To adhere to the structure of Louisiana State University and Swine Palaces Actor Training program, the M.F.A. candidates are required to develop new work. This project is in place to cultivate the individual actors sensitivities to his/her own process in theatre making, grow as an artist, and begin the long journey of devising and constructing work, in this case a solo play, that has the potential to continue to grow after graduation. My piece is derived from several of the classic Greek plays and myths but told with a twist on the traditional stories and entirely from different womens perspectives. This thesis will detail the process of research, creation, production and reflection for the project that I call The Weight of Smoke.

ABSTRACT This thesis details the writing process, rehearsals and performance of the authors devised play, Joan: A Play With Broken Songs. The play aims to reimagine events occurring the evening before the death of French folk hero and Catholic Saint, Joan of Arc. The play exists in the moments between sleep and waking, in which Joan is visited by her own patron Saints (Margaret and Catherine,) as well as the Archangel Michael. The Saints then guide Joan through the dreamscape revealing to her images of the past, present, and future that allow her to come to peace with the sacrifice she will soon make. The piece is presented in an abstracted reality that supported the authors artistic aesthetic by incorporating forms of dance, movement, percussion, and spiritual music, which were heavily influenced by the landscape and eclectic nature of life in Louisiana. The script was devised by LSUs M.F.A. Acting ensemble as a collaborative project that featured the core ensemble of eight actors as well as two undergraduate performers and three undergraduate technicians. The challenges and difficulties throughout the writing and performance process are detailed: theoretical and practical implications are examined, and a written copy of the script is included.

During the summer of 2013, the M.F.A. acting ensemble at Louisiana State University was charged with devising solo performance projects that would be performed December 6-14, 2014. We were given artistic freedom to create shows that could cover different topics and a variety of genres. The writing and performance of this project served as a graduation requirement, but was also pitched as a professional opportunity post graduation. Initially I opposed this project, but I soon became elated once I chose my subject matter. I knew that if I was going to perform a solo piece for 30-40 minutes it had to be based on things that I was genuinely passionate about. I also wanted to devise a show that would grant me the opportunity to share talents that havent been showcased. Black Drama, especially the works of August Wilson and jazz music came to mind in this moment. Chapter One of this thesis explains my purpose for choosing this subject matter and my vision. Chapter Two discusses August Wilsons artistic impact during my undergraduate acting training. Chapter Three includes historical research that aided in devising my work. Chapter Four details my initial literary, music, dance, and design element ideas. Chapter Five explores my transition and rehearsal process from script development to show performance. Chapter Six is the finalized listing of characters and their physical and vocal distinctions. Chapter Seven is the final script. Chapter Eight concludes this thesis and discusses audience response and areas for future development.

There are two forms of ambiguous loss. Type one occurs when there is a physical absence, but a psychological presence, such as the loss one feels towards the grandparent that passed away before their birth. Type two occurs when there is a psychological absence, but a physical presence, such as the loss one feels towards a spouse with Alzheimers or dementia (Morris). The opportunity to create, direct, and star in my own one-woman show inspired me to explore the form of ambiguous loss my family and I endure each and every day due to the disappearance of my aunt, Sharon Shebby Wills. In Chapter one, I will be discussing the research process of developing the script. In Chapter two, I will speak on the creation of the script, the rehearsal process, and the final performance. Chapter three is a reflection on my experience and what it taught me about myself as a theatre artist. I will conclude with what I hope for the future of my piece and what it taught me about writing, directing, and acting.

This thesis is a study of common practices and unique challenges of theatrical prop shop management in universities and how this compares to professional theaters and other prop producing organizations. The following pages will identify the commonalities and differences between prop shops in terms of management of budgets, schedules and personnel and will offer examples of common current practices. Also reproduced here is a survey of prop managers and its results, which was developed to produce facts and figures which are used as evidence. A direct comparison of educational and professional theater institutions has not been published. The evidence presented by the survey and a study of existing literature suggests that the two types of institutions are not as different as anecdotal evidence might suggest. This survey and the concussions drawn here will serve as a starting point for an academic discussion about how prop shops are managed and how the subject is taught.

This thesis documents and explores specific writing practices in the theatre. As a playwright and deviser, I examine the two commonly practiced methods of making theatre; the pre-written play creation model, often known as the hierarchal model, and the collaborative creation model of devised theatre, in order to establish certain differences and similarities. These comparisons allow for a synthesis of the two approaches into one inclusive order that can account for the necessary stages of play creation, whether approaching it from the page or from a devising studio. The six chapters herein are dedicated to the influence of both creation modes on my own work, and the discussion of practical case studies in order to draw applicable conclusions about writing practices in the theatre. Through interviews with writers and theatre artists, and discussion of my own Practice as Research study into writing within a devising ensemble, I have been able to chart my own practice within each mode and draw relationships between this practice and that of others creating contemporary theatre. Through an examination of my charted processes, which I have labeled my orders of operation, I make comparisons between how plays are created on the page of the playwright and in the collective devising ensemble. I then offer a synthesized approach as a potential method of inclusive theatre practice.

