Considered one of the greatest playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, Tirso de Molina (1580?-1648) lived something of a double life, alternating—much like the characters in his plays—between two separate and often conflicting lives. Though Tirso, whose real name was Gabriel Téllez, spent the greater portion of his life in the church as a Mercedarian friar, his dramatic output as a playwright was prodigious in scope. Fewer than 90 of his plays survive today, and only a handful have been translated into English. This M.F.A. thesis therefore presents the first-ever English-language translation and adaptation of one of Tirso’s plays, El amor médico, translated as Love the Doctor. The translation/adaptation is preceded by an introduction, as well as by chapters contextualizing the play in the writing of Tirso, the comedia, and the world of seventeenth-century medicine and cross-dressing. The thesis concludes by examining both the translational strategies and artistic choices made at various stages in the process of translating and adapting Tirso’s circa 1621 comedia .

In this thesis, I present a translation of Yun-T’aek Yi’s Faust in Blue Jeans accompanied by an introduction discussing my decision making process. Yun-T’aek Yi’s eighth play for the theater, Ch’ŏngbajirŭl ibŭn p’ausŭt’ŭ, is a Korean adaptation of Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, set in twentieth-century Korea with contemporary Korean characters. Given the English title Faust in Blue Jeans, I consider this text for purposes of a staged performance and point out the difficulties in the replacement of one culture by another, especially in consideration of my personal situation as a Korean born translator living in the United States. I discuss strategies and choices in translation with reference to scholarly works in the fields of translation studies and dramaturgy. I also offer a glimpse into my translation process by attaching a literal crib of the opening act, a preliminary step taken before further shaping the translation for the stage, and a graph comparing my first draft to its revision after a staged reading. Often referred to as a “cultural guerilla” in South Korea for his active work as playwright, producer, writer, and poet, Yun-T’aek Yi colorfully portrays South Korean society and culture of the eighties in this play and I strove to preserve the dynamicism and vitality of the original. The playwright’s foreword, in which he discusses his reasons for creating an adaptation of Goethe’s work, and a brief excerpt on the motif and summary of the play as told by the South Korean playwright have also been translated.

In the last several years lists of theater organizations in California newspapers hare grown steadily. This writer asserts a need for study of active amateur and semiprofessional theater groups in California for gaining knowledge and understanding of cultural activities taking place about the Western United States. Such material would help students and adults interested in drama gain information where theaters remain active according to particular tastes. After receiving a list of nonprofessional theater members of American National Theatre and Academy's California regions, theater activity presented itself to be of such quantity within the state that it became necessary to make definite limitations of the research area to do justice with the planned study. The final decision was made for this survey to cover communities surrounding the University of the Pacific's Stockton campus, referred to as Central California.

The growth of interest in drama and the realization of the educational value of dramatics has developed a new place for the college theatre. Pacific Little Theatre was organized eleven years ago to fulfill a definite need and has since grown slowly and steadily into a most active producing unit, serving both school and community. Indeed Pacific Little Theatre can be taken as an excellent specific example of the contribution which can be made to campus and community life by the college aside from its main function as fundamental ground for students in the theatre arts.

This thesis is an artefact documenting the process of adapting a late medieval painting of hell into a short horror film. The process of adapting the Three Mouths of Hell, housed within the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, serves as an experiment in applying a dramaturgical approach to medieval studies. The process of adaptation and production, informed by critical research about the Hours of Catherine of Cleves and its Three Mouths of Hell, yields new frameworks for understanding the history of Catherine of Cleves, her Book of Hours, and the Three Mouths of Hell.

This written portion of my thesis documents how I, as Director, set about to bring J.M. Barrie’s classic, Peter Pan to the contemporary stage. I take the reader through my in-depth research into Barrie’s many adaptations of his story, seeking an understanding of the evolution of Peter Pan and noting major elements that were retained across time and those that were changed, in search of the “true” story of Peter Pan. I explore how my discoveries informed design choices, were folded into rehearsals, and ultimately arrived on stage. In seeking the backbone of a classic, the vast interpretive history of Peter Pan and its many adaptations also gave me a sense of freedom to make my own changes. I discuss the major re-imagining of Tiger Lily and the Redskins to become the collaboratively created Never Landers, a dance ensemble of otherworldly characters sprung from the land itself. I explore the major themes I identified in the play and discuss decisions to bring darkness, longing and loneliness to the stage rather than glossing over the complex elements of the story in order to create something cute for children. Finally, I offer an exploration of the production process as a major collaboration with many artists and consider various elements of my collaborations with the design team, fight director, dance choreographer, and the actors.

Professional wrestling is a performance art in which the line between fact and fiction is often obscured. Much of the existing scholarship on the medium that examines its dynamics regard reality and artifice focuses on the role of the artificial, analyzing pro-wrestling as primarily a form of heightened spectacle akin to passion plays or soap opera. However, professional wrestling in Japan, particularly that found in the country's largest promotion, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, features many elements that resemble real sports much more closely than many American promotions. These elements include fighting styles, wrestler injury, characters that do not fit easily into defined archetypes, stories focused on win-loss records, promos that resemble press releases, and audiences who react to the show not only like a performance, but also as if it were a real sport. At the same time, it does still feature many spectacular and heightened elements found throughout the pro-wrestling world, resulting in an overall aesthetic of qualified realism. This realism is a defining element of promotions like New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and it serves to make characters and their stories relatable to audiences in ways that are more difficult for other promotions. This reveals unique thematic qualities of Japanese pro-wrestling, in addition to demonstrating the aesthetic diversity of the genre as a whole.

Scare acting has always been the unsung villains of the entertainment industry. For three months of the year, for about five minutes of a haunted house, they get attention. However, the work scare actors do to is way more than just a five second “boo.” Scare actors have been at the beginning of theatre and continue to influence modern entertainment. Even though the patrons may be the ones feeling the danger, scare actors may be even more in danger than them. Each scare actor is unique from their looks to their moves. It might be take a lot of nerve to go into a haunted house, but it takes a lot more to work it.

This thesis explains the acting method used by Caleigh Keith while portraying the role of Nancy Shedman in Romulus Linney’s Holy Ghosts. Included are chapters of historical research, character analysis, and a production report, which includes a scored script, rehearsal and performance journal, and a self-evaluation of the actor’s work. Holy Ghosts was produced by Theater UNO at the University of New Orleans in the Robert E. Nims Thrust Theater of the Performing Arts Center. It opened Tuesday, February seventh, and ran through Sunday, February twelfth, two thousand and twelve. Evening performances were at seven-thirty and Sunday’s matinee was at two o’clock in the afternoon.

Movement and storytelling are the links between past and present; both dance and literature have the same artistic and primal origins. We began to dance to express and communicate, to worship and feel. We tell stories for the same reasons: to learn from the past and to be able to communicate in the present. This work explores the many connections between literature and dance through examinations of six dance forms: Native American, Bharatanatyam, West African, Ballet, Modern, and Post-Modern dance.