This thesis details the Costume Design process for David Emerson Toney’s Frankenstein: Dawn of a Monster at Virginia Commonwealth University. Toney’s original adaptation interprets Mary Shelley’s genre-defying novel as biography, directly influenced by the tragic events of her young life. Costumes differentiate the two narratives, with Mary Shelly in gray scale, regency-inspired modern dress and the novel in period and color. This follows the design process from concept to production to execution.

After working over twenty years in theatre and the entertainment industries, I began teaching high school level stagecraft and looked for a textbook geared towards those students just stepping into the world of technical theatre. What I found was that there is no one single source textbook for high school level students. The textbooks were either too elementary or had too much information that was written for college level students. I begin my teaching career using a textbook I thought would serve the purpose, but found my students were frustrated with the text as much as I was. I began incorporating material from other sources to cover the various components of the class; construction, rigging, lighting and sound, to name a few. After a couple of years having my students telling me that I should just write a stagecraft book, I thought maybe I could. After talking and sending out a survey to other technical directors, or the alike, in high school theatre, I found I was not alone in the way I had to cover the content of the course. Therefore, I decided to take my students challenge and write a textbook for them. I hope this will be a good resource for both students and teachers like me.

This thesis explores the current state of voice and speech education to discover if there is a standard of learning from university to university. By examining the history of voice and speech, discovering basic skills, breaking down teaching methodologies, and taking a look at current university and conservatory acting programs, the thesis discovers there is not a standard way of teaching, but there is a standard set of skills that should be upheld when planning voice and speech curriculum.

Research has revealed that underutilization of breast cancer screening by ethnic minorities often is related to language difficulties and cultural values and beliefs about cancer. The problem addressed in this secondary data analysis was the late diagnosis of breast cancer in the Chinese immigrant community. The purpose of the quasi-experimental study was to test the efficacy of a theatrical preschool performance, guided by the diffusion of innovation theory, in educating Chinese American women about breast cancer detection. The research questions sought to determine whether the performance increased the participants' knowledge of breast cancer screening guidelines and whether country of origin, length of stay in the United States, and self-reported attentiveness were associated with knowledge gain of breast cancer screening guidelines. The preschool performance was performed by Chinese children ages 3 to 5 who displayed breast health guidelines from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. One hundred and seventy-seven pre- and postperformance surveys were collected from a sample of Chinese women (84% foreign born). The secondary data were analyzed using standard linear regression analyses and bivariate logistic regressions. The findings demonstrated that promoting breast health screening guidelines among Chinese American women through a preschool theatrical performance significantly increased the participants' knowledge of the guidelines. However, no major impact was detected between knowledge score and attentiveness to the theatrical performance and any of the demographic variables. Health care professionals can foster social change by adapting a preschool theatrical performance to educate ethnic communities on cancer control guidelines for early detection.

THESIS: An investigation into my handling of the production’s key challenges, and into what came of those efforts, will reveal a pattern: decisions made from trust – trust of myself as a leader and of my collaborators – yield a better, more satisfying harvest than do decisions made from fear. KEYWORDS & PHRASES: The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, by Naomi Wallace; theater; theatre; stage; directing; director; process; challenge; time; ritual; live music; heightened language; movement; physicality; casting; actors; designers; lighting; deviant sexuality; audience; conscripting; growth; lessons learned; depression; railroad; train; trust; faith; artistic process; collaboration; leadership.

Eliminating any consideration of setting, the story of the evolution of lighting is an absorbing commentary upon the history of the theatre and necessary to the full integration of its use as an instrument in the modern theatre. An understanding of the history of the development of stage lighting is as necessary a foundation to the creative and imaginative use of light in the theatre as the foundation of a building is necessary to the support of a tower. History probides the signpost showing the directions to be taken in experimentation and a standard for evaluation of such experimentation. The responsibility of the director and designer to understand and appreciate the uses to which the lighting instrument may be but has increased in rationte the progress made in the efficiency and flexibility of stage lighting from mid-sixteenth century up to the present. A director who regards lighting as mere illusination antedates De Somi in his philosophy. The stage manager who lacts an understanding of his basic units ofmodern lighting and their antecedents is seriously handicapped. With an understanding of the development of the lightng instrument and its effect upon the physical theatre, the imagination is liberated and the basis for new techniques is laid.

Considered from the viewpoint of drama and stagecraft instructors, many of our school theater buildings are inadequate. Visits to numerous high school and college auditoriums in northern California and contact with faculty members using them have convinced the writer of the need for improvement to campus theater planning. The auditorium and little theater in the recently constructed Franklin school in Stockton, California, are good examples of poor planning. In the writer's opinion the auditorium is too large and the little theater too small for either of them to give practical service, especially in relation to their construction costs. That successful projects have been accomplished in some of these poorly planned auditoriums cannot be denied. In such cases ingenuity has succeeded in spite of the poor facilities. The writer contents that better planning will improve the quality of school theater productions as well as give to the school a more functional building.

This thesis is an account of my directorial process for the Spring 2023 production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods. I begin by illustrating how this show speaks to the contemporary political and social moment in the United States through a libretto and score that insists the only way to battle the giants brought on by the pursuit of individual goals is for a community to take responsibility for its errors and work together. I put Into the Woods in conversation with the cartoon series Over the Garden Wall to ground the show in an American context, discussing how our designers drew inspiration for the cartoon’s use of 19th Century American folk aesthetics and distorted images of monstrous figures to develop a unique approach to the world of the play. I then chronicle the audition and rehearsal process, including the incorporation of Michael Chekhov technique into character creation as well as the paths individual actors took to know and embody their characters. I offer an account of some of the unique problems we faced during tech week and how we, like the very characters in the story we were telling, came together to overcome the difficulties we faced. I conclude with an account of the performances and how I have taken the lessons from this process into the professional work I have undertaken since.

This thesis explores the process of building community over time, through collaboration, to rehearse and produce a portable production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, looking at the elements of time, trust and age with an ensemble of ten men, all actors over the age of 55. The building of trust over time was vital to the production process and the actors had the time to embody their roles and the language of the play. We look at the questions “why this play,” “why all men?” and “why theatre?” and investigate the physical nature of the play and its violence a la Three Stooges or Punch and Judy. We will look at the themes of aging, discrimination and the search for family and identity, all of which have resonance today, through the lens of play.

A study designed as a guideline for the integration of drama into church ministry.