When people give to a good cause they usually give and forget about it, however that is not always the case. For one family from Texas giving was much more. They chose to sacrifice all that they knew to help those in need. They left behind all they knew and moved to Xai-Xai Mozambique Africa. In one short year they have set up a church, two care points that feed over 500 kids each day, a community center and a pre-school. Teaching the people of Xai-Xai to be resourceful, help each other, and helping them rebuild after years of civil war and a flood that nearly wiped out the entire city. Becoming a part of community and sharing the love of God with those who may have never even heard the name of Jesus. Putting into practice, exactly what is says in the Bible, to be the hands and feet of Jesus and not just setting up camp within the church building. This is a story of the Stauber family. / text

In his 2008 book, American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in U.S. Literature, 1840-1945, Gavin Jones calls for academic studies of literature that examine poverty as its own actuality, worthy of discussion and definition despite its inherently polemical nature. As presented by Jones and tested here, American literature reveals how poverty is established, defined and understood; the anxieties of class; imperative connections with issues of gender and race; and the fictions of American democracy and the American Dream. This proves to be especially interesting when examining the 1890s. From a sociological standpoint, the eighteenth century's approach to poverty was largely moralistic, while the early parts of the nineteenth century moved toward acknowledging the impact of environmental and social factors. Literature itself was changing as a result of the realism and naturalism movements; the resulting popularity of local color and dialect writing and the exploding market for magazine fiction created access to and an audience for literature that discussed poverty in multifarious ways. Furthermore, New York proved to be an ideal setting - the influx of immigrants, the obvious problem of the slums, and the public's infatuation with those slums - and served as a catalyst for a diverse body of writing. Middle-class anxieties, especially, surfaced in this modern Babel. This study begins with a historical and sociological overview of the time period as well as an analysis of the problematic photography of the effective reformer Jacob Riis. Like Riis's photography, the cartoons of R.F. Outcault both challenge and subtly support stereotypes of poverty and serve as a reminder of the presence of poverty in day-to-day life and entertainment of turn-of-the-century New Yorkers. Stephen Crane's Maggie is discussed in depth, and his Tommie sketches are contrasted with the middle-class Whilomville Tales. These pieces have in common several unifying qualities: the centrality of the human body to the discussion of poverty, the failure of language for those in poverty, vision as a tool writers and artists lean heavily upon, and the awareness of multiple audiences within and without the text. Ultimately, the pieces return to the burdened bodies of small children - "the site that bears the marks, the damage, of being poor" (Jones American Hungers 3).

Women who learn to clown within Western contemporary theatre and performance training lack recognizably female exemplars of this popular art form. This practice-as-research thesis analyses my past and present clowning experiences in order to create an understanding of a woman-centered clown practice which allows for the expression of material bodies and lived experiences. It offers a feminist perspective on Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy, which revolves around a notion of an ‘inner clown’ and is prevalent in contemporary UK clown training and practice. The thesis draws on both the avant-garde and numerous clown types and archetypes, in order to understand clowning as a genre revealed through a range of unsocialised behaviours. It does not differentiate necessarily between clowning by men and women but suggests a re-think and reconfiguration to incorporate a wide range of values and thought processes as a means of introduction to a wider audience. Specific concerns with the terms clown and clowning initiate this investigation, resulting in the creation of a ‘clowning continuum’, which offers a practical way of understanding various modes of clowning and various types of clowns. I examine my experiences, including those of ‘failure’, while working with renowned performer trainers, as well my negotiation of gender and sexuality through both my clowning in character and my creation of clowns. The twentieth century avant-garde artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who inspired me to create ‘Clown Elsa’ and take her to art galleries and onto the street, is identified as a ‘radical female proto-clown’. My practical investigations into the potential interrelatedness of the masquerade of femininity and the mask of the clown are also shaped by discourses of hysteria and the carnivalesque. Drawing on Bakhtin’s concepts of carnival, dialogic practice and heteroglossia, as well as the transgressive potential of classical myth and archetypes for women, this thesis reconfigures clown practice and discourse by both challenging and developing upon Lecoq’s outmoded pedagogic practice. Its goal is to open it up for more types and modes of clown, in particular an ‘inner clown’ that can operate in a number of masks. It culminates in my creation of a feminist clown, Sedusa, who is inspired by Hélène Cixous’s writing on l’écriture feminine, myth and laughter in ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ (1976). Sedusa expands clown models and masks for women by exploiting the ‘masquerade’ of femininity, a term originally coined by Joan Riviere in 1929. The thesis includes a performance as Sedusa as an embodiment of my research findings.

