Tragic Practice: Participatory Democracy and Activist Theatre in the U.S., 2006-2010
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Jean Graham-Jones
In this dissertation, I develop a theory of inclusive democratic communication, partly by studying contemporary activist performances such as Poverty Simulation, a role-playing game in which social service and government workers switch places with the poor people who are their clients; and Iraq Veterans Against the War's "Operation First Casualty," in which soldiers perform the drills they have enacted in Iraq in public spaces in the U.S., such as Penn Station. I see these performances as exceptions within national discourse, in which poor people and soldiers are more often represented than represent themselves. In exploring the contributions that performances such as these could make to public perceptions of political and ethical issues, I develop a model of democratic communication based upon inclusion, self-representation, and equal interpretive authority.
Race and Realism in Edward Harrigan's Mulligan Guards Series
Year of Dissertation:
2009
In this dissertation I examine the written texts and performances of the original productions of Edward Harrigan's Mulligan Guard series as they intersected and embodied the presentation of race and Realism. My study considers the context of the period in which the plays premiered: 1879 - 1884, beginning with the first full-length piece from the series: The Mulligan Guard Ball. Using race performance theory and the theories and history of Realism, I show how Harrigan's work figured prominently at a key point in the history of American theatre, embodying a plethora of contradictions: racism and progressivism; Realism and melodrama.
The Actor and the Playwright: Adaptation on the Early Eighteenth-Century, English Stage
Author:
Ellen Anthony-Moore
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Abstract
The Foundations of American Regional Theatre
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Since the early 1960s, regional theatre has grown into one of the major sectors of contemporary American theatre culture. Why have so many regional theatres existed for years? Why have they attracted such a large audience? Partially through a survey of the regional theatre sector as a whole, and mainly through case studies of the four individual theatres, this study aims to answer these questions.
The Powerful Voice of Women Dramatists in the Arab American Theatre Movement
Year of Dissertation:
2009
The Powerful Voice of Women Dramatists in the Arab American Theatre Movement
Woman's Work: Ruth Maleczech as Mabou Mines Performer, Director & Manager
Year of Dissertation:
2013
Abstract
Fashioning Performance Careers in New York, 1869-1899: How Female Performers Negotiated Changing Ideas of Womanhood
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Although they worked outside the home, the majority of nineteenth-century female performers built careers within, not in spite of, domestic ideology. Their choice contrasts with those of their more transgressive sisters, like Sarah Bernhardt, who flouted the ideal. This study of over seven hundred women who performed in New York City during the last thirty years of the nineteenth century examines how they created careers and public characters by combining values found within domestic ideology with changes in the notions of womanhood brought about by the experience of the Civil War.
The Circulation of Blackface: Nostalgia and Tradition in US Minstrel Performance of the Early 1920s
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The Circulation of Blackface:
REHEARSING "THE SOUTH" SICILIAN CONSTRUCTS OF REPRESENTATION ON THE STAGE 1860-1917
Year of Dissertation:
2013
My dissertation examines how theatre in Sicily after the Risorgimento may have contributed to the construction of a Sicilian identity that is considered different and other to that of northern Italy. I analyze the role that Sicilian theatre and the verismo movement played, between 1863 and 1917, in the building of a regional versus national identity through artistic cultural representations. By considering key works from this period, I posit that old and new stereotypes were reaffirmed and developed, and that native artists participated in the othering of their paesani. I also contend that the touring Sicilian acting companies in the early twentieth century, based in improvisation and folk theatre, furthered the perception of the island as exotic and different.
Rhythmic Juggling: Tracing the Disembodied Voice of Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Productions, 1968-2009
Year of Dissertation:
2012
This dissertation is concerned with the genealogies of the disembodied voice in Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysteric Theater. Each of the first three chapters posits a genealogy in which the disembodied voice is elaborated: first by the discovery of the unconscious, the historical avant-gardes, and finally by the neo-avant-gardes that return to the disembodied voice as a device with a difference, through technology and theorization. The final chapter demonstrates that these genealogies are essential to an understanding of Foreman's uses of the disembodied voice. The final chapter divides Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric productions into four sections, which trace the particular uses of disembodied voice of each period. Each section demonstrates how the disembodied voice gives form to Foreman's intellectual and aesthetic preoccupations. The disembodied voice allows Foreman to position himself as a literary critic with his own works of art as the object of his criticism and to "echo" the abyss that is left by the voice's retreat from the body.