The Arkansaw Bear, a children's play by Aurand Harris, was first performed on March 20-29, 1980, by The University of Texas at Austin. On October 23-25, 1981, the play was produced at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia under the direction of Marie Wendt Zirkenbach. The author describes this production with a script analysis and a narrative of how the production evolved. A diary on the actual directing process used, an annotated prompt script, evaluation, production photos, production ground plans, and various relevant materials are included. The thesis also contains a narrative on how production choices were made. / Master of Fine Arts

Directing texts are inadequate in their various approaches to teaching the concepts of stage-composition. The goal of this thesis was to show that, for an approach to stage composition to be judged adequate, it must systematically provide the student of directing with a firm grounding in design and compositional principles as they relate to the total stage picture. Nineteen texts were studied and their presentations of compositional principles were analyzed. Eight texts are included in an in-depth structural analysis. The texts analyzed are Fundamentals of Play Directing by Alexander Dean, The Art of Play Production by John Dolman, Play Direction by John Deitrich, Principles of Theatre Art by H. D. Albright, W. P. Halstead, and Lee Mitchell, Directing Methods by Albert and Bertha Johnson, Play Directing by Francis Hodge, Creating Theatre by August Staub and Creative Play Directing by Robert Cohen and John Harrop. The analysis of these texts includes a detailed comparison of terminology· and approaches to the presentation of compositional principles. Of the nineteen texts included in this investigation, only one, Creating Theatre by August Staub, presented a systematic approach to design fundamentals and compositional principals as they relate to the director's function. Also included in this thesis are the writer's criteria for judging the adequacy of approaches to composition in any directing text. The conclusion reached by the writer is that the authors of texts on directing, as well as the schools that offer programs in theatre arts, need to emphasize design fundamentals as an essential element in any theatre student's training.

No description available.

It was the purpose of this thesis to write an original script especially designed for Readers Theatre and to direct and produce that script for public performance. The thesis consists of an introduction which includes background material, a review of the literature concerning Readers Theatre, and the problems of writing an original script. The thesis includes the script as well as an evaluation of the attendant problems concerning the direction and production.

The purpose of this project was to prepare a group interpretation script based upon the life of Sinclair Lewis and to direct a production of the script. Major sources for the script are Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life; Grace Hegger Lewis, With Love From Gracie; and Vincent Sheean, Dorothy and Red. The script employs five readers and has a performance time of approximately fifty-five minutes. The thesis includes a biography of Lewis, a justification for the project, the purpose and procedures followed, as well as discussions of the production concept, adapting material for group interpretation, direction, rehearsal procedures, and evaluations of the script and the performance. The complete script is also included in the thesis.

No description available.

by Li Yiu-Ming. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Bibliography: leaves 82-84.

Stuntwork became a science when stuntman and technician Yakima Canutt left the rodeo to work in Hollywood westerns. Canutt perfected methods and designed mechanisms that made dangerous stunts safer and visually exciting. Many of Canutt's techniques are still used today by modern stuntmen like Hal Needham, Ronnie Rondell, and Paul Baxley. Directed by stuntman Hal Needham and starring "box office draw" Burt Reynolds, Hooper presented the stuntman as a rugged, fun-loving, almost suicidal superman. For the first time in film's short history, the stuntman and his craft became a topic of wide public interest. The stuntman had become "glamorous" almost rivaling his actor counterpart.

Music video is an intriguing genre of television due to the fact that music drives the images and ideas found in numerous and varied examples of the form. Pre-recorded pieces of pop music are visually written upon in a palimpsest manner, resulting in an immediate and entertaining synchronisation of sound and vision. Ever since the popularity of MTV in the early 1980s, music video has been a persistent fixture in academic discussion, most notably in the work of writers like E. Ann Kaplan, Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. What has been of major interest to such cultural scholars is the fact that music video was designed as a promotional tool in their inception, supporting album sales and increasing the stardom of the featured recording artists. Authorship in music video studies has been traditionally kept to the representation of music stars, how they incorporate post-modern references and touch upon wider cultural themes (the Marilyn Monroe pastiche for the Madonna video, Material Girl (1985) for instance). What has not been greatly discussed is the contribution of music video directors, and the reason for that is the target audience for music videos are teenagers, who respond more to the presence of the singer or the band than the unknown figure of the director, a view that is also adhered to by music television channels like MTV.

Narrative point of view should be the initial place of focus in the study of prose fiction, but it is often difficult to understand or teach. This study proposes that stage or screen production of narrative fiction may be purposefully structured to enhance the understanding of narrative perspective. The study details grammatical analysis of narrative language and describes implications drawn from that language which influence production decisions. The thesis examines the techniques and technology of stage and screen production which may be manipulated to underscore narrative point of view, suggesting ways in which each medium can borrow from the techniques of the other for point of view production.