Playwriting Commons^™

"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 …

"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” …

“The Autism Adventures Of Watson & Holmes”: Puppet Theatre To Improve Elementary Students’ Knowledge Of And Attitudes Toward Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sarah N. Simon

Departmental Honors Projects

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a growing concern in schools across the nation. More students with high functioning autism are being mainstreamed, and students on and off the spectrum are being exposed to a wider variety of behaviors and new opportunities for friendship in school. Many students who fall on the autism spectrum suffer from the stigmatizing attitudes of their peers, and this stigmatization often stems from a lack of early education about mental health. Puppetry has been proven to captivate young audiences while teaching important messages in an entertaining and relatable way. The purpose of this …

My Heart Is In The East: Exploring Theater As A Vehicle For Change, Inspired By The Poetic Performances Of Ancient Andalucía, Jessica Litwak

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study addresses the research question “How Do I Inspire Personal and Social Change Through My Theater Practice?” I implement the theory and practice of H.E.A.T., a fusion theater system, combining use of theater arts as healing practice, educational asset, activist tool, and an art form.I research different ways that theater can affect change, focusing specifically on the use of history in performance.I dramatically interpret a period of history where performance and poetry contributed to change.I utilize qualitative methods including performance ethnography, auto ethnography, arts-based research, and historical research.I describe the fieldwork in conflict zones in the Middle East, which …

Through The Eyes Of The Homeless, Aisha M. Soto

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

When reviewing the entire project from start to completion, I can honestly say, Through the Eyes of the Homeless is a play about ten women and their plight. It illustrates their dealings with everyday issues of hurt, disappointment, abuse, love, and hope. I believe the true impact of this play is the undeniable prayer for help and hope within each monologue. Despite the horrors that are unveiled and released through hidden secrets, the undertone of betterment is truly resonating. My own expectation for this play is simply to strike awareness and understanding in the eyes of the people. It is …

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 …

Mind+Body: An Ethnodrama About Adolescent And Young Adult Oncology, Jake Russell Thompson

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The first thing many people think of as a “cancer patient” tends to be an elderly person, or perhaps a child too young to understand what’s happening — pink ribbons and fundraising walks, weak and feeble bodies too sick and delicate to function. These notions of a “quintessential cancer patient” are both limiting in their scope of what the disease actually is, and isolating to younger people going through it. For people who don’t fit this predetermined idea of the psychological, physical, and emotional development of a cancer patient (specifically, the seventeen to thirty-five age range), isolation becomes another side …

Opening Remarks To Outing Lorraine At The Schomburg Center, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This article is an edit of the opening remarks for the event held on May 22nd, 2014 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of the In The Life Series supplying Black LGBT programming coordinated by Steven Fullwood. Outing Lorraine included panelists: Alexis DeVeaux, Joi Gresham, and Steven Fullwood and was moderated by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz. Opening remarks provide a biographical description of Lorraine Hansberry's life, prepare the audience for a conversation on the implications for "outing" a black iconic figure, details the purpose for use of primary and secondary sources when, and provides a bibliography for …

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.

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. …

How To Blow Up A Wal-Mart Without Getting Caught And Without Blowing It Up: An Exploration Of Social Protest, Change, And Crime On Stage A, Mike Duffy '11

Honor Scholar Theses

The idea for this play was first hatched in June of 2010. It was summer in Greencastle and with no cable TV and no air-conditioning my roommate and I found the time for many heated, interesting discussions. My roommate was a particularly enterprising individual; his goal was to start a business on the town square, open a convenience store that would tap into Greencastle’s largest market: the DePauw students. Greencastle is a veritable ghost town in the summer. The discussions with my roommate often centered on the topic of this abandonment Greencastle undergoes every May of every year, and the …

La Dramatisation De L’Écriture Chez Sony Labou Tansi, Georges Ngal

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

As an author always articulates his writing with idioms that reflect a specific time period and a given social group, Sony Labou Tansi talks about “tropicalité”, and gives himself the goal to create multiple “tropicalités”.

Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook Edited By Philip C. Kolin (Review), Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

Buckner provides a review of Kolin's "Contemporary African American Women Playwrights."

Kill The Messenger: Why The Living Arts Reflect The True State Of A Democracy (A Play In One Short Act), David J. Kaye

The University Dialogue

No abstract provided.

Ravers At The Bush: Generation Ecstasy Goes To The Theatre, William C. Boles

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Determining that seminal moment when a new theatrical movement comes to life has been one of the points of debate surrounding the challenging new plays and their talented, twenty something authors that have appeared on the British stage since the mid-1990s. Plays and authors like: Mojo (1995) by Jez Butterworth; Blasted (1995) by Sarah Kane; Closer (1997) by Patrick Marber; The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996) by Martin McDonagh; Butterfly Kiss (1994) by Phyllis Nagy; Love and Understanding (1997) by Joe Penhall; Essex Girls (1994) by Rebecca Prichard; Shopping and Fucking (1996) by Mark Ravenhill; and Ashes and …

Malinche: An Original Musical Drama, Kari Kelly, John Persell

Honors Capstones

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

Inside Unlv, Diane Russell, Jason Vaughan, Cate Weeks

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Asses And Wits: The Homoerotics Of Mastery In Satiric Comedy, Mario Digangi

