Line of Action is a comic book-based play exploring the current youth of the United States.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 30-11, Section: A, page: 5103. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1969.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University.

ABSTRACT A detailed account of the working life and achievements of the English actress/manager, Lena Ashwell, between the years 1891 and 1929, set in the context of the theatrical and social environment of these four decades. The thesis presents a chronological record of Ashwell's stage career, her development as a theatrical manager and her contributions to progress in her profession as well as to the changing perception of the role of women in society. It also records Ashwell's contribution during the First World War, taking entertainment to the war zones to boost the morale of soldiers and to provide employment for actors and musicians. It continues with an account of the post-war pursuit of her aim of making theatre accessible to the whole community through dedicated commitment to the British Drama League and the idea of a National Theatre and the creation and management of the Lena Ashwell Players. The thesis proposes that Ashwell has been unjustly neglected in histories of this period and that her considerable achievements are worthy of recognition and inclusion in accounts not only of the acting profession and the achievements of women playwrights, but also of the Suffrage and women's movement, the First World War, the National Theatre of Great Britain and the municipal or regional theatres established throughout the country, state subsidy and public support for the arts, actor training and the study of drama and theatre within the education system. Five chapters give a narrative account of Ashwell's work from her first stage appearance in March 1891 to the closure of the Lena Ashwell Players in August 1929. Each chapter adds to the cumulative impact of Ashwell's achievements, while identifying areas where she has left a lasting legacy. The Postscript provides a brief account of the last twenty-seven years of her long life, when she was less able to play an active role in society, but never lost her indomitable spirit or ambition for a better world. The Appendices provide a chronological list of her stage appearances and details of the members of the Lena Ashwell Players and the company's repertoire during the 1920s.

Master of Philosophy / This single case study examines the way that Johnstone’s (1981) Impro ‘Poetics’ are being used in the contemporary practice of Open Scene Additive Improvisation (OSAI). Johnstone’s Poetics have become a ubiquitous part of contemporary drama improvisation parlance, yet they have never themselves been the subject of any academic examination. This study attempts to fill that void by looking at their use in Open Scene Impro, the purest form of theatre improvisation (since OSAI relies on no structures other than the audience suggestion around which to improvise a ‘Scene’.) To do this, the research analysed seven OSAI Scenes performed by 3 undergraduate student improvisers at the University of Sydney in July 2003, and looked at the ways in which the actions that Johnstone’s Poetics describe are actually being used. Looking closely at Scene segments, the study identifies a number of features: the ways that Offers are used to initiate, re-initiate, confirm or redirect meaning across five identified fields; the ways that Accepts temper these meanings; the productive use of Blocking in a Scene; and many other functions. It was also found that in-Scene negotiations about definition of situation became a subtextually enmeshed part of the Scene’s meaning (often in Phases of improvisers’ conflicting Endowments), while the predictive and framing control of narrative-indexing Offers ensured that character roles became defined early on in all Scenes. Overall, the study’s analysis dissects each of the Poetics to show that improvisers use them for a number of major purposes crucial for the reality, forward-movement and coherence of a Scene to obtain. The study concludes by elucidating how the nine main Poetics (Offer, Endow, Justify, Advance, Extend, Reincorporate, Accept, Block and Yield) serve these purposes. These purposes are then abstracted into the TOE Model, which in turn forms the basis of a proposed dynamic and holistic model for understanding OSAI at each moment of its (re-)creation. The ultimate aim, beyond the reach of the present study, is to be able to understand an Open Scene’s every moment, and each moment’s reference historically backwards, and, to some degree, predictively forwards in time. To this end, the fundamental dynamic of contextualised giving and receiving in OSAI is morphed into a Taoist energetic model, a “Tao of Impro”, along with the notion, derived from Mandelbrot, of ‘cybernetic semantic iteration’, by which information seems to get processed in Open Scenes. The educational implications of these models are then sketched, and future directions for research in OSAI pointed to.

Western drama, natya and lila

A narrative folk form of a pastoral community

Leather puppetry in Andhra Pradesh

Theatre of Maharashtra

The subject of this thesis is a theatrical production of the one-act play, The Chairs, written by Eugene Ionesco, particularly focusing on the artistic position of the director. The director is the artistic leader of the play, and the material of the thesis deals with all aspects of launching a successful production from the directors perspective. This includes appropriate research for sufficient knowledge of the script, collaboration with other theatre artists in fully realizing the production, and rehearsal with actors in bringing the play to life. The final part of the directorial process includes an evaluation of the plays success.