<div> <div> <div> <p>A collection of poems centering a missing brother, an absent father, a dying mother, and other complicated family dynamics.<br></p> </div> </div> </div>

I Am is a creative thesis in the form of a theatrical play. This play creates a new Appalachian legend based around the Biblical Story of Moses, feminism, and the African Deity Mami Wata.

"First Love teaches you how to love. Great Love perfects that love. Last Love...well, we never really figured out what Last Love did." "Tim Without Thalia" and "Thalia With Someone Else" sprung from a place of being tired, but not yet sleepy. The "quarter-life crisis" if you will: When everyone else seems to be getting married, having kids, starting their own basket-weaving businesses, except you. When relationships between college friends break and relationships between "real life" friends…break. When love is dictated as much by actual romance, as it is by power. Yet you still feel oddly euphoric about it all. In these two companion plays, Tim, Thalia, and their clueless but well-meaning friends wax idiotic on the rules of modern romance: the chase, the connection, and, of course, the end. Produced April 30 – May 2, 2009 in Virginia Tech's Performing Arts Building under the direction of Dr. Patricia Raun, Theatre Arts Department Head. / Master of Fine Arts

The nature of humans and human interaction has always fascinated me, and due to the extreme complexity of our constantly changing and evolving society, never before has there been such a dire need to understand ourselves and to realize the consequences of our actions on a universal scale; never before has society been so at war and in love with mind-games, which are both disgusting and beautiful at the same time; people have come to depend on the very thing they despise the most. These are themes I am trying to explore in my original play, After Butter. For my Honors in the Major Thesis, I researched and explored the craft of playwriting in an effort to improve my original play, After Butter. As a writer, I wanted to have the experience of creating an original work from concept to public performance. I wanted to do this project because no classes in the theatrical playwriting discipline are offered in my major. My play is a realistic, comedic, modem-day adaptation of our own world. I explore themes such as: the awakening of the consciousness; the interconnectedness of man and nature; genuine strength conquers all; the Axiom of Causality; redemption; the right thing isn't always the easiest; truth never dies; materialism; and, finally, the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which represents an action's consequences. Outside the university setting, I would like to have my play performed by professional theatre companies in an effort to get audiences to connect with the characters and situations so the play becomes important to them on a personal level, therefore priming the play for a future on the big screen.

The purpose of my research was to discover the most effective ways to write ten-minute plays. I adapted various "suggestions" proposed in the many playwriting books I gathered to find the way that worked best for me as an artist. The majority of the books I read suggest writing ten-minute works before attempting a one-act or even a full-length play. My resources yielded a plethora of information on how to actually write a play. Three of my sources that proved to be enlightening were The Art and Craft of Playwriting by Jeffrey Hatcher, Playwriting for Dummies by Angelo Parra, and Naked Playwriting: The Art, the Craft, and the Life Laid Bare by William Missouri Downs and Robin U. Russin. I also attended a master class with playwright Tim Bauer, and he gave me insight on approaching writing ten-minute plays. Through my research, it became evident that the real problem with writing is not so much the structure or the way a person writes, but the actual writing itself. Each of my resources had valuable information that made my job as an artist easier, but none of them, even the tips Bauer gave me, worked one hundred percent of the time. Some plays were easier to write if I wrote them without stage directions first, as Bauer suggested, but others stalled if I didn't write my vision of the stage before actually writing dialogue. The research I have completed can aid a multitude of future creative artists. My Five Tips for Writing and Three Tips for a First Production are useful insights that would have been invaluable had I known them when I started writing.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1985 C87 / Master of Arts

This thesis consists of two major components. It begins with an analytical essay that discusses the three final plays I wrote during my time at the University of Texas at Austin (White Tie Ball, The Making of a Modern Folk Hero, and A.I.M.). The essay also places these plays within the context of my larger journey as a writer during my graduate coursework. Specifically, the essay addresses the different strategies I employed to effectively integrate my characters’ pursuit of their very personal objectives with the politics of the world in each play. Immediately, following this analytical essay are the three plays in question placed in the order in which I wrote them. / text

Erin is returning to her childhood home on a Native reservation in New Mexico. She hopes to see her father one more time before he dies, but she has other motives as well. Her relationships with her family, and with her lover Maddie come under pressure through this change in her life. Between the looming dream of reuniting with her father, and coming to terms with the new stage in her life Erin is learning how to accept herself and others.

Following a similar pattern of the classic Biblical story of “The Prodigal Son”, the play allows for a modernization of the characters and setting. Set in 1968, the playwright takes a look at what happened after the “Prodigal Son” returned home as well as the effect the return had upon the Son that stayed as well as the Father. How can family relationships survive in the midst of lies and turmoil of a time of great change in America’s history.

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