Publications and Research

This essay explores master-servant homoeroticism in three seventeenth-century satiric comedies: Ben Jonson's Epicoene and Volpone and George Chapman's The Gentleman Usher. Whereas "sodomy" always signifies social disorder, "homoerotic" useful for describing same-sex relations that are socially normative or orderly. Thus homoerotic master-servant relations become "sodomitical" only when they are perceived to threaten social order. In Epicoene, the character associated with the disorder of "sodomy" is neither Dauphine or Epicoene, but the "unnatural" Morose, even though he has not literally had sex with the boy he marries. The erotic master-servant relationship in Volpone is sodomitical because it transgresses against …

Overall Laughing One And The Experiences, Anina Porter Adams

Institute for the Humanities Theses

A fictional play based on the study of writings by psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung. The action is set in the imaginary realm of archetypes, amoral personified energies which appear in tales from diverse cultures. In this play the mythical characters move in an ordered, ritualistic manner. They are dependent upon a geometrically centered black box for the provision of human forms through which they experience "being." A female is the human form provided in this instance and she combines her own energy with that of the other characters though she is not conscious of this fact. The archetypal energies focus …

Ua1d Russell Miller Personnel File, Wku Human Resources

WKU Administration Documents

Personnel file of Russell Miller who taught in the English, Speech & Theatre department from 1947 to 1968. Prior to working at WKU, Miller was head of the typewriting department at the Bowling Green Business University from 1936 to 1942 and 1947.

The Shadow Boxer, Dale Greer

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Communications by Dale Greer on September 8, 1983.

Narrator Reliability In The Creative Autobiography: An Approach For The Solo Interpreter, Diane Schwalm

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study develops an approach to narrator reliability in the creative autobiography for the solo interpreter. The relationships between narrator reliability and firstperson point of view are given, and the need for an understanding of reliability to develop a performance stance is also stated. The defining characteristics of the creative autobiography are also included.

The analytical approach to narrator reliability is three-fold. The reliability of the narrator is examined in terms of mental locus, spatial locus, and temporal locus. The mental locus of the narrator is determined through his relationships with himself, the characters, the action, and the reader. The …

A Visual Concept For Robinson Jeffers' Adaptation Of Euripides' Medea, H. Kevin Lanham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The theatrical elements of setting, costumes, and make-up for Robinson Jeffers' adaptation of Euripides' Medea were designed and constructed in an attempt to create an effective visual concept. Through careful script analysis and close communication with the director and production staff, the designer combined the visual elements. As a record of the concept development from generalities to rough sketches and from formal drawings and diagrams to the finished product, the designer uses the accounting to trace both the artistic creation and the physical construction of each set element and costume for Medea.

The Interpretive-Rhetorical Situation: A Framework For Post Performance Analysis Of Interpretation, John Korinek

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The interpretive-rhetorical situation was formulated by blending Lloyd Bitzer's concepts of the rhetorical situation with contemporary interpretation theory. interpretation is momentary, the foundation established as The concept of as a suasory speech act in the sense that it transactional, and intentional, established for theory formation. The key concept an application for the interpretive-rhetorical situation was that it formed a cohesive framework for guiding post performance aspects of interpretation, especially performance criticism and experimental research. An experimental study was conducted, testing the newly formed breakdown of the traditional interpretation elements of writer, reader, and audience into the constituents of exigency, audience …

An Analysis Of The Themes Of Guilt And Atonement In The Writings Of Tennessee Williams, James Curry

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The themes of guilt and atonement have been analyzed in selected writings of Tennessee Williams. Research concerning these two themes has been developed simultaneously with Williams’s concept of the universe and man. Many of Williams’s characters seek a form of atonement or purification for their guilt which has arisen due to their “incompleteness and unnatural desires.” Williams’s basic concept concerning the universe is that it is fragmented, a universe not completed by its Creator. Consequently, Williams envisions man and his nature to be likewise incomplete. It is this incompletion in man which causes him to have “unnatural desires,” labeled as …

An Analysis Of Production Procedures In The Stage Play Harriet, Harold Harvey Ulrici

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

It is the purpose of this thesis to present the research, planning, and actual production procedures of the play entitled Harriet, as written by Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements. This is the production which was originally done by Gilbert Miller at Henry Miller's Theatre in 1943 with Miss Helen Hayes in the title role.

Ua37/23 Whas Broadcast No. 74, Whas, Western Kentucky University

WKU Administration Documents

Script for weekly WKU broadcast on WHAS radio. This show included Earl Moore, Kelly Thompson, Billy Taylor, William Cox, Dorine Hawke, Jean Hill, Gordon Wilson, M.C. Ford, Mabel Thacher, Brice McEuen, Zack Hill, Frances Richards, Ray Logan, Bessie Cherry, J.B. Galloway, C.H. Vanmeter, George Page, Paul Davis, Jack Owens, Roy Vance, Reid Sterrett, Robert Reithel, Radio play about My Old Kentucky Home.

Ua37/23 Whas Broadcast No. 51, Whas, Western Kentucky University, Earl Moore

WKU Administration Documents

Script for weekly WKU broadcast on WHAS radio. This show included Earl Moore and the Western Players presenting the radio play Two Other People.

Ua37/23 Whas Broadcast No. 24, Whas, Western Kentucky University, Earl Moore

WKU Administration Documents

Script for weekly WKU broadcast on WHAS radio. This particular show is a play written using letters owned by Lenora Lindley of Livermore, Kentucky written by a freed slave in Liberia to her former owner in Ohio County, Kentucky.