Josep M. Benet I Jornet I L'Herència De «Desig», Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Corria l'any 1988. El muntatge d'Ai carai! de Josep M. Benet i Jomet acabava de fer temporada amb èxit al Teatre Uiure. Domènec Reixach havia assumit el càrrec de director artístic del Centre Dramàtic de la Generalitat de Catalunya i, des de la seva històrica seu al Teatre Romea, va crear un programa d'ajuts amb la intenció d'estimular i impulsar les naves dramatúrgies catalanes. No va sobtar, doncs, que Reixach convidés Benet i Jornet a participar-hi. Les circumstàncies, però, van agafar un caire una mica sorprenent quan Reixach va demanar al ja consolidat dramaturg català que seleccionés un director perquè …

The Art Of Adaptation, Katharine E. Jordan

Honors Theses and Capstones

My honors thesis The Art of Adaptation discusses the process of adapting old stories and theatrical pieces for modern audiences through the exploration of various adaptations (theatrical, operatic, dance and film) of Euripides' Medea. It also touches on my own short, modern, adaptation; FURY: A Rock Musical Inspired by Medea. All of this research was important in making the performance aspect of my capstone the best it could be.

Sheridan's Promising Tale Is Half Told, Ian Kilroy

Articles

Review of 'Break a Leg', the memoir by Irish theatre artist Peter Sheridan. First published in the Sunday Business Post Magazine.

Mind The Gap: An Analysis Of The Function Of Love In The Works Of Tom Stoppard And C.S. Lewis., Jacqueline C. Lawler

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Writers C.S. Lewis and Tom Stoppard, though philosophically different, both write about love that embodies the natural law. The natural law can be defined as law that is inherent in man and can be discerned by reason rather than by revelation. Both writers use their observational style in order to reason their way to nearly identical laws of love. Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, Arcadia, Rock ‘n’ Roll and The Real Thing will be analyzed using the framework of C.S. Lewis’s book, The Four Loves.

Exploring The Morality Of Arthur Miller And Elia Kazan To Show How It Affected Their Work, Friendship And Society, Dale D. Parry

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to explore the moral convictions, or the lack of same, in the personal character of Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan and to show how those convictions affected not only their work and personal friendship but society as well. They first met in 1946 when Harold Clurman of the Group Theater passed to Kazan a Miller play that he had read entitled All My Sons. With the success of the play, the two became fast friends and collaborators in profession and ideology. Each had in common the Great Depression, problem fathers, marital instability and Communism. …

Power And Relationships In The Plays Of Neil Labute: Directing And Performing In Some Girl(S), Mary Peyton Griffith

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the major works of Neil LaBute's career as a playwright and screenwriter, including the criticism he has received on theatrical and literary levels. The themes most prevalent in the thesis are the use of power and manipulation in the relationships between LaBute's characters and the ongoing maturation of his characters that coincides with the maturation of his work. The second section of the thesis follows the production, directing, and acting in LaBute's play Some Girl(s).

El Teatre Català: Drames Públics I Privats, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Amb l'arribada dels anys 1990, dues sales de teatre públic ostensiblement sumptuoses, el Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) i el nou Teatre Lliure, van alçar-se en el paisatge teatral barceloni com a Hoes decisius de disputa. Cadascuna va esdevenir un camp de bataHa artistic i polític, un tema destacat de debat i discussió, i de vegades un lloc d'espectacle públic. Potser el drama públic més carnavalesc que va tenir lloc durant aquest període és el protagonitzat per la indeleble presencia de l’actor/ director Josep M. Flotats, l'infructuós periode del qual al timó del TNC, que va acabar amb la seva …

Los Exilios De Els Joglars, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Quizàs no hay ninguna otra compañía teatral en el Estado español que se haya inspirado tanto en las encrucijadas ambivalentes del mundo del espectáculo con la vida real -especialmente, la vida política catalana- como Els Joglars. A lo largo de SU trayectoria de más de cincuenta años, Albert Boadella y su compañía no han dado nunca la espalda a la política; al contrario, han ido modificando sus valores estéticos de manera gradual, ajustando su punto de ataque según las cuestiones políticas mas apasionantes y ardientes de cualquier momento dado. Els Joglars siempre han dejado que lo político despierte e invada …

Artmaking On The Edge Of A Cliff: Directing Iphigenia 2.0, Shannon E. Cameron

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

This thesis contains written documentation regarding the process of directing a theatrical production in fulfillment of the partial requirements for Master of Fine Arts in Directing for Stage and Screen at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.

