Essay about the play by the author Production Notes Acknowledgements Full Text of "...among other things..." by Michael Tisdale

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Rome Sweet Rome, written, directed, composed, and choreographed by the Q Brothers Collective, is a hip-hop musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts produced Rome Sweet Rome in the fall of 2016 as part of the Mainstage season and the 2016-2017 Partnership in the Arts production. This thesis explores the unique production process of Rome Sweet Rome from the stage manager’s perspective. Since leadership, communication, and organization are essential attributes of stage managers, Samantha Paradis’ personal leadership, communication, and organization goals and outcomes for this production are addressed. Because theatre and life can be unpredictable this paper includes the analysis of new challenges that arose. Paradis concludes her exploration with final thoughts on the production and her development as a Graduate Stage Manager at the University of Iowa.

Seed, written by Scott Bradley and directed by Patrick Du Laney, is a play that was written to explore the legacy of suicide in the Midwest Region and its specific correlation to the disappearance of the family farm. The University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts selected Seed to appear as a part of the annual Iowa New Play Festival in May of 2017. This thesis examines the specific challenges faced during the production process as relates to the production as a whole and those faced from the stage management perspective. This was an influential production to the stage manager, Lindsay Warnick, so connections between these challenges are looked at in two ways: how they played a role in Lindsay’s development as a stage manager and her growth as an individual.

This thesis paper presents the research and character development process that I undertook to play the role of Eva, in the Pomona College Fall 2012 production of Diane Samuels’ award winning play, Kindertransport. In the ten-months prior to the 1938 outbreak of World War II, nearly 10,000 predominately Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were evacuated to Great Britain to escape the looming Holocaust. The program was given the name, Kindertransport (children’s transports) by German railway officials because only unaccompanied children under the age of 17 were allowed to leave. Once the Kinder arrived in England, host families took them in for what was believed to be a temporary stay. At the time, no one could have foreseen the challenges and consequences for the children that had been separated from their families and heritage. Samuels' play examines the themes of separation, survival and denial of one’s past through the character Eva, who at the age of nine is sent to England on one of the transports. The first part of this thesis concerns the historical events leading to the disenfranchisement of the European Jews, as well as the people and politics that were a part of the Kindertransport rescue network. The second aspect of this paper addresses the staging of Samuels’ play, my character study, and the role preparation that I carried out to play a Jewish German girl from the age of 9 through 17.

Modalities of Freedom argues that comedy and the laughter it ignites is a vital component of feminist and anti-racist community building. The chapters of my dissertation analyze the work of three Black standup comedians from the United States: Wanda Sykes, Jackie Mabley and Mo’Nique. These three women have an outsized presence in standup comedy, but have been chronically underrepresented in academic literature despite their nuanced, complex and emboldening performance styles. I claim that their particular brands of humor are modalities of freedom. That is, under varying social, temporal and cultural contexts, Sykes, Mabley and Mo’Nique resist and expose marginalization and oppression. In turn, their comedic material and the act of laughter bond their audiences and generate anti-racist/feminist coalitions. The first chapter of my dissertation shows how Wanda Sykes employs comedic performance to “crack up” white supremacist historical narratives. That is, Sykes’ comedy functions as historiographical intervention that not only critiques history, but also moves Black lesbian women from silenced subjects to active (re)creators of United States’ collective memory. My chapter on Jackie “Moms” Mabley claims that Mabley’s legacy has been misremembered in both mainstream and scholarly texts. Employing Black queer theoretical frameworks, I trace how Mabley’s standup solidified important precedents for Black female comics in contemporary U.S. performance and generated specific modalities of freedom unique to Black feminist humor. The final chapter of my dissertation analyzes Mo’Nique’s 2007 documentary I Coulda Been Your Cellmate. This film is a live taping of Mo’Nique performing for convicts at the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Mo’Nique’s performance articulates the multiplicities of identity, and builds feminist community across difference. Mo’Nique and the women in the audience demonstrate how laughter is an intimate survival strategy and a freeing act even while under the restriction of state power. In short, my dissertation is an effort to validate how laughter can harness and express the complexities of Black feminist lives, and be a productive site for social change and stability. / text

Since their original formation in the summer of 1997, Detroit rock duo, the White Stripes have occupied a formidable and well-publicized position within the context of American music. Despite this accomplished status, the majority of discourse surrounding the White Stripes has tended toward sensationalized fandom or immediate and callous dismissal, with little investigation as to how the duo have been so polarizing. Recognizing a key analytical void in such a treatment of the duo, this thesis examines the White Stripes with the tools of postmodern thought, considering their artful use of kitsch and sincerity in their image, musical language, and aesthetic. In so doing, it offers much-needed insight into the band’s widespread appeal as a blues revival band at the end of the rock era.

Though British singer Dusty Springfield had a very prominent and successful career, she is often left out of the history books. Her North American legacy has been reduced to her album Dusty in Memphis, an inaccurate and incomplete representation of Dusty Springfield’s career. Many aspects of her career are largely ignored, for scholars put her sexuality, her ability to “sound black,” and the influence of black musicians at the forefront of Dusty Springfield scholarship. The purpose of this project is to highlight influential musicians, experiences, and talents which have been left out of Dusty Springfield studies. This thesis focuses on Dusty Springfield’s performance experiences, her songwriting abilities, her audience/performer dichotomy, and various people and styles that have influenced her persona. By examining the artists and experiences that influenced her career, this thesis explores the ways in which persona is constructed and how it functions in the pop music industry.

Based on theories from: Educational or Process Drama. Improvisaiional Theatre. Drama Therapy and Psychology: this thesis is an in depth exploration of a methodology for educational drama that can be used lo examine values. This method proposes a system that will assist participants to discover and assess their own altitudes and bring them into dialogue with other value systems. The theoretical focus of this thesis was drawn from selected theorists: Roai. Iz/.o. Panely, Vogler and Heathcole amongst others: which conlribuled to the establishment of a practical methodology that provides a process of self discovery through improvisational drama and role-play. The dichotomous relationship between art and nature (perceived rcalitx), allows the participant lo engage in the discourse of self evaluation and social conscientisaiion. The methodology is based on the narrative structure of myth and the archetypes that populate mythic landscapes. Myths relate the journey of a hero, who undergoes personal growth as the result of a change of perspective. This occurs during the hero's journey from her ordinary world to a special world where adventure and danger awaits. The hero must find the elixir that will heal her own wounds and the wounds of her communitw Ihe archetypes play a unique role in helping the hero lo face her own desires, values and altitudes and to lest these \ allies in the Ileal of physical battle or emotional turmoil. With Participatory Action Research as main methoclologv. the thesis used questionnaires, interviews, journal entries and dramatic workshops for data gathering. The longitudinal nature of this exploration look place over a period of two years and the cohort group comprised of adolescent girls and boys, aged 14 to 16 years. The research found that the method was very successful for inciting critical discussion and moral debate. In the safety of the dramatic context, the cohort group gained new understanding about the conflict between the good of the community verses the individuars desires. Consequently they were able to come to terms with those desires that influence their behaviour and talk about these in relation to other values. Keywords: Values interrogation, educational drama, process drama, drama therapy, drama journeys, improvisation, role-play, social conscicntisation. Tcmenos, dramatic play, educational play, archetypes, psychological transference, meaning making process, practical methodology, dichotomy. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.