<p>An issue faced by community colleges is the time to completion for student success as defined by obtaining a degree, certificate or transfer to a four-year institution. Issues not addressed in the research are the effects on persistence of the time needed to acquire the performing arts skills, the probable occurrence of student over engagement, and the student's definition of success and their perception of a delayed time to degree. There exists a population of community college performing arts students who continue to persist into their fourth year and beyond after accumulating the units needed to complete an associate arts degree or certificate. </p><p> Using a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explored the perceptions and experiences of community college performing arts students on their reasons for continued persistence in community college. Semi-structured interviews were used to elucidate themes and to discern the motives of why these students continue to persist. It was discovered that the participants created their own individual definitions of student success and designed personalized academic pathways to obtain that success. It appeared that the acquisition of skills, the building of resumes, and networking were major reasons for the student's continued persistence. And, although the completion of a degree was asserted as important, it was not critical in a majority of their definitions of success. In addition, participants admitted to spending a great deal of time in pursuit of the arts. </p><p> Recommendations were made to implement counselors with specialized training in the needs of performing arts students to mitigate unnecessary persistence, to realign curriculum and programs within the arts as needed (a) to address repeatability issues and to (b) build relationships with local professional arts organizations, and to strengthen the profile of the performing arts as an accepted academic discipline to better align the arts with college missions. Further research is needed in the performing arts as well as in the community colleges to continue to build the body of literature in these areas. A final recommendation was for the policy makers to strengthen institutions by broadening their definition of student success to include the voices of the students. </p>

<p> This study examines the use of performance ethnography as an advocacy tool for students with non-apparent disabilities at Mills College, a four-year institution in Oakland, California. The focus was on the sometimes challenging relationships between these students and their instructors. The methods in this study included analysis of a script that was created and performed by four women students with non-apparent disabilities and a series of interviews held pre-performance and then conducted at one and six months post-performance. The four student writer/performers were interviewed, as well as four faculty members who agreed to participate in the project. After analyzing the data I concluded that performance ethnography or ethnotheatre was a meaningful advocacy tool that deepened understanding and raised awareness and had the potential to improve student/faculty relationships. I recommend that such projects are encouraged in student social justice organizations and receive support from college administrations. For example, after a student performance such as <i>We Are Here to be Heard,</i> scheduling follow-up student/faculty workshops would enhance the learning experience for all concerned. Practitioners in disability services and student life who want to work with marginalized students would be well served to read some of the references cited in this study, and such practical guides for doing this kind of work such as Saldana's Ethnotheatre (2005). Based on my experience, staff considering this type of advocacy work with students with disabilities, apparent or non-apparent, also need to be mindful that embodied work may release strong emotions and topics such as stigma and identity threat may trigger painful memories. It is important that there is sufficient support to contain feelings that may arise, that boundaries are very clear and finally, the creative space needs to be a place of safety and security for all.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to develop a program, explore potential funding sources, and complete a grant application to secure funding for an expressive arts showcase for clients at Homeboy Industries who have a criminal and gang-affiliated past, and are now attempting to re-integrate in their communities. Narrative therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, art therapy, and mindfulness may significantly ameliorate the conditions faced by this population, as well as the overall well-being of the community through a showcase of expressive arts composed and performed by the clients of Homeboy Industries. A search for potential funding sources led to The Goldhirsh Foundation as the most appropriate source for this grant. A grant proposal was written describing an expressive arts program for Homeboy Industries that will ultimately result in a showcase for community consumption. Actual submission and/or funding of the grant were not required for the successful completion of this project. </p>

This thesis s a study of Lorraine Hansberry as a person, an intellectual, a black and a writer. Her two plays, A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, are analysed in relation to her background and the themes and movements that the writer of her time pondered. It was found that Lorraine Bansberry's plays like those of the writers of her time, through themes of social conflict, modern man's dilemma of false dreams and disillusionment came to the onclusion that in the long run man irrespective of titles is capable of everything humanly possible. Her play To Be Young Gifted and Black, was cited as a basic source for her background, ideas and conceptions.The thesis studies the relation of Lorraine Hansberry's intellectuality, blackness and artistic potential, to her work and consequently conclusions were drawn that these three sides combined to make of Lorraine Hansberry a committed intellectual and a powerful writer.

