Theatre

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https://hdl.handle.net/10315/36365

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 36

Open Access
From Cafe to Colourant: Naturally Derived Colourant for Scenic Art Application
(2023-12-08) Kennedy, Mattea Stephