An essential tool in actor education, movement training is often viewed as esoteric and difficult to apply directly to an actor’s craft. It varies widely from institution to institution, and covers anything from stage combat to Alexander Technique. One never knows what they will encounter upon entering a movement class, and students frequently have difficulty connecting work done in the movement studio to work done in the acting studio. In order for movement training to become better integrated and more easily identifiable as a necessary part of actor training, it is important to get to the essential qualities that all movement training is designed to teach. In my thesis I will explore the tenets of Stanislavski and identify the core concepts of physical work that can be found in most movement disciplines. I will conclude with an exploration of my personal experience teaching movement for actors at the junior level.

Dance in most musical theatre is an assumed visual element and something that is often taken for granted in production. What is its purpose is the question being pondered in this paper. Since Agnes de Mille first presented her legendary dream ballet in Oklahoma! in 1943, theatrical dance has never been the same. She revolutionized the function of dance in theatre forever. No longer would dance merely be used as interludes or divertissements. Though a seemingly simple theatrical concept, to use movement and choreography to either further the plot or to communicate a character’s journey, it is not only much easier said than done, it is also less commonly occurring than one would imagine. Dance for dance’s sake is still prevalent and the theatre suffers because of it. My thesis will be a journey paper reflecting on my teaching perspective as it has developed and changed based on my two years at Virginia Commonwealth University. I will look at the specific productions and classes I have been involved in and how they have all contributed to and shaped my emerging pedagogical philosophy regarding dance, choreography, direction and teaching. I will explore and prove the importance and necessity of “storytelling through movement” as well as explore the need for a clearly communicated goal and unifying element in all theatrical productions.

The aim of this paper is to explore the philosophies, attitudes and beliefs that surround the teaching of breath. Voice and speech teachers want students and actors to be versatile; able to adjust to the demands of any role, and each student enters the classroom with a myriad of mental and physical breathing habits. Many voice and speech trainers, however, only address a limited number of breathing habits and primarily teach "deep breathing." Why has deep breathing dominated voice training, and how do we effectively teach breath for all students and all habits? I will examine six major voice practitioners: Arthur Lessac, Patsy Rodenburg, Kristin Linklater, Catherine Fitzmaurice, F.M. Alexander, and Jo Estill and their philosophies about breath. I will also investigate my own experiences with each practitioner, both in my own training, and in my teaching. I will conclude with my personal philosophy about breath; what an ideal breath is, and how to teach it.

This comparative study focuses on ritual aspects of Western and Asian performance. We may say that ritual in contemporary theater production has limitation to become realization. The limitation arises from contemporary period’s nature. We know that these days we do not have common or collective psyche. However, some theatre artists are trying to get back ritual function and process to recover real communion between spectator and performer throughout performance.

The Pedagogy of Shakespeare & Company examines in several ways the principles and practices of actor training at Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Massachusetts. Chapter 1 is a narrative of my personal experience at the Month-long Intensive in Lenox, elaborating its multiple components. Chapter 2 recounts the genesis of the company and looks at the influences that shaped its identity. Chapter 3 is a more specific attempt to define the pedagogy developed by Tina Packer, Kristin Linklater and the other founders of Shakespeare & Company and to provide some contextual analysis. The remainder of this document explores my own pedagogical evolution and the opportunities afforded me thus far to apply my learning to my teaching.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first discovered in 1981 and consequently changed United States history. Initially, it affected the gay community, and the United States Government did not actively combat the spread of the disease for the first four years of the epidemic. In response to a need for education, the theatre community took it upon itself to raise awareness about the disease. Artists such as Robert Chesley and Larry Kramer created pieces of theatre that helped society deal with AIDS. This thesis explores the AIDS theatre canon while focusing on two major works: Robert Chesley’s Night Sweat: A Romantic Comedy in Two Acts and Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart. I also created a class on AIDS theatre that I taught in the fall semester of 2008 at Virginia Commonwealth University. Information on the process of teaching the class as well as the class outcome is also addressed.

At the turn of the twentieth century vaudeville was the most prevalent form of theatrical entertainment. With more than 1,500 houses across the country, vaudeville reached in excess of 30 million audience members each year. It directly led to the advent of film and radio. Yet barely one hundred years later vaudeville has been forgotten by the once loyal masses. This guide is meant to help counter vaudeville’s fall. By adding together a basic script consisting of comedy and dramatic sketches, original works and classic vaudeville acts with music and information on the how and whys of vaudeville, this guide will assist others in creating a vaudeville performance with the hope that vaudeville may once again reach the heights of its popularity.

Imogene Coca was a pioneer of comedy for women on stage and television. Her career in performance spanned the twentieth century. In the 1950s she was known as America’s funnyfaced little imp and “Imogene Coca” was a household name. Today that name is getting lost amidst a sea of male clowns and her funny faces are nearly forgotten. Imogene’s contributions to theatre, television, and comedy are too important to forget. This thesis includes a biography of her work in vaudeville, Broadway, television, and film, and an original musical inspired by that body of work. Coca’s comedy is timeless and the next generation deserves an opportunity to know her.

My thesis will explore the role of the female director. The two plays on which I will focus, Neil LaBute’s medea redux and Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, call for quite different casts. The former involves a woman in a police interrogation room; the latter involves three men in a Lebanese prison. Despite the overt masculinity of these plays, traces of femininity permeate. Indeed, my status as a female director provided one of the clearest paths into these plays when I directed them last year at Virginia Commonwealth University. My gender also greatly influenced my direction of the actors. My experiences working on these shows provided a backdrop from which to reflect on my role as a female director in a male-dominated field. In my thesis I will reference notes I took during the rehearsal process. I will also include much of my dramaturgical research. Finally, throughout my writing process, I will attempt to define “masculine” and “feminine” both with regard to theatre and to theatre direction. This document was created in Microsoft Word 2003 for Mac.

Applied theatre is an umbrella term describing the practice of borrowing concepts from the conventional theatre and applying them to different disciplines. This thesis focuses on the use of applied theatre in teaching effective communication skills. Using the work of the Ariel Group and personal experiences working with the VCU da Vinci Center as examples, this paper demonstrates ways that underlying theatre concepts are used to teach communication skills. Additionally, this paper argues that there are many advantages for using theatre professors to teach communication skills to non-theatre students in other disciplines through the use of applied theatre methods. To support this argument examples are taken from the Critical Communications Group and my experiences teaching Public Speaking.