Within this thesis I aim to prove that working outside my personal artistic comfort zone has ultimately been beneficial to all my work as a theatre artist. Specifically, I explore the greater merit of choosing to wrestle with a project that, from the beginning, felt far beyond my capabilities and scope as a director. This thesis explores the many challenges I faced and skills I developed during the process of directing my first Shakespearean play. Throughout my analysis of the production process I explore many of the areas where my theatrical view was clearly expanded. I spend less time, discussing the strengths that I believe I do have as a theater director and how those tools helped to keep me grounded in those moments when I felt like I was the wrong director for the project. I have been told that one of my greatest strengths as a director is my ability and desire to collaborate. I hold my collaborators’ ideas and insights in the highest regard. I sincerely believe that for each project, the right people are in the right room at the right time and that it takes a good listener and a sense of clarity and direction to achieve something beautiful and meaningful, together. I am able to rally a group of artists around one common cause. Part of this skill is that I am committed to working in great detail with each individual within a group. Regardless of the size of the cast, one of my strengths as a director is that I am able to help actors find a level of integrity and depth in their work that often translates to actors who deliver proud and confident performances. In the end, even though Pericles is not contemporary edgy fare, it is quite a compelling and twisted tale. Although, I have certainly been attracted to the odd and macabre, Pericles is more than that. It is also spiritual and aims to heal the human soul. I found this cause a worthy one and one worth the time and efforts of our talented and dedicated artistic team.

Having built her career and her reputation on her novels, Maryse Condé is not a familiar name in the theater. However, at the beginning of her career Condé was very involved with theater, and her first published works were plays: Dieu nous l’a donné… (1972) and Mort d’Oluwémi d’Ajumako (1973) preceded Condé’s first novel, Heremakhonon (1976). Though these plays do not get as much attention as do her more recent novels, they continue to have a lot to offer: they are highly dramatic, their themes remain relevant to the world today, and they are accessible for a modern audience. This M.F.A. thesis therefore presents the first English language translations of these two early plays of Condé’s, translated as God Gave Him to Us… and The Death of Oluwémi of Ajumako. The translations are preceded by an Introduction exploring the relevance of these plays for a modern audience, the influences that led Condé to craft these two dramas, and the challenges of the translation process.

This paper examines what it is like to be an assistant director. The play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was adapted from a book by Mark Hadden that is structured as if the main character was the writer. The stage production reworks that concept and turns it into a “play within a play”. The story is about a boy named Christopher, his broken family and his struggle with autism. When the director, Cara Harker first approached me about being an assistant director, I struggled with anxiety and not feeling like I had a real place in the show. After some time working with the director, I found my place in the production and learned a lot about directing.

Confused Spaces has come to the conclusion that theatricality can be a device for defining different types of public space. This book aims to define theatricality in architectural terms by taking principles from the disciplines of theater and urban design. It limits the scope of the definition to a specific set of elements of theatricality that include spectacle, transition, flexibility, and compactability. After attempting to define why these elements of theatricality are valid architectural concepts, the text then pushes to understand the experience that these elements can create. Through the use of historical and contemporary references, an argument for theatricality can already be found to exist but simply has not been clearly defined. The best methods of studying the design concepts are initially discussed. It is believed that in addition to a thorough case study of an existing structure which practices theatricality, the best way to explain the concepts of the idea as well as analyze them would be through several design attempts. Architectural competitions become the venue for experimentation. Three competition entries are submitted that attempt to implement theatricality. One more competition is created and results in an exhibition of the entries as well as an installation which can be studied and analyzed in a physical space. By using principles distilled from all the preceding research and design analysis, a theoretical large-scale design is explored. The design combines significant site data with all the design principles defended in the text up to this point. The design becomes the most complete visual representation of the core concept for theatricality. In conclusion, it is determined that the principles of theatricality clearly have a significant impact on the public and the pedestrian experience. It is encouraged for the concept to be used as a design device for creating pedestrian-friendly spaces in the future.

This thesis is the written portion of my experience as a director, staging an adaptation of the traditional Iranian theater form, Ta’zieh, for my thesis project. I start with a brief description of our adapted performance, followed by the inspirations that led to the creation of the piece. I then trace the evolution of the idea from the initial stage to the final performance. I describe the adaptation process in three sections, the story, form, and practice. In each section, in a comparative manner, I write about the ways in which Ta’zieh is traditionally done and elaborate on our decisions while adapting it for a new audience. I explain the challenges of adapting and directing the play outside of its original context and discuss how I worked on making this performance an intercultural experience. I conclude to write how I think these artistic cultural exchanges can connect us between countries and cultures, shed a light on our shared struggles and hopes, and lead us to connect on deeper levels of understanding.

