Playwriting Commons^™

A Virtuous Woman, Who Can Find?, Ashley Banker

Senior Honors Theses

The contemporary theatre world lacks prominent, virtuous female roles, which are needed to inspire both the actors who play them and the audience members who witness them to emulate their virtuous characteristics. Virtuous characters encourage society to strive for excellence, as well as provide excellent role models for the next generation of young women. From a Christian perspective, a virtuous female role strives to exemplify the traits in Proverbs 31: trustworthy, kind, industrious, selfless, strong, honorable, and God-fearing. The critically-acclaimed plays The Humans and Good People feature prominent female characters who do not exhibit these virtues. Although each play contains …

Marina Y Cleopatra En El Escenario Teatral, Jon Paul Lawton

World Languages and Cultures Student Papers and Posters

Cleopatra and Doña Marina come from distinct time periods in world history— respectively, the declining Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and the age of the Spanish conquest. Literature has been inspired by these historical figures, creating various interpretations of this Egyptian queen and Aztec translator. Fundamentally, these two personalities share similarities: both women fall in love with foreign invaders and harness influence in the political arena of their times. For this, they must rectify their romantic desires with loyalty for their home countries. The plays Todos los gatos son pardos by Carlos Fuentes and Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare reveal …

Program: Through The Looking Glass, And What You Found There, University Of Dayton, Teejai Dorsey

Dance and Theater Programs

Co-produced by the Theatre, Dance, and Performance Technology program and the Department of Music

What do you see when you look in the mirror? If you were on the other side looking back, in a land of opposites, how would your perception of reality be altered? Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There reflect the larger truths that underscore our social experience in this constantly changing nonsensical world. Journey with us through a wonderland of mystery and delight while exploring who we were, who we are, and who we are yet to become in this dramatic …

The Women Of Lockerbie

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University's performance of The Women of Lockerbie by Deborah Brevoort..

Performed October 29-31 & November 5-7, 2021 at the Mitchell Theatre.

The Women of Lockerbie is a poignant drama inspired by the real-life aftermath of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The play follows a grieving mother from New Jersey who roams the hills of Lockerbie, searching for her son's remains. She encounters the women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. government to retrieve the clothing of the victims found in the wreckage. These women aim to wash the clothes …

A Lie Of The Mind, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2021-2022 Season Production

Sam Shepherd, a mastermind of dark humor and powerful drama, out does himself with this story of two dysfunctional families joined by marriage in the American West, each trying to hold on to the ideal picture of stability without ever having experienced it. Jake believes he may have killed his wife, Beth, during a domestic dispute and, to calm his concerns, his brother Frankie attempts to get the real story by traveling to Beth’s family home in Montana. While he is relieved to see Beth alive, though severely injured from the incident, Frankie is suddenly entangled in a bizarre familial …

The Conscience Of Little Women: Beth's Epic, Mcewen Baker

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

From its conception, and through countless retellings, there is no doubt that Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is an American classic that has stood the test of time. Kate Hamill’s stage adaptation affirms and extends this legacy; the playwright adopts a contemporary feminist approach that defies gender norms and exclusivity in casting and encourages an actor-centered approach. This essay explains the importance of this adaptation and its influence on my portrayal of Beth March in Belmont University’s Fall 2021 production. It touches on the often overlooked significance of the second youngest sister as well as how my personal battle with …

A Gentleman's Guide To Love And Murder, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2021-2022 Season Production

Join us as we celebrate a return to live theater with a very special staged concert version of the show that was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020. While we are unable to fully realize the elaborate design of this hilarious knock-em-dead musical romp, the script will be performed in full with much of the original cast, and you will not leave without having a hearty laugh. Poor, low-born Monty Navarro is desperate to inherit the dukedom by surpassing no fewer than eight members of the well-to-do D’Ysquith family in line before him. Just wait until …

Borrowed Babies

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University's performance of Borrowed Babies by Jennifer Blackmer.

Performed September 10-12, 2021 at the Mitchell Theatre.

Borrowed Babies is a play by Jennifer Blackmer that delves into the historical practice of university "practice houses" for home economics students. The story follows Judy London, a Professor of Home Economics, who encounters one of her former "practice babies" as she nears the end of her career. This meeting prompts Judy to reflect on her life's journey and the sacrifices she has made. The play explores the evolving roles of women and mothers in American society over the past …

Homesick, Or Sacred Heterosexual Spaces, Ryan A. Drake

Theses and Dissertations

A dark satire about a young queer man who comes home under mysterious circumstances to find that he's been replaced by someone who looks just like him. He starts having dreams that his family is trying to kill him...but are they dreams?