Topics addressed include play selection, script analysis, director/designer collaboration, coaching and actors and evaluation of final product.

Advisor:  Virginia Smith

Recasting Genre In Tennessee Williams's Apprentice Plays, Christina Ilona Hunter

Dissertations

This dissertation investigates Tennessee Williams’s earliest full-length plays, also known as the apprentice plays—Candles to the Sun, Fugitive Kind, Not About Nightingales, Spring Storm, and Stairs to the Roof—by comparing, contrasting and contextualizing them in relation to Daniel Chandler’s generic criteria of drama; namely, narrative, characterization, setting, topics, iconography, and staging techniques. The present study also draws upon an extensive body of scholarship pertaining to genre theory, Williams’s cultural contemporaries, and the historical and psychological backdrop of Depression-era America. In these early plays, Williams diverged sharply from the dramatic generic conventions of his day, manipulating them in new …

Hole In The Head: A Play, Accompanied By A Conspectus Of Knowledge, Both Repressed And Researched, That Directly Influenced The Playwright In Her Development Of A New Work, Margaret Hunter Cook

Honors Scholar Theses

"Hole in the Head" is a play about a woman who wakes up. Maude wakes up in the first act, and in every subsequent scene she undergoes some form of physical or emotional awakening as characters walk in and out of her front door."Hole in the Head" is accompanied by an introduction that attempts to understand the interplay between creativity and academia through an analysis of theatre, feminist and queer theory, and science.

Theatre For A New Theater: A Play On Architecture, Alex Coulombe

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The project entails transforming a former military fort into a theater. The scopic parameters native to both fort and theater can provide a field of operation for an architecture that simultaneously mobilizes and exposes the machinery of spectacle. In tandem, amplifying and distorting existing conditions of the fort and repurposing them for a theatrical program can provide catalytic parameters for design that are typically absent when designing from a clean slate.

Sobre Lo Visible Y Lo Invisible: Barcelona Y El Teatro, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Durante el invierno del año 2000, el director catalán Lluís Pasqual llevó a la escena del Teatre Lliure, la casa histórica de una de las compañías de repertorio más estable, consolidada y distinguida de Barcelona, una versión catalana de El jardín de los cerezos de Antón Chekov. En la obra de Chekov, Madame Ranyévskaya, emblema de la elegancia marchita y de la ya desvanecida supremacía de la aristocracia rusa, se ve obligada, por su situación de desesperanza económica, a vender su finca y su jardín de cerezos al nuevo-rico Lopatkhin y, después, a volver a París, cuando Rusia se encuentra …

December 2009 - Volume Ix, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

This issue includes items about Theatre Alumni Reunions, Dedication of the Green Room at the Doudna Fine Art Center (named after Lucille and E. Glendon Gabbard), and December Graduates.

June 2009 - Volume Viii, Number 2, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VIII Number 2 includes pictures of the first year of operation of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

Introduction (Special Cluster On The Catalan Stage, Modern And Contemporary), Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

At an international symposium devoted to the contemporary Catalan stage, which was held at the Institut del Teatre de la Diputació de Barcelona in 2005, director Toni Casares observed how the Catalan theater scene in its post-Franco evolution had, already endured a decade aimed at clarifying its cultural politics. "És l'epoca del teatre institucionalitzat o en vies d'institucionalització," he declared, referring to the decade comprising the years 1985 to 1995. It seemed an almost ironic observation at the time, as any attempt at institutionalization was certainly not a new endeavor for the Catalan theater scene; yet, Casares was also quick …

Rodolf Sirera (Panorama Crític De La Literatura Catalana), Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