Thesis (B.A.Hons.) -- University of Adelaide, School of German, 1974.

The methods by which we collectively create, experience and remember history are complicated and fraught with holes and inconsistencies. All to often, the institutions that govern historical events are invested in eliminating those holes or reconciling those inconsistencies, or both. Our universities, as they purport to house knowledge and extend our experience of that knowledge, are highly implicated in this particular process of dealing with the historical hole. In response to that constructed reality, many scholars and theorists, both from within the walls of the academy and from their fields outside the academy, find themselves obligated, from a political and ethical position, to attack or subvert or weaken or punch their own holes in the prevailing academic body. A cycle of hole filling and hole drilling is created. As if we have been cursed by our own Atreusian knowledge, we, as academics, as historians and as theorists seem fated to perform in a cycle that perpetuates itself in an ever-continuing, self-reflexive way. Of Holes and Historitivity addresses this situation by advocating that historical experiences are perhaps best memorialized in performance. In reshaping the way we memorialize or remember our historical artifacts and events, Of Holes and Historitivity hopes to eventually reshape our understanding of knowledge and the pedagogy that purports to bring us to that knowledge. If this can happen, if the nature of the academy can change, then perhaps our understanding of our own natures and identities will follow. Perhaps we will come to recognize the holes and inconsistencies in our perceived realities as the most glorious parts of those realities. In the immediacy of a remembering theatre, Of Holes and Historitivity wants to change what and how we know.

Twentieth-century Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser argued in his famous essay Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses that capitalism reproduces itself by interpellating individuals as subjects. For Althusser, the subject has a dual definition: a person who imagines him or herself to be a free subject who then chooses capitalism, and a person who, once they have chosen capitalism, gives up their free will to the Subject (Law, God, Authority, the State). This dual definition of the subject mirrors the dual definition of robot. A robot is both a mechanical being that moves on its own and a person who acts in a mechanical way. By situating humans as not robots, I argue that narratives and performances of robots function as tools for the reproduction of capital. This dissertation examines four historical moments in the United Statesthe 1939 New York World's Fair, the 1960s automation debates, the end of the Cold War, and the turn of the millenniumto argue that robots in performance serve an important ideological function: to convince us that we, unlike robots, are free subjects.

Abstract In Australia during the 1990s increased attention was paid to regional, rural and remote communities and, in terms of arts and culture, the establishment of regional arts umbrella organisations, at both national and state levels, stimulated interest in, and development of, the arts in those communities. Discourses around the notion of the civil society and the ways in which social and cultural capital can be acquired and transferred, have led to renewed interest in the economic and social functions of the voluntary, not-for-profit sector of Australian society. This thesis aims to advance the critical study of regional cultural development. It examines the role and function of the performing arts within regional communities through a case study of the city of Bunbury, Western Australia. Regional performing arts are often trivialised or marginalised by metropolitan practitioners, critics and academics, particularly as they are almost entirely, in Australia, a volunteer/amateur pursuit. However volunteer performing arts groups provide physical and social spaces that encourage networks of civil engagement that have implications for the functioning of the broader community; and, in the case of Bunbury, a degree of independence from the bureaucratic requirements of arts funding bodies. The thesis proposes that volunteer, not-for-profit (amateur) theatre has a stronger claim on the title ‘community theatre’ than the state-funded community theatre movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The thesis also examines the strong community affiliations that have been generated by the community-owned, professionally-managed Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre. It situates this discussion in the context of the rapidly changing urban landscape in which the Entertainment Centre is placed and its affiliations with local, regional, state and national funding, networking and touring structures. It argues that considerable social and cultural capital is generated through the active involvement of citizens at many levels of the performing arts in a regional community such as Bunbury. Although for most, the involvement is voluntary and recreational, it also has direct economic outcomes in terms of the developing creative industries of the region. A major contribution of the thesis is the provision of a model for the function and impact of regional community performing arts as it theorises the tensions between governmental (funding) models and self-generated regional arts practices through case study and detailed analysis. In doing so the thesis contributes to key debates in two significant ways, firstly by providing an important historical/cultural document and secondly, by highlighting new ways of thinking and speaking about the role of the performing arts in regional communities.