Becoming Number Six is an original dramatic work: Stephanie Dylar is disturbed when two shadowy figures claiming to be intelligence agents appear on her doorstep. The agents, Lovelace and Babbage, represent a government branch known as The Division, and inform her that her son Jeremy may be involved in illegal computer activity. When Jeremy subsequently goes missing, Stephanie turns to her friend Julia for help, and is confronted with the realities of constant surveillance as Julia brings the hacking group Incognito into the mix.

This thesis combines a play, Getting Betterer all the Time, a satire about self-help, and an exegesis examining the possibilities that self-help offers for satire and why. The self-help industry has evolved into a massive social and economical phenomenon. The scope of self-help is constantly expanding, indicating a society of individuals desperate for help in all facets of life. As this movement has become more prevalent, self-help has attracted criticism for the way it thrives on the exploitation of people's insecurities. By playing to people's aspirations, many self-help practitioners have become wealthy, but there is a danger that some self-help products can have a harmful effect on people, and at best give rise to an insufferable hubris. Consequently, we have witnessed a rise in popular texts that spoof the self-help industry. The excesses of the self-help industry make it an easy target for satire. Self-help is well matched to satire's function to provide social commentary by ridicule of targets causing harm to the well-being of society. Self-help is an appropriate subject for satire because of its focus on social behavior such as modern parenting, consumerism and status anxiety. Self-help, in addition to providing these opportunities for social commentary, also offers much comedic potential.

How can a playwright share authorial control with a group of actors when creating a new play script? How does the individual playwright address matters of genre, form, style and structure to create a unifying theme, while remaining true to the dramatic intention and aesthetics of the group? What impact will the collaborators have on a playwright's work? Will they help or hinder the writing process? This exegesis closely follows the creation of a new play, The Woods, in a process where the playwright intended to facilitate a collaborative process with the actors rather than act as sole author. Issues arising in this mode of working include the real meaning of sole authorship, aesthetic integrity and creative power balance. The analysis of these issues will have relevance for theatre practitioners working in collaborative contexts.

This thesis, comprised of a stage play and exegesis, asks whether the Mike Leigh Method, commonly used by Auteur directors could be adapted to benefit a playwright during the redrafting and development process. I seek to answer this question by examining differing methodologies of drama creation and charting my process as I work to redraft my character driven stage play Deceased Estate through the adaptation and application of the Mike Leigh Method. I contend that Leigh’s method affords a set of honed and proven guidelines that can help the playwright get to the heart of the character driven drama and offer an adapted method template that can be used and furthered by other Playwrights wishing to develop their work in this manner.

彈幕（Danmaku, danmu），是一種評論分享系統，原生於日本線上影音交流平台，其直接覆蓋在影視文本的文字符號文化展現特殊觀影型態。隨著影片播放過程以及彈幕隨機出現，使用者於觀影當下必須隨時改變閱聽焦點來理解瞬間變化的內容，意義生產更加複雜。 彈幕影片呈現出高度流動的觀影文本與觀影狀態，然則現行分析影視文本、媒介、閱聽人研究尚未針對三者變動交互關係－亦即彈幕與影視文本交疊的型態，及閱聽人的接收歷程與反應進行深入分析。Deleuze和Guattari的塊莖思維強調物質與概念的生成（becoming）與裝配（assemblage），以力量的關係作用構成動態的世界觀。據此，本研究設計一個詮釋「流動性」的研究架構，用以同時探究彈幕文本的瞬間形變與使用者觀看影片的瞬間審美體驗。 本研究將彈幕文本與使用者視作兩部「機器」，透過情動力（affect）串聯彈幕、影像內容、使用者異質感受交雜變動的歷程。研究最後提出「嬉遊文本」與「文本人」的概念來說明塊莖式審美的意涵，以及未來的可能應用。 / Danmaku, or Danmu, is a comment-sharing system originating from Japanese online video-streaming platforms. It constitutes a specific viewing state. Videos are covered with texts and symbols, which keep varying and breaking the connotation and denotation of meaning. Danmaku also complicates the perception of the audience. However, such frequently changing viewing contexts have never been studied thoroughly.To illustrate the interrelation among media, texts and audience, this study aims to develop a “fluxional” research framework. To interpret “sudden” metamorphoses of clips and “sudden” visual experiences while people are viewing Danmaku films, this study takes Deleuze and Guattaris’ figurative concepts of rhizome as main research perspectives. Rhizomatic thinking focuses on the “assemblages” of physical objects and metaphysical concepts as well as how they are “becoming,” which all together constitute a dynamic worldview. In this study, Danmaku films and the audience are both seen as “machines”, through which the “affect” flows. The “affect” forms various rhythms, which energize the constant changing of the content in a video, arousing instant sensation and comprehension. In the end, this study brings up “collective play script” and “text-er” to conceptualize the context of Rhizo-aesthetic experience, in a hope to offer a new approach to understand new media interface and content design.

The present thesis focuses on the representations of gays in Czech and Slovak contemporary theater plays. Its aim is to analyze the queer and campy aspects of the representations of gays in the mainstream plays and uncover the principles of creation of the gay character in the structure of dramatic Arts. The results of analysis explain the integrative mode of representation of gays in Czech and Slovak contemporary plays.