En aquest clima de revulsió cosmopolita, Rodolf Sirera (València 1948) és el màxim representant de la dramatúrgia textual del País Valencia. De fet hi ha una relació molt notable entre, per una banda, el desenvolupament contemporani del teatre valencià i, per l'altra, els esforços i temptatives de Rodolf Sirera i el seu germà Josep Lluís de promoure, valorar i sostenir les arts escèniques en aquest país (Bou 1988d). Com assenyala John London al seu resum detallat de l'activitat teatral dels germans Sirera, si l'autor teatral català a Barcelona es trobava obligat a enfrontar-se amb nombroses dificultats, la situació a València …

Josep M. Benet I Jornet (Panorama Crític De La Literatura Catalana), Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

L'aportació de Josep M. Benet i Jornet (Barcelona 1940) al renaixement del teatre de text és indiscutible. Es podria afirmar que Benet i Jornet és el dramaturg en vida més reconegut i estrenat de Catalunya; tanmateix, els estudis crítics a l’entorn de la seva obra han demostrat que la seva trajectòria creativa consisteix també en una història àrdua de lluita constant per defensar i reivindicar la literatura dramàtica en català i la figura de l'autor teatral en general. Com passa sovint amb els autors teatrals catalans contemporanis, gran part dels estudis dedicats al teatre de Benet es concentren en diversos …

December 2008 - Volume Viii, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VIII Number 1 includes articles on Mammoth Follies, Second City, and a Makeup Workshop.

June 2008 - Volume Vii, Number 2, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VII Number 2 features articles on the closing of the Village Theatre and welcoming new faculty Nicholas Shaw.

Manuel Molins: Una Altra Ofèlia I Els Fantasmes De Shakespeare, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

L'apropiació i reinscripció que de Hamlet ha fet Manuel Molins, titulada Una altra Ofèlia (2001, estrenada al Teatre Rialto de València el 2004), comença, com a l'obra de Shakespeare, amb l'aparició d'un fantasma. A la primera de les nou escenes, el personatge d'Ofèlia explica a la falstaffiana I pitonissa I herborista Dida (personatge síntesi que és el resum de molts personatges shakespearians) un somni que ha tingut i en el transcurs del qual ha presenciat la manifestació d'un espectre en l'esplanada del castell. D'alguna manera, des del moment que comença l’obra, Ofèlia sembla haver usurpat el paper de Hamlet, ja …

December 2007 - Volume Vii, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VII Number 1 includes articles on the new Doudna Fine Arts Center and also an obituary of Ernest Glendon Gabbard.

«American Awakenings» Dos Nous Musicals, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

A Nova York, la temporada teatral 2006-2007 ha estat marcada per la presència de dos nous musicals que han tingut un gran èxit de públic i que han rebut diversos premis i distincions: Grey Gardens (música de Scott Frankel, llibret de Doug Wright i lletres de Michael Korie), basat en el documental epònim d’Albert i David Maysles, de 1975; i Spring awakening (música de Duncan Sheik, llibret i lletres de Steven Sater), basat en una obra de teatre de Franz Wedekind de 1891. La premsa ha elogiat a bastament aquestes dues produccions, que han estat considerades les «estrelles» de la …

June 2007 - Volume Vi, Number 2, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VI Number 2 includes a letter from former Chair John Oertling and a "Where Are They Now?" section.

Els Paisatges Europeus De Carles Batlle, Sharon G. Feldman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

A l'escena final d'Oasi (2001) de Carles Batlle, en un moment que conjura, curiosament, reminiscències de L'hort dels cirerers d'Anton Txékhov, el personatge d'Abdal·là, un vell home àrab, roman a l'interior de la casa (situada a Ia Catalunya rural) que és a punt de desaparèixer sota les aigües d'un nou pantà. Abdal·là se serveix un got de vi, un gest més europeu que àrab, mentre descriu el joc del guetan. El joc, una invenció de l'autor i de lleugera semblança al joc dels escacs, és una al·legoria dels encreuaments transnacionals, des del sud cap al nord i des del nord …

December 2006 - Volume Vi, Number 1, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume VI Number 1 includes articles about the construction of the Doudna Fine Arts Center and a visit from the National Association of the Schools of Theatre.

June 2006 - Volume V, Number 2, Theatre Arts Department

Sides (Newsletter)

SIDES Volume V Number 2 features an article about an unofficial reunion of 1975-1983 Alumni and the obituary of Lucina "Lucy" Gabbard.