Eliminating any consideration of setting, the story of the evolution of lighting is an absorbing commentary upon the history of the theatre and necessary to the full integration of its use as an instrument in the modern theatre. An understanding of the history of the development of stage lighting is as necessary a foundation to the creative and imaginative use of light in the theatre as the foundation of a building is necessary to the support of a tower. History probides the signpost showing the directions to be taken in experimentation and a standard for evaluation of such experimentation. The responsibility of the director and designer to understand and appreciate the uses to which the lighting instrument may be but has increased in rationte the progress made in the efficiency and flexibility of stage lighting from mid-sixteenth century up to the present. A director who regards lighting as mere illusination antedates De Somi in his philosophy. The stage manager who lacts an understanding of his basic units ofmodern lighting and their antecedents is seriously handicapped. With an understanding of the development of the lightng instrument and its effect upon the physical theatre, the imagination is liberated and the basis for new techniques is laid.

Considered from the viewpoint of drama and stagecraft instructors, many of our school theater buildings are inadequate. Visits to numerous high school and college auditoriums in northern California and contact with faculty members using them have convinced the writer of the need for improvement to campus theater planning. The auditorium and little theater in the recently constructed Franklin school in Stockton, California, are good examples of poor planning. In the writer's opinion the auditorium is too large and the little theater too small for either of them to give practical service, especially in relation to their construction costs. That successful projects have been accomplished in some of these poorly planned auditoriums cannot be denied. In such cases ingenuity has succeeded in spite of the poor facilities. The writer contents that better planning will improve the quality of school theater productions as well as give to the school a more functional building.

This thesis is an account of my directorial process for the Spring 2023 production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. I begin by illustrating how this show speaks to the contemporary political and social moment in the United States through a libretto and score that insists the only way to battle the giants brought on by the pursuit of individual goals is for a community to take responsibility for its errors and work together. I put Into the Woods in conversation with the cartoon series Over the Garden Wall to ground the show in an American context, discussing how our designers drew inspiration for the cartoon’s use of 19th Century American folk aesthetics and distorted images of monstrous figures to develop a unique approach to the world of the play. I then chronicle the audition and rehearsal process, including the incorporation of Michael Chekhov technique into character creation as well as the paths individual actors took to know and embody their characters. I offer an account of some of the unique problems we faced during tech week and how we, like the very characters in the story we were telling, came together to overcome the difficulties we faced. I conclude with an account of the performances and how I have taken the lessons from this process into the professional work I have undertaken since.

The role of the American theatrical lighting designer is to be a visual collaborator on the design team. While other designers can produce elements that the rest of the team can hold or listen to such as a model of the set by the set designer or a sound effect from the sound designer, the lighting designer must rely on his or her ability to communicate his or her ideas. Visual lighting elements are complex ideas and must be clearly stated and planned for if the production is to be cohesive. This thesis presents the goals to communicate verbally, collaborate, and implement lighting ideas effectively with the design team of Refugee, written by Milan Dragicevich, as well as to maintain an overall visually pleasing and immersive experience for the audience.

This master’s thesis documents the dramaturgical exploration of the spring 2018 University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Theater’s production of gender non-conforming performance artist Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge. The thesis is separated into two parts. The first half focuses on my dramaturgical analysis of Mac’s play and its exploration of queer temporality and queer embodiment, asserting the importance of queer aesthetics in American drama and its vital role in shaping the future of LGBTQIA+ politics in the United States. The second half includes reflections on rehearsal processes and performances, giving readers and fellow artists examples of the potential of queer dramaturgical practices that are products of LGBTQIA+ theater and politics in the United States. These reflections show the application of research to rehearsal processes into theatrical performances as directed, designed, and performed by graduate and undergraduate students at UMass Amherst Department of Theater, located in Amherst, Massachusetts, thus giving a trajectory of how the queer and feminist theories written into the play are manifested into a full production through collaborative design, movement, staging, and performance. Drawn from my discoveries while working on The Lily’s Revenge as production dramaturg, I have shaped my own style of collaborative “queer dramaturgy” with the director and designers, hopefully, opening new entry points of future explorations for queer dramaturgs to synthesize theory and practice onto the stage with collaborators from all disciplines and identities.