published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation explores how female-born or female-bodied gender variants perform and represent their masculinities in American performance art and drag king shows. A drag king refers to a woman or female-born person who performs their gender as fluid, usually wearing masculine costumes and make-up. I focus on how race, ethnicity, and class are involved in performing female masculinities on stage, and how the intersections of other social vectors produce myriad differences in terms of stakes, styles, and forms of masculinity. I examine how female-born queer performers foreground the constructed nature of masculinity, and how they redefine established categories of gender and sexuality through performance. I argue that queer performances of female masculinities deconstruct the heteronormative gender binary and embody alternative configurations of sex, gender, class, race, and sexuality. In my first chapter, I address Peggy Shaw's Menopausal Gentleman (1997) and To My Chagrin (2003). I examine how she portrays aging white butch masculinity, sexuality, and emotion, through the reinterpretation of menopause and musings on her own whiteness. My second chapter provides a critical reading of kt shorb's [sic] of chicks, dicks, and chinks (2005) and D'Lo's Ramble-Ations (2006). Investigating the effeminization of Asian masculinity and multicultural racial performativity, I illuminate how Asian-American female masculinities are differently constituted in the interplay between class, ethnicity, diaspora, and cultural identities. In my third chapter, I analyze the 6th (Chicago, 2004) and 8th (Austin, 2006) International Drag King Extravaganza showcase performances. I describe how they reveal the theatrical nature of masculinity, and how they mark race, class, and ethnicity. In addition, I discuss how they valorize gender fluidity and multiplicity, staging queer desire and pleasure. Throughout this dissertation, by offering complex illustrations of masculine genders of the female body or the gender-ambiguous body, I contend that female-born gender variants disrupt the equation of masculinity to maleness through their theatrical performances of masculinities. I conclude that performing female masculinities can foster the critical artfulness of gender by engaging in social criticism of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality.

This oral interpretation thesis studies the use of oral interpretation in social contexts. The context chosen was the Hospice movement, which deals with assisting terminally ill persons and their families through the stages of death and bereavement. A readers theatre script was compiled for "Ann's Haven: Hospice of Denton County," which was selected for the locus of this thesis. The script was presented to various civic groups for the purpose of informing the public and eliciting support for Ann's Haven. It was found that oral interpretation is a viable rhetorical tool and is well liked by audiences as a means of public enlightenment.

In 1990 many in Colquitt, Georgia considered themselves to be a dying town due to the loss of jobs and outmigration that occurred when labor intensive farming transitioned to the machine. In response citizens brought in a theater director from Chicago who helped them launch a performance series of inclusive stories that were acted by local volunteers. The resulting series called Swamp Gravy has run from 1992 to present (2012), and has led to purported claims of community revitalization. The purpose of this study was to discover what this ongoing narrative community engagement meant to the people of Colquitt in regards to: community experiences that produced new relationships (including those between Blacks and Whites); personal empowerment; the coproduction of an emerging and diverse community identity; and institutional and economic development. Methods for this case study included narrative interviews of participants, attendees and local citizens, as well as observation of the town and the performances, and document analysis. Many participant volunteers and attendees became Swamp Gravy enthusiasts, and describe their experiences as coming out into a meaningful experience of community, which included forming relationships with diverse others (including those of a different race). The enthusiasts speak of growing into larger community responsibilities with others for the common good, and feel that ongoing and inclusive storytelling is very important to coproducing a diverse heritage that informs the future of their city. Other attendees (predominantly the business community) describe the benefits of Swamp Gravy as instrumental to having given the town recognition (identity) as an entertaining tourist attraction that exposed individual talent, boosted individual confidence, and enhanced social connectivity. Others in Colquitt were indifferent or resistive to the coming out that the performances invite. Most everyone recognizes that Swamp Gravy has attracted outside tourists which has boosted economic development, occasioned the renovation of downtown Colquitt square and the formation of institutions to continue to attract and accommodate visitors from afar. This case is theorized in terms of the emerging communicative turn in planning that juxtaposes the planner as mediator or facilitator, and stakeholders as co-producers. The findings in this case study support that the Swamp Gravy form of narrative process has some potential for guiding stakeholders to a just diversity in cities, neighborhoods and towns, and as such should be studied further. Urban planning in situations of urban renewal may be one place where utilizing this form of meaningful engagement could lead to discovery of new identities, which may both inform and motivate a just plan to be coproduced.

The beginning of the new millennium finds documentary theatre serving as teacher and “healer” to those suffering and in need. By providing a thought provoking awareness of the “other,” it offers a unique lens with which to examine the socio-political similarities and differences between various cultures and ethnicities in order to promote intercultural understanding. Documentary is also used by teachers, therapists, and researchers as a tool for healing. By sharing personal stories of trauma and illness with others who are experiencing similar difficulties, emotional pains are alleviated and fears are assuaged. Documentary theatre has expanded in definition from the “epic dramas” of German playwrights Erwin Piscator and Bertholt Brecht during the height of the German Weimar Republic to the recent “verbatim” scripts of playwrights such as Anna Deveare Smith, Emily Mann, and Robin Soans. The dramaturgical duties of the playwright along with the participatory role of the audience have grown in complexity. In verbatim documentary the playwright must straddle a fine line between educating and entertaining while remaining faithful to the words of the respondents as well as to the context in which they were received. The audience, by responding to questionnaires and by engaging in talk-back sessions, plays a pivotal role in production. Documentary serves as an important vehicle for informing and inspiring audiences from all walks of life. In 2010, researchers Dr. Patricia Liehr of the Christine E. Lynn School of Nursing at Florida Atlantic University and Dr. Ryutaro Takahashi, Vice Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, approached me to create a documentary based on their combined interviews of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima survivors. The resultant script, With Their Voices Raised, is included as an appendix to this dissertation as an example of the documentary genre and its unique capacity for research dissemination. With Their Voices Raised not only conveys the memories and fears of the survivors, but in its conclusion reveals how these victims of war have elected to live their lives in a quest for peace- choosing “hope over hate” in a shared world / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection