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This study attempts to establish the fact that Whitman was a frequent attendant at the legitimate theatre and that throughout his life he had a vital concern for it. The nature and scope of Whitman's interest in the legitimate theatre has been examined in detail to show by specific reference to his works the probable effect of his theatrical interest.

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This dissertation examines the role of speech inflection in the composition of melodies of American musical theatre and investigates how composers approached speech inflection in their work throughout this genre's history. Through analysis of songs and interviews with composers, this dissertation investigates the relevance of speech inflection in the various styles of composition existing on Broadway. The main focus of musical theatre compositions, especially post Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma, is to move the plot along through songs. Therefore, the delivery of the text must be of ultimate consideration in the writing of modern musicals. A well-written speech-melody facilitates the process of a speech-melody-interpretation, which will result in the delivery of lyrics with an understandable, natural sounding quality. This investigation happens through a chronologic evaluation of the relevance of speech inflection during each of the distinct phases on Broadway, as well as an examination of the approach to writing with a speech-melody focus of each individual composer throughout history. This study explores the importance of speech inflection in American musical theatre songwriting focusing on a speech-melody approach to composition. / by Ana Flavia Zuim. / Vita. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

In 1967 and 1968, members of the Youth International Party, also known as Yippies, created several mass street demonstrations to protest President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s handling of the United States’ military involvement in the war in Vietnam. The Yippies were a loose network of hippies, anti-war activists, and left-wing radicals committed to cultural and political change. This dissertation investigates how the Yippies used avant-garde theories of theatre and performance in their year of demonstrating against the Johnson administration. The Yippies receive little attention in most histories of American performance, and theatre remains on the margins of political and social histories of the 1960s; therefore this dissertation places performance and political archives side by side to create a new historical narrative of the Yippies and performance. The Yippies created their own networked participatory street performance form by drawing on the political philosophy of the New Left student movement, the organizational strategies of the anti-war movement, and the countercultural values of the hippies. They modified this performance form, which they termed “revolutionary actiontheater,” with performance theories drawn from New York’s avant-garde art world, the concept of guerrilla theatre outlined by R. G. Davis of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and the notion of Theater of Cruelty created by Antonin Artaud. Using performance theory and cultural history as primary methodologies, this project traces the Yippies’ adoption of revolutionary action-theater with three examples: the 1967 “March on the Pentagon” where future Yippie leaders performed an exorcism ritual at the Pentagon; the 1968 “Grand Central Station Yip-In” event that advertised for the Yippie movement; and the 1968 “Festival of Life” at the National Democratic Convention in Chicago where the Yippies nominated a pig as presidential candidate. The final chapter on the recent phenomenon of flash mobs argues that the Yippies’ legacy lives on in this participatory street performance form, and suggests that revolutionary action-theater can still serve as a model for political action. / text

The following is a historical analysis on the Moscow Art Theatre’s (MAT) tours to the United States in 1923 and 1924, and the developments and changes that occurred in Russian and American theatre cultures as a result of those visits. Konstantin Stanislavsky, the MAT’s co-founder and director, developed the System as a new tool used to help train actors—it provided techniques employed to develop their craft and get into character. This would drastically change modern acting in Russia, the United States and throughout the world. The MAT’s first (January 2, 1923 – June 7, 1923) and second (November 23, 1923 – May 24, 1924) tours provided a vehicle for the transmission of the System. In addition, the tour itself impacted the culture of the countries involved. Thus far, the implications of the 1923 and 1924 tours have been ignored by the historians, and have mostly been briefly discussed by the theatre professionals. This thesis fills the gap in historical knowledge.

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