AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF NICHOLAS B. RADCLIFFE, for the Master of Fine Arts degree in THEATER, presented on December 14, 2015, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: THE HOPELESS HOPE OR THE POET’S PASSION IN THE FARMER’S PRAGMATIC WORLD: DIRECTING EUGENE O’NEILL’S BEYOND THE HORIZON MAJOR PROFESSOR: Olusegun Ojewuyi The Hopeless Hope… documents the process of directing Beyond the Horizon, presented December 11-13, 2015 in the McLeod Theater at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The document specifically details the development of the director’s vision for the production, from the initial readings and research through rehearsal, performance and post-production evaluations. The document is organized chronologically, beginning in Chapter 1 with a discussion of the director’s research and how that research influenced the analysis of the play, progressing to the development of the vision and concept. Chapter 2 details the production process from design and casting, through rehearsal and into performance. Chapter 3 is a personal evaluation of the overall process and production, including the discovery of opportunities for future growth and experimentation in the art of directing. Chapter 4 examines collaboration as a tool for the director, specifically exploring the commonalities between successful and failed collaborations, aiming to arrive at possible strategies for preventing breakdowns in collaborative partnerships.

Dramaturgs have been struggling to define themselves and assert their raison d'être in the American theatre for the past four decades. In an evolving theatrical landscape that includes expanding new play development processes and new modes of collaborative interdisciplinary theatre-making, the role of the dramaturg must be reexamined in order for it to stake a new artistic claim in the field. Devised theatre-making processes rely on dramaturgical practice as an integral part of generating, editing, and structuring performance material and offer a fertile artistic avenue for dramaturgs to utilize their skills. To explore the role of the dramaturg in devised theatre, I chose to curate a festival of three new devised works entitled Beyond the Horizon. This thesis describes in detail my role as curator in the planning, creation, and execution of the festival, as well as my role as a dramaturg within the devising process of one of the three works. To encompass both the idea of the dramaturg as an active co-creator of performance and an empowered facilitator of change, I proposed a new title for the role: artistic instigator. Drawn from my conclusions and discoveries while working on the Beyond the Horizon festival, I have formed a description about how the dramaturg-as-artistic-instigator might function within devising ensembles, propose changes to current new play development practices, and advocate for expanded methods of play-making.