Language As The Medium: A Literature Review. Harnessing The Prolific Power Of Dramatic Language As A Therapeutic Tool In Drama Therapy, Edward Freeman

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Language in and of the theatre, with its palate of variegated writing styles and playwrights from throughout time, has the potential to be harnessed, focused, and systematized for use as a therapeutic tool within drama therapy – the field’s artistic medium. Drama therapy could benefit from having a specific medium germane to its artform which has the potential to provide practitioners with a common resource and means of communication, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning, as well as align the field with other creative arts therapies. Language encompasses all forms of human communication – speaking, writing, signing, gesturing, expressing facially – …

Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams Clams, Ella Boureau

Theses and Dissertations

CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS CLAMS is a multilingual retrofuturist couscous western starring two eco-militant sisters living on a polluted Mediterranean beach.

"Possessed": The Phenomenology Of Immersive Theatre, Shannon M. Flynn

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Using phenomenology as a lens of analysis, I investigate how immersive theatre engages audiences in a more direct and sensory way than traditional theatre. In a proscenium theatre the action is seen from the same angle. The theatre itself becomes a phenomenon in audience’s minds, each performance subtly influencing how the audience perceives the next. I investigate how relationships between audience and performers are altered in immersive experiences with no delineation between the space audience and actors occupy. The phenomenological idea of frontality places immersed audiences in positions where they are able to explore a constantly changing perspective of the …

La Teoría Del “Generolecto” Observada En La Llamada De Lauren De Paloma Pedrero Y Entre Villa Y Una Mujer Desnuda De Sabina Berman, Thomas Tsai

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Created and popularized by Deborah Tannen, the Genderlect Theory explains how through social contexts, men and women have different ways of communicating. According to Tannen, men focus more on status, while women focus more on forming connections. On the other hand, there is also machismo, the behavior and attitude men partake to show that they are “manly” or “superior” to women and others they deem as inferior. Through the literary theatrical works, "La llamada de Lauren" by Paloma Pedrero and "Entre Villa y una mujer" desnuda by Sabina Berman, we can see similarities and differences in the Genderlect Theory and …

An Introduction To Theatre Of Omniscience, Kierstan K. Conway

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Theatre is an art of infinite possibility and is created and viewed from a variety of different lenses. Throughout history, artistic movements such as realism, surrealism, naturalism, expressionism, romanticism, and many more have influenced the ideologies of theatrical artists. Theatre practitioners make a stake in their artistic beliefs in the form of manifestos, which encapsulate their understanding in an abstract or concrete way. In reading and studying these manifestos, the individual then has the choice to follow suit to a school of thought, or derive their own philosophy. Theatre, in one viewpoint, can be understood as a means of omniscience, …

The Story Of A Journey: Awakenings Before, During And After The Zoom Production Of The Play Thrift Store Junkie, Brendan Beseth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis tells the story of several awakenings I had while pursuing my M.F.A. in playwriting at the University of Arkansas. It details some of the traps a writer can fall into. It tells of how to get out of the quicksand. Also contained within is an account of the thesis production of my play Thrift Store Junkie and the play’s script.

A Tough Nut Never Boils: Thoughts And Ruminations On Language And Playmaking, Lauren Ferebee

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After an unorthodox journey through higher education ending during the coronavirus pandemic, which has made the typical theatrical thesis production and subsequent typical final year impossible, the author reflects on the body of work she has created at the University of Arkansas as an M.F.A. candidate in playwriting at the Department of Theatre, how she has reached both deeper into her own discipline and outside of it to widen her understanding of liveness, performance, and textual creation. She interrogates her own unexpected experiences, from figuring out how to make theatre without theatres, to teaching students who have never seen a …

I Am, Braylee Polson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I Am is a creative thesis in the form of a theatrical play. This play creates a new Appalachian legend based around the Biblical Story of Moses, feminism, and the African Deity Mami Wata.