Thc devolopment of scene changing machinery in Great Britain is perhaps one of the few disciplines in the field of mechanical engineering which have virtually never relied upon new discoveries in technology for their advancement. Instead it has always lagged behind, perhaps modifying, certainly adapting, existing techniques. This study aims to examine the evolution of stage machinery during the nineteenth century, when many techniques had already been in existence and traditions firmly established since the previous century. The degree of development in the course of the nineteenth century was in many ways a reflection of the type of drama presented. As time went by, the public's taste for spectacle and visual presentation intensified and fostered an increase in the complexity of scene changing equipment. This in turn meant that many of the theatres built in the eighteenth century, especially in the provinces, were sadly inadequate for housing the vast quantities of equipment which machinists needed to install above and below the stage. As a result architects, began improving and enlarging existing theatres as well as building new ones, with increased stage width and depth, increased flying space above and increased depth below the stage.There was indeed an enormous rise in demand for scenic effects shortly after the beginning of the nineteenth century. This rapid growth caused the smaller existing Georgian playhouses, like the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, either to be modified in an attempt to cater for new trends, or to close. This dilemma alone must be acknowledged as a significant contributory factor in the decline of the Georgian playhouse and helps to explain the comparatively small number of such theatres surviving to the present day.The techniques of the stage machinist in the first half of the nineteenth century relied almost totally on technology and basic engineering principles which had existed for many years. Certainly the comparison often made between the backstage of a theatre of this period and a sailing ship is a very apt one, since both relied on manually hauled ropes, sheaves and the principles of mechanical advantage. However, these techniques had also been utilised for other, non-theatrical purposes. For instance, housed in the central tower of Beverley Minster is a large treadwheel, which was, and is still, used to raise equipment from ground level into the roof space [sec photo.1]. This is based upon the principles of mechanical advantage, in much the same way as many pieces of scene-changing equipment.Thus, because the theatrical profession was slow to adopt now apparatus and constantly replacing old machinery with brand new near-replicas, its evolution was comparatively slow. The job of a stage machinist was quite often a family concern, as the techniques, traditions, secrets and tricks of the trade were passed from father to son. The Sloman family and the Grieve family were particularly well known in London for their knowledge and expertise in this hold. Change was to a greater or lessor extent resisted and in any case many saw little need for change, especially those who were steeped in the traditions of the machinist and his machinery. It was, in fact, this basic resistance which caused a disruption in the evolutionary development of stage machinery. Many theatre architects were happy to furnish a traditional stage machinist with a blank drawing denoting "The Stage", requiring him to fill in the details as he saw fit, whilst the innovators devised all manner of new equipment, that which worked and sometimes that which emphatically did not. There was therefore a bifurcation, with the 'traditional school' refining the 'English wood stage' to a higher degree of sophistication, whilst the 'modern school' developed and attempted to apply the engineering technology associated with other disciplines. In essence, the latter attempted to replace muscle power with hydraulic or electrical power.This thesis documents the development of stage machinery from its comparatively primitive state at the beginning of the nineteenth century, through years of growth and expansion, and finally into the last decade of the century, when theatrical productions were in truth exercises in spectacle.

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The field covered contains the major phases of British socialist theatre between 1930 and 1979. It focuses on the issues raised by the concept of socialist theatre, such as those of class, politics and dramatic form, in order to discuss the relationships between agendas of political tasks, the development of suitable forms for their dramatic expression, and the nature of the audiences which have been attracted. The discussion draws on a range of contemporary sources which include unpublished scripts and other material, together with oral evidence from some practitioners. The historical episodes covered begin with the career of the Workers' Theatre Movement and its successors the Unity Theatres and the Left Book Club Theatre Guild in the 1930s. It then examines how this was continued during the Second World War; and how it was affected by the political and other circumstances of the immediate post-war years. Finally it deals with the revival of socialist theatre in Britain during the 19705. The thesis is intended to contribute to the understanding of the relations between theatre, politics and the labour movement by means of an historical perspective on concrete examples. It examines the extent to which the different examples achieved the objectives they set themselves, and in so doing discusses the circumstances which have made successful socialist theatre possible in Britain during this period.

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It is widely accepted that early American literature reflects the boundless social and moral optimism of "The Great Experiment", expresses certitude in the ultimate perfectibility of man in the New World. Equally widely held is the belief that American experience in the twentieth century has prompted something of a retreat from this optimistic position, has blunted the belief in -- crudely put -- the American Dream and that this retreat has been particularly marked in American fiction since World War Two. This thesis seems to confront such assumptions about the "American Nightmare", as described in contemporary American fiction, by examining the work of six post-War American fiction writers: three Jews -- Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud.and Chaim Potok and three non-Jews -- John Cheever, John Updike and William Burroughs. This arrangement allows for a discussion of the obvious literary differenlces between Jew and non-Jew in the period. Moreover, it allows for speculation about the cultural processes underlying such differences, processes which have enabled some writers to produce fictions reinforcing the values and principles of individual significance and moral virtue in a social context while the work of others powerfully argues the irrelevance or impossibility of such values in contemporary society. My object in this is not to make an equation whereby optimism equals good literature and pessimism equals bad literature. Rather it is to demonstrate the way in which the optimistic strain of American literature abides -- albeit in a somewhat muted form -- and to point up the paradoxical way in which it is the very Jewishness of their writing that has made the work of Bellow, Malamud and Potok seem so thoroughly American. In so doing, I hope to underline the singular contribution of Jewish Ameeican writing since ,1945 to the American literary canon.

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