Playwriting Commons^™

Hannah, Nora Brigid Monahan

Theses and Dissertations

Hannah is a contemporary adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, which reimagines Ibsen's heroine as a "stealth" (or undetected) transsexual woman living among the American conservative elite in Washington D.C. Newly married to George Taylor, a charismatic but financially strained far-right media personality, Hannah struggles to maintain the façade she has constructed when Eliot Loving, a volatile political streamer and figure from past, reappears in her life. Their collision, orchestrated by the manipulative power-broker Judge Brock, upends Hannah's sense of self and forces her into a desperate struggle for her own autonomy and security. In a deliberate subversion of …

Jawad, Mohammed A. Alani

Theses and Dissertations

In a luxurious suburban glass house in Toledo, Ohio, tensions simmer within a fractured family on the brink of unraveling. Jawad, a 17-year-old Pakistani American, struggles with his identity and rejects the traditional path to college, much to the frustration of his father, Kamal, a businessman trying to juggle a demanding career and a complex family life. Kamal’s new wife, Ishraq, is caught in her own struggles with body image and the overwhelming pressures of her roles as a new mother and stepmother. Beneath the surface, an unsettling attraction brews between Jawad and Ishraq, further complicating the already strained dynamics. …

Encanto The Musical: An Exploration Of Translating Media From Film To Stage, Isabel Perez-Flores

Whittier Scholars Program

I’m going to be honest: I did not go into this project with the intent of radically changing Encanto. I had some points I wanted to expand upon, some improvements and edits that I felt the film could have utilized, but overall, I was satisfied with the way the story was told. The real change, I’ve come to realize, lies not in the story and the script itself, but in the way the story is told. The obvious change is that this version of Encanto, in an ideal world, would be performed in front of a live audience, in a …

A Loon On Highland Lake, An Eco-Fantasy, Erin E. Bennett

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

A Loon on Highland Lake is a fantasy play, adapted from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake, itself an adaption of a Russian “swan maiden” folktale. In this retelling, the spirit of an invasive tree species, Alder Buckthorn, endangers the inhabitants of the small lake town of East Andover, New Hampshire. On the night of the 4^th of July, Buckthorn places a curse on an unfortunate news reporter, transforming him into a loon, the solitary black bird known in the northeast for its distinct, haunting call. Figgy, a shy ecologist living in East Andover, stumbles upon the knowledge that her …

The Merit Of Adaptation: An Exploration Of Adaptation In Regard To Sophocles’ Theban Plays And The Role Of Antigone Within The Story, Hogan T. Holt

Theses and Dissertations

The creation of an adaptation is extremely challenging and time-consuming, but with the right tools and inspiration, that task of creation can be eased. By looking at three different adaptations of the Theban plays, the goal of creating a new adaptation of this series of plays can be achieved. At the same time, this adaptation can achieve a goal of highlighting an important character from the original set of plays, Antigone, and give her a role that elevates her to the main protagonist across all three plays, thus allowing the Theban plays to become a more feminine piece that works …

I Could Never, Chad Kaydo

Theses and Dissertations

Isn’t it horrible? What she did? Can you even *imagine* doing that? Three women reckon with the dark myths we tell ourselves…while their husbands golf.

How This Bitch Made This Bitch: A Play On Defiant Women Of Color, Adrienne B. Dawes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The workshop production of my full-length, bilingual play “This Bitch: Esta Sangre Quiero” marks the culmination of my course of study at the University of Arkansas. In this thesis, I will discuss the development process of “This Bitch” from its humble Zoom reading beginnings to regional theater development to its workshop production as part of the university’s 2022-2023 Mainstage season. Through the lens of this new play process, I outline my artistic evolution during my four years of graduate school, interrogating and celebrating the ways this bitch has been inspired by “This Bitch.”

Adapting The Classics: Making The Invisible Visible, Kate Isabel Foley

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to answer the question, “How can a writer use an old story to shine new light on modern issues and make the invisible visible?” My adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a genderbent retelling with queer themes while my adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is a dark reimagining of Mrs. Darling as an antihero protagonist who must become Captain Hook to try to save her children. Both my research and these two plays focus on bringing visibility to marginalized communities, specifically women and members of the queer community.

