It is the goal of this paper to document through written description the personal approach that I would take in creating a role for the theatre. It will also describe what I feel to be valuable attributes and traits that make successful theatrical performance. Through the dissection of these two areas, I will glean a valuable personal insight into my work, how I've grown within it, and where I need to continually push to learn more.

Introduction, Notes and Full-lenth play called YOU LOST ME by Bonnie Metzgar.

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Shoe examines the family dynamics and gender roles within a dysfunctional Mexican American family led by a matriarch who manipulates her grown children to remain under her roof as a way to deal with the enormous grief created when her spouse abandoned her and her children twelve years ago. Drawing inspiration from the nursery rhyme There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, the play creates an atmosphere of confinement and constriction as the protagonist yearns for a life outside of the family’s double-wide trailer in Texas. The play calls for an all-Latinx cast. While the characters are all Mexican American, the roles are open to any Latinx actor. It should be acknowledged that the script is still in progress. Rewrites and minor edits will likely occur when the play undergoes a rehearsal process for its world premiere.

Five women actors working during the Golden Age of Hollywood vie for the lead role in a sprawling epic movie titled “The Pirate Queen.” Alliances and rivalries form among the women with the impending involvement of America looming in the background, and the struggle between democracy and fascism form a thread running through the action on the film set.

The theatre curriculum at Hopewell High School began eleven years ago with one course; it now has expanded to three courses. Because the last course in the sequence may be repeated for credit, a student in this curriculum may earn four credits in theatre study. The first course is English 124, entitled Drama I, and it may be taken by students in grades 9 through 12. This course introduces the student to performing in pantomime, improvisation, and in scripted scenes. The second course is English 125, entitled Drama II, which is open to students in grades 10 through 12 who have completed Drama I; college bound juniors and seniors without any theatre credits may also take Drama II. The emphasis in Drama II is theatre history and literature. The third course is English 147, entitled Theatre Ensemble, which is a play production course with work on the production process leading toward a finished performance. Students in Theatre Ensemble must have successfully completed at least one other theatre course, and they must submit an audition and/or interview for admission to the course. Theatre Ensemble may be repeated once for credit. The overall objectives of the theatre program at Hopewell High School are: to provide the student with a creative vehicle to learn about himself and about himself with others to provide the school with a viable and visible performing arts group to provide the community with its only regular theatre group to use school and community resources in theatrical production and study to provide training in acting, production, theatre history, dramatic literature, and management skills to encourage independent study and artistic endeavor to follow current mandates and guidelines of the Virginia State Department of Education to provide training on the high school level for the gifted theatre student who has professional goals to cooperate with, and often incorporate, all other arts programs within the school system to assist in the development of a total appreciation of all of the arts to develop a program on the secondary level in dance and movement to develop a community theatre group It is important that any curriculum have objectives, but it is even more important that a theatre program have strong objectives which will win the support of the school board, the school administration, the faculty, and the study body. The theatre curriculum at Hopewell High School has been fortunate in this regard.

Abstract INTEGRATING THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD INTO THE VOICE AND SPEECH CLASSROOM: INTERTWINING LINKLATER VOICE AND THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD By Janel R. Miley Knipple, MFA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2018. Major Director: Karen Kopryanski, Head of Voice and Speech, Assistant Professor Department of Theatre Proprioception and kinesthetic awareness are important factors in actor training as performers strive to increase their physical and vocal prowess in order to respond to the demands of roles. The Feldenkrais Method, a somatic approach to learning that promotes greater awareness, has been utilized in actor training for decades; however, the historical details, measurable impact, and benefits of the Feldenkrais Method in this field have been largely undocumented. In this thesis, I will examine the history of the Feldenkrais Method, particularly considering interactions between theatre artists and Feldenkrais. In addition, I will suggest new possibilities for creating a voice and speech curriculum that integrates the Feldenkrais Method, providing both historical precedents and current findings to support the efficacy of incorporating the Feldenkrais Method into actor voice and speech training. Referencing experiences of how the Feldenkrais Method and the Linklater Progression have worked together to improve my own acting and teaching, I will conclude with a strategy on incorporating the Feldenkrais Method into voice and speech training.

There are four elements involved in this production of Poe per se which make it interesting and suitable as a thesis: the actor, the subject, the format, and the audience. I will discuss the problems posed by each and the methods of attack I will pursue to those problems. I will then describe the evolution of the script from research through performance. My conclusion will be an assessment of the success of the script in solving my acting problems.

In the fall of 1981 I came to the point in my studies where it became necessary to choose a thesis project. The standard procedure in the Department of Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University is to have design students do set designs for one of the mainstage productions as their thesis project. At the time that the thesis proposal was due the 1981-1982 season had not been decided upon, so I submitted a proposal stating that I would design a "mainstage production for Theatre V.C.U." as my project and that the documentation of this project would be my thesis. I expressed an interest in doing a show early in the season so that I could do a good deal of the design work during the summer. I was assigned the set design for the opening show of the season, Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson, to be directed by Richard L. Newdick, a professor in the Department of Theatre. Because of work I had been doing in an advanced lighting design class, it was suggested that I should do the lighting design for the show as well. This suggestion pleased me because it would allow complete artistic control of all the visual aspects of the show other than costumes. My assistantship at the university included the supervision of the scene shop. Because of this, and because one of my professional goals is to teach on the university level, it was decided that the supervision of the construction and the installation of the set and ordering of the materials--basically the technical direction of the show could also be added as a third part of the thesis project. It was finally decided that for my thesis project I would design sets and lights and act as technical director for the production of Fifth of July to be performed at Shafer Street Playhouse, October 6-16, 1982, for the Department of Theatre at Virginia Commonwealth University.

After working over twenty years in theatre and the entertainment industries, I began teaching high school level stagecraft and looked for a textbook geared towards those students just stepping into the world of technical theatre. What I found was that there is no one single source textbook for high school level students. The textbooks were either too elementary or had too much information that was written for college level students. I begin my teaching career using a textbook I thought would serve the purpose, but found my students were frustrated with the text as much as I was. I began incorporating material from other sources to cover the various components of the class; construction, rigging, lighting and sound, to name a few. After a couple of years having my students telling me that I should just write a stagecraft book, I thought maybe I could. After talking and sending out a survey to other technical directors, or the alike, in high school theatre, I found I was not alone in the way I had to cover the content of the course. Therefore, I decided to take my students challenge and write a textbook for them. I hope this will be a good resource for both students and teachers like me.