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The role of the director in the contemporary theatre is constantly evolving in relationship to the art form. This thesis explores the process of directing Arthur Miller's American Tragedy All My Sons . Produced on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in December 2006, the role of the director is explored as it relates to this university community. The examination focuses on challenges surrounding script selection, casting, rehearsal, and ultimately production. By exploring the process of directing this production of All My Sons, larger revelations are discovered about the changing role of leadership in academic theatre.

This thesis records and details my journey of bringing to the stage Fire and Cloud, a short story by one of America's most respected and controversial writers, Richard Wright. It chronicles what I learned about him as a writer and the value of his work for the stage. In producing Fire and Cloud the director endeavored to assemble of group of actors who were willing to take risks while creating an environment for them in which they could function effectively as an ensemble.

This thesis is dedicated to illustrating the unique challenges of staging works by the playwright Tennessee Williams, and to making suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls in production, performance, and direction of his plays. It uses evidence from the playwright’s various biographical works as well as insight and conjecture from the author’s experience to illuminate these challenges and help the reader to avoid hackneyed or ineffective staging practices. It touches on the effect of film adaptations on stage performances; the typical portrayal of American Southern characters onstage; the aural ramifications of Williams’s poetry to a now-visually-centered audience; stylistic elements similar to Williams’s contemporaries, including Rice, Brecht, O’Neill, and others; the delicacy of Williams’s signature meter and rhythm in his plays; dramaturgical groundwork in the playwright’s intentions; and a systemization of archetypical Williams characters. This thesis does not prescribe a cut-and-dried set of rules and regulations for performing Williams’s works, for the simple reason that the Williams canon is so diverse that no singular set of “tricks” will be effective in every play. Furthermore, the author understands that a producer, director, or actor will not find use in all facets of a rigid “system”. The thesis does outline a number of practices whose aims are to make productions more effective from an integral perspective. There are exercises to attempt, questions to pose, and matters to consider in the staging of Williams’s plays during any part of production—from in-class reading to designing the scenery, and from deciding why to put a Williams play in a season to the living moments of an actor’s performance. The thesis aims to be helpful, informative, and accessible, rather than doctrinaire: much like the playwright’s works, its purpose is to illuminate dark corners of something that viewers think they already fully understand.

This text is a record of the preparation and rehearsal of a kabuki-inspired production of Madame de Sade by Yukio Mishima in an English translation by Donald Keene. The goals of this production were both artistic and pedagogical. I applied my knowledge of Japanese theatre and skills in directing skills in a new way to create a work of theatre with a cross-cultural aesthetic appropriate to both the play and the audience. This production also gave the cast of undergraduate acting students the experience of combining truthful and stylized acting and introduced them to both kabuki and Stella Adler acting techniques. This text details the process of preparing the text, the discussions, exercises and techniques used in rehearsal, the impact of design elements on the performance and concludes with some thoughts on future development of this production concept with a fuller realization of the kabuki-inspiration.

Neil LaBute is one of the most prolific and challenging playwrights in America today. My thesis will explore his work bash: the latter-day plays through the frame of the performance and use of masculinity by his characters, and will create a vocabulary through which the remainder of LaBute's works can be studied, both in terms of academic scholarship and the practical application of that scholarship to the process of theatrical creation.

The aim and scope of my thesis is to examine the process of playwrights directing their own work, using the production of my play Obscura as an example of personal research, as well as examples of other dramatists. I will examine the advantages and disadvantages that playwrights face when directing their own work. I will compare several methods to my own production of Obscura. I wrote the play in the Spring of 2005 which culminated in a reading in April, followed by a workshop production in the Fall of 2005 in the Newdick Theater at Shafer Street Playhouse.

This thesis studies the process of creating, producing and performing a solo performance titled UNLISTED PROPERTIES. We intend to intertwine historical text and contemporary narratives to create portraits of women throughout different periods of history/her-story dealing with the theme of women as property or owning others as personal property. The historical text will be taken from the self-written works of Mary Chesnut, Harriet A. Jacobs, and Elizabeth Packard. The contemporary pieces have been pulled from a variety of sources, which include an interview with Mary Ford, an Army bride during World War II, Pagan Moss, a website blogger describing her experiences working in the sex industry, and Bhumika Ghimire a New York freelance writer who recalls her trials as a new housewife in an article for American Chronicle. Lauren will discuss her roles as actor, co-writer, and dramaturge, and Jason will discuss his work as a director, co-writer and producer.

The challenges of producing and directing small professional theatre in any metropolitan area are many. This thesis is concerned with the process of finding a producing theatre, casting, rehearsal and staging the play, "Nothing Sacred" by George F. Walker, in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Unlike many thesis projects this one was conducted completely outside of the university setting and is thus a true reflection of the small professional theatre community.

ONYE MBU: MY IDENTITY PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE SURREAL AND ABSURD IN ADRIENNE KENNEDY'S FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO By Adanma N. Onyedike, M.F.A A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Major Director: Dr. Noreen Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies Department of Theater This document investigated my personal journey of discovering, developing, and later executing skill in teaching the theatrical arts. The re examination of the steps that led to my current success was important in order to qualify the receiving of my M.F.A. in Theater Pedagogy. Starting from my Undergraduate career, the thesis touched on lessons that I have learned throughout my career. My academic and professional theatrical works were also included. These lessons were implemented in my direction of the production Funnyhouse of a Negro which was my Thesis Directing Project. I consider this document a guidebook for those who are interested in teaching Theater Arts.