Chickens In Texas: A Farce In One Act, Lawson Marchetti

Honors Theses

Herein lies a one-act farce written by Lawson David Marchetti, an English major in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. His emphasis is in Creative Writing, and his minors are in Theatre Arts and in Music. This farce was written as his senior thesis, for the completion of requirements of the Honors College. The play was conceived in August of 2020, and completed in April of 2021. The play itself is set in modern times, sans pandemic, and is highly whimsical in style. It requires a cast of twelve comedic actors, and several complicated technical …

Echoes Of The Past: A New Play, Cayson Miles

Honors Theses

My project is a new play titled Echoes of the Past. In this two-act full length play, two different diseases are explored: the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. The show follows a trio of characters from each time period, and as the play progresses, the time periods begin to intersect, and the characters begin to interact with one another. I chose to write this play because as a member of the LGBT community, when I watched the response to the coronavirus pandemic unfold, I could not help but see the parallels to …

A Playwright’S Process: How Ideas Change From Germination To Execution, Austin Roberts

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Tempest 2021, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

Abducted and set adrift to die by her power-hungry sister and a jealous king, Prospera and her daughter, Miranda have survived 12 long years shipwrecked on a lonely island. When Prospera learns though her magical arts that those whose sought her child’s death are within her reach, she is consumed by rage. Conjuring the greatest of storms to break their ship upon her shores, Prospera brings her enemies to her feet. But when the opportunity to wreak her final vengeance is upon her, Prospera can no longer recognize the thing she has become, and she is forced to choose between …

Into A Lamplit Room, Otterbein Theatre And Dance Department

2020-2021 Season

The life of Composer and Social Activist, Kurt Weill, is celebrated in this cabaret-style compilation of his work. The production includes more than 30 songs, ranging from his life in Berlin during the Weimar Era during which he was a voice against the Nazi regime, to his emigration to the U.S. where he was a supporter of the American war effort in the 1930’s, and finally his contributions to the American Musical Theatre canon. Audiences will particularly recognize his collaborations with Ira Gershwin, Bertolt Brecht, and Maxwell Anderson in the songs written for Broadway including Tschaikowsky, Mack the Knife, Pirate …

Chimeric Ideals, Carter Hoffer

Honors Thesis

What comes next and how do you move on from something that seems all-encompassing? These are just a couple of the questions author Carter Hoffer asks within his original play, Chimeric Ideals. Inspired by a nation rife with gun violence and no plan to reign it in, Chimeric Ideals follows the story of Percy, Adam, Jed, and Henry immediately after the most traumatic experience of their young lives, exploring the difficulty of healing in a world where mental health is a taboo subject, and its' sufferers sometimes refuse to admit to even having a problem. Originally conceived as a …

The Island Heritage / El Patrimonio De La Isla, Susana Castillo-Rodriguez

Languages and Literatures

In 1926, Philip. J. Fisher published “The Island Heritage. Episodes from the Missionary History of Fernando Poo, West Africa. A Play for Young People”. This book has remained unknown until present. There is one copy at Archives and Special Collections, SOAS Library (London).

This play is of enormous interest not just for it has been mentioned above but also because:

1. It is a vivid narration of the settlement of Protestant missionaries in Clarence, based on historical facts and personal experience collected first hand by Philip. J. Fisher as he interviewed some of the protagonists in the play.

2. It is the …

Ataka, Anthony H. Chambers

Mime Journal

No abstract provided.

Introducing Genzai Nō: Categorization And Conventions, With A Focus On Ataka And Mochizuki, Diego Pellecchia

Mime Journal

No abstract provided.

Mochizuki: History And Context, Michael Watson

Mime Journal

No abstract provided.

From Ataka To Kanjinchō: Adaptation Of Text And Performance In A Nineteenth-Century Nō-Derived Kabuki Play, Katherine Saltzman-Li

Mime Journal

Nō techniques and play borrowings provided important infusions into kabuki throughout its history, but in the nineteenth century, a genre of kabuki plays in close imitation of nō or kyōgen wasadded to the kabuki repertoire. The genre came to be called matsubamemono, meaning “[nō/kyōgen-derived kabuki] plays [performed] on a stage with a pine painted on the back wall” or “pine-boardplays.”1 These plays are the focus of this article, in which I first introduce the genre and its place in kabuki history, and then discuss its most famous example, the play Kanjinchō (Hattori 17–40; Meisakukabuki zenshū 181–197; Brandon, The Subscription List …

Paragons Of Loyalty On The Japanese Stage, J. Thomas Rimer

Mime Journal

No abstract provided.

Emmie And The Enchanted Orchid: Portraying Positive Disability Representation In Children's Media, Adrianna Waters

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Disability representation in media and storytelling is often negative or inaccurate, with disability narratives equating disability to evil or lesser than abled bodies. The harmful representation is especially prevalent and dangerous in children’s media as the depiction of characters with disabilities may be children’s first introduction to disability, and thus the portrayal is likely to stay with them, especially as stories for adults continue to perpetuate the inaccurate representation of disabilities. “Emmie and the Enchanted Orchid”: Portraying Positive Disability Representation in Children’s Media seeks to examine the harmful portrayal of disabilities in children’s media while also recognizing how disability can …