Pride And Prejudice: A Modern, Queer Retelling For The Stage, Kate Isabel Foley

Theater Summer Fellows

In the course of studying LGBTQ topics in a queer drama class, I noticed that there was a glaring omission in our readings: the “B.” However, this lack of bisexual representation wasn’t due to a poor syllabus, but to a dismaying lack of bisexual representation in theatre as a whole. This observation, as well as my own experience as a bisexual woman, motivated me to use my love of writing and theatre to fill the void. After performing in Pride and Prejudice at Ursinus, I knew that Jane Austen’s story was the key to me bringing visibility to an underserved, …

Spring Awakening: A Midwest Children's Tragedy, Lena Nighswander

Honors Projects

Spring Awakening: A Midwest Children's Tragedy is a new play that takes up the issues of adaptation, translation, and temporality in regards to Frank Wedekind's Frühlingserwachen, a play infamous in its revelry in controversy and unflinching nature in the face of social issues many would prefer to ignore. Several modern adaptations of the original text exist, but none have utilized the 2020s as a setting nor have they used the fertile landscape of the American midwest as a background.

This play, set in Toledo, OH, leans into the Wedekindian tradition of cutting social criticism and controversy in its exploration of …

Making A Musical: The Art Of Adapting A Film Or A Book For The Stage, David Wohl

Winthrop Faculty and Staff Publications

Over the past 100 years, stage musicals have been made from original works as varied as straight plays, novels, magazine articles, movies, short stories, poems, and biographies. This article explores two original works (a film and a novel) created separately by two faculty members at a historically black university in West Virginia and which were turned into staged musicals produced by professional theatre companies in 2019. The article includes information and advice on the adaptation process from composers, playwrights, and other collaborators.

Adaptations: Blood And All You Zombies, Nolan Atterbury

Honors College Theses

The author describes the experience of adapting two different short stories for the stage, one as a solo playwright and one as part of an ensemble performance workshop.

Ancient Greeks Today: Modern Adaptations Of The Orestes Myth, Arthur L. Robinson

Theater Summer Fellows

This research closely examines the ancient Greek myth of Orestes, the boy who murdered his mother to avenge his father. It first draws upon the works of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles, who all wrote different variations of the same myth. This is followed by an examination of several more modern day adaptions of the myth, including but not limited to Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Elektra, David Foley’s Murders at Argos, and Ferdinando Baldi’s The Forgotten Pistolero. The research highlights differences made to more effectively reach the varying audiences of the time, and the techniques used to create a successful …

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.

The Development And Debut Of Adam Esquenazi Douglas' Play "Murder And The English Gentleman", Adam Esquenazi Douglas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development process of the creation of a new playscript, "Murder and the English Gentleman", an adaptation of the short story "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" by Oscar Wilde. The play is a wild, comedy-of-manners presented in classic Wildean 19th century drawing room style. The document details the process of getting this script from short story to script to stage. Also included are some of the play's most significant drafts, the original short story by Wilde, production and rehearsal journals, and production photos. The play was presented by the University of Arkansas' Boar's …

The Count Of Monte Cristo

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 2011 performance of The Count of Monte Cristo, adapted by Charles Morey from the novel by Alexandre Dumas.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the story of Edmond Dantès, who is falsely accused of treason and is sent to prison. He and a fellow prisoner escape and discover a treasure, he returns as the Count of Monte Cristo to take revenge on the men who framed him.

The Secret Garden

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 2009 performance of The Secret Garden based on the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett with script and lyrics by Marsha Norman and music by Lucy Simon.

The Secret Garden tells the story of Mary Lennox, a young English girl from British Raj who is sent to live in Yorkshire, England with her relatives after her parents die in a cholera outbreak. As she works in a neglected hidden garden with a young gardener she begins to grow and begins to influence her sickly cousin and uncle.

The Hobbit

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 2008 performance of The Hobbit based on the book by J. R. R. Tolkien adapted for theater by Patricia Gray.

The Hobbit is the story of hobbit Bilbo Baggins who is enlisted by the wizard Gandalf to aid a band of dwarves reclaim their mountain home from a great dragon.

The Young Lady's Consent, Christopher O. Kidder

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This play is a translation and adaptation of a Spanish play originally written in 1806 by Leandro Fernández de Moratín, El sí de las niñas. Because that play was not available to English-speaking actors, I translated the work directly from the original Spanish. The resulting manuscript was not the finished product of this play, however. Through a series of workshops with actors trained in a physical method of theatre I devised in order to modernize classic works to a more modern audience's tastes, the script morphed and grew into the play that follows.

Peter Pan

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 2002 performance of Peter Pan based on the play by J. M. Barrie with music by Jule Styne, Mark Charlap, and Trude Rittmann, and lyrics by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Carolyn Leigh.

Peter Pan tells the story of the Darling children, Wendy, John, and Michael, and their adventures with Peter Pan, the boy who never grows older and lives in the fantastical land of Neverland.