<p>This essay focuses on Maggie in <em>The Mill on the Floss</em>, by George Eliot. An examination of her life is presented which is anchored in feminist critical theory and focuses on the ordeal Maggie has to endure in a patriarchal society. Furthermore, the life of the Roma is examined through postcolonial theory and compared to Maggie’s. Many of the stereotypes that emerged about the Roma are also present in Maggie’s life. It is argued that Maggie embodies the stereotypes of the Roma through her encounters with different characters in the novel. </p>

This essay focuses on Maggie in The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot. An examination of her life is presented which is anchored in feminist critical theory and focuses on the ordeal Maggie has to endure in a patriarchal society. Furthermore, the life of the Roma is examined through postcolonial theory and compared to Maggie’s. Many of the stereotypes that emerged about the Roma are also present in Maggie’s life. It is argued that Maggie embodies the stereotypes of the Roma through her encounters with different characters in the novel.

With this thesis I will explore the many challenges that confront a leader on a creative project, the difficulties that prevent open communication, and the discoveries that I will use to serve myself on future projects. Through diligent notes during the multiple months that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof took to produce, I was able to re-create what my experience was and how it benefitted me moving forward. This thesis will document the entire process from play selection, through the final product including the response from the audience. Through this document I will try and highlight, how my own skills were tested, expanded, and seasoned throughout the process. In addition to the study of my own learning, this thesis will highlight the valuable advice that I received from instructors, as well as documenting the implementation of said advice in this university setting. In addition to looking at myself, I also will identify some things that I will be on the lookout for in future creative ventures, both from fellow collaborators, and from institutions. Eventually when this process was in the books, I looked back on the experience fondly, and with a sense of pride. I was able to reflect in the post-mortem phase of the production, and identify room for growth, but above and beyond that identify where growth had occurred during the work, not only in this process, but also in my three-year journey at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

MUSICAL THEATRE HANDBOOK FOR THE ACTOR By Maggie Elizabeth Marlin, MFA A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Major Director: David S. Leong Chairman, Department of Theatre Musical Theatre is a performance style deeply woven into the fabric of the American theatre. We live in time and social climate where over half of the productions open on Broadway right now are musicals. If actor training institutions profess a mission to prepare their students for a career in the entertainment industry, why are so many components of an actor’s skill set left to the side and considered peripheral? One can make the argument that their actor training program is exclusively for the theatre, and even more specifically for straight plays for the theatre. Of course, what your career preparation institution chooses to target is your prerogative and as long as that is clear to the incoming students who wish to specialize only in that one faction of the artist’s opportunities for work then my argument is moot. However, if you believe that actor training has a duty to prepare actors to work in an ever changing and transforming field and to be competitive in meeting the demands of various media, among many other areas of focus you should consider preparing your students to develop their craft for musical theatre as legitimately as you would for a classical or contemporary straight play. In this thesis I propose an approach to creating a role for musical theatre using as an example my character development technique for the role of Sally Bowles from a recent production of Cabaret. My desire is to illustrate a seamless continuation of the actor’s craft to meet the additional requirements of skills necessary to perform in a musical. Rather than signifying a separate style of acting for musical theatre which is identified as being altogether different and often dismissed as inferior to the craft of acting in a straight play, I hope to challenge the reader to consider a new perspective in which the foundation of musical theatre performance is built on the fundamentals of acting in a straight play.

<p>Because of the many similarities between the life of George Eliot and the lives of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in <em>The Mill on The Floss,</em> Eliot’s novel has been understood as an autobiographical novel. The aim of the essay is to, by using a psychoanalytical perspective, examine if the fictional characters could be said to be engaged in an incestuous relationship even though they do not engage in a sexual relationship. Though their relationship never becomes sexual, there are factors which could support a claim that brother and sister are engaged in an non-sexual incestuous relationship.</p>

Because of the many similarities between the life of George Eliot and the lives of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in The Mill on The Floss, Eliot’s novel has been understood as an autobiographical novel. The aim of the essay is to, by using a psychoanalytical perspective, examine if the fictional characters could be said to be engaged in an incestuous relationship even though they do not engage in a sexual relationship. Though their relationship never becomes sexual, there are factors which could support a claim that brother and sister are engaged in an non-sexual incestuous relationship.

This essay explores the character development of Ronan Lynch in Maggie Stiefvater's The Dream Thieves (2013) with the intention of showing the process of self-acceptance through the narratological concepts character and characterization as well as Young Adult literature research focused on coming-of-age in terms of self-discovery and sexual identity. It was found that Ronan does reach self-acceptance. In terms of characterization, this can be seen through his relationships with other characters and his role in the narrative. When it comes to coming-of-age, his self-acceptance is seen through his self-discovery in regards to sexuality, and especially through his identity construction in relation to his supernatural ability.