Disaster humor is a category of humor research that has not been much explored in terms of live audience reactions, something this study undertakes at a small improvisational theater in Austin, Texas. In generating the typology of jokes at this particular theater, instances of disaster humor in live performance were collected, coded and compared in terms of categorization and audience reaction. Ultimately this small study produced a promising look at the relationship between joke acceptance and what it meant for intergroup identity as a community, which should be further explored in future research; recommendations for this are made at the close of this work. / text

We have investigated the experience of individuals at play to better understand how narrative is constructed by collaboration in pretend object play. Our study was conducted with dyads that would play together in two distinct play sessions, with each session being video recorded. Each dyad was shown the video in a retrospective protocol collection. We utilized Grounded Theory as a means of developing and testing hypotheses based on the recorded play session. This process is meant to reveal information about how individual player cognition and interaction develops narrative during pretend play. This paper presents initial findings related to narrative development in collaborative pretend object play with the ambition to use these and future analyses to create intelligent agents capable of pretend play. Present findings demonstrate the construction of narrative and collaborative play is crafted through the making and accepting of play-advancing offers, similar to scene-advancing offers found in improvisational acting.

This dissertation considers the rhetorical use of the term “spontaneity” and action affiliated with it from the perspective of ethnomethodology, as a dynamic social practice emergent from concrete interactions among people. I first consider a variety of existing operationalizations of “spontaneity” in academic research from the perspective of what is ethnomethodologically accomplished by these operationalizations, i.e., what questions do they answer or attempt to answer? I then turn to a detailed rhetorical analysis of the term “spontaneity” as an ideograph in improvisational theatre, a social practice in which enactment of spontaneity is treated as criterial to identity and recognition of the practice. In this ideographic analysis, I consider both a set of popular improv method texts and a collection of interviews with improviers who relate narratives about their experiences or observations of spontaneity. I assess the rhetorical practices in these artifacts both through the operationalization framework I identify and from a critical perspective, asking how practices of spontaneity in improv relate to social structures and practices of privilege, oppression and power.

The past few years have proven a need in higher education for tools that help educators and students maintain a flexible and highly adaptive approach to their coursework. Research into applied improvisation has shown that the improvisational mindset is beneficial to educational settings in this way, in part because of the way it encourages collaborative negotiations as part of the education process. Building on the work of improvisers in the fields of music, law, business, theatre, and medicine, this dissertation breaks down three specific types of negotiations found within improv: 1) Negotiations of Status; 2) Negotiations of Rule-Making; and 3) Negotiations of Authenticity. This work identifies the key components for success in those negotiations. It also provides opportunities for practical application of these negotiations using improv-based games and activities. This research indicates several benefits for educators and others who incorporate improvisational training into their work. Special attention is paid to the application of improvisation in areas such as classroom management and interpersonal relationship-building with students. It also highlights a few key games and activities that could prove beneficial as part of training for anyone engaged in the work of negotiations and communication.

No description available.

In this dissertation, I study the way couples improvise relationships together. I define improvisation as a kind of performance that leads to an interpretive practice where people develop the meanings of their relationships as they perform. Participating in a performance ethnography, my romantic partner, myself, and three other couples reflect on the way we perform together on stage. Adapting the popular improv performance format “Armando” and utilizing post-performance focus groups, I observe how the couples strive to make meaning together and negotiate a joint-perspective about how they played. Ultimately, I argue that attending to the way a couple improvises their relationship off stage can provide key insights into the communication patterns that allow them to share vulnerable experiences and grow close. In the end, I discuss ways that improv techniques and philosophies have informed and guided my own romantic relationship.

The First Rule of Improv is a collection of fictional short stories concerned with loss, life’s unfairness, the weight of the past, and how people succeed or fail in coping. Each story explores these notions through its characters, who vary wildly in terms of both dramatic severity and success in the face of adversity, with the first rule of improv—to accept and build—being suggested by the author as the healthiest manner of approach, if not necessarily the easiest.

In this dissertation, I study the way couples improvise relationships together. I define improvisation as a kind of performance that leads to an interpretive practice where people develop the meanings of their relationships as they perform. Participating in a performance ethnography, my romantic partner, myself, and three other couples reflect on the way we perform together on stage. Adapting the popular improv performance format “Armando” and utilizing post-performance focus groups, I observe how the couples strive to make meaning together and negotiate a joint-perspective about how they played. Ultimately, I argue that attending to the way a couple improvises their relationship off stage can provide key insights into the communication patterns that allow them to share vulnerable experiences and grow close. In the end, I discuss ways that improv techniques and philosophies have informed and guided my own romantic relationship.

In this dissertation, I study the way couples improvise relationships together. I define improvisation as a kind of performance that leads to an interpretive practice where people develop the meanings of their relationships as they perform. Participating in a performance ethnography, my romantic partner, myself, and three other couples reflect on the way we perform together on stage. Adapting the popular improv performance format “Armando” and utilizing post-performance focus groups, I observe how the couples strive to make meaning together and negotiate a joint-perspective about how they played. Ultimately, I argue that attending to the way a couple improvises their relationship off stage can provide key insights into the communication patterns that allow them to share vulnerable experiences and grow close. In the end, I discuss ways that improv techniques and philosophies have informed and guided my own romantic relationship.

A series of interviews were conducted with Professor Armen Donelian (New School University), Professor Frank Carlberg (New England Conservatory of Music), Professor Gary Keller (University of Miami), Professor Thom Mason (University of Southern California), and Dr. Stephen Prosser (The Berklee College of Music). A comparison and analysis of existing texts whose focus was jazz aural-skill development, in combination with the information gathered from the interviews, as well as the author's personal teaching experience, served as the basis for the creation of a two-semester course sequence for jazz ear-training with application for vocal improvisation. The major content areas found to be most critical for inclusion in the sequence include: rhythm, harmony, improvisation, transcription, dictation, chord progressions, jazz articulation, the blues, guide tones, modified numeric system for chord tone identification, and sight-reading (sight-singing). It is the author's intention that this course sequence help to codify a system of jazz aural-skill development at the college-level that may be implemented in both existing jazz ear-training courses and programs where jazz ear-training courses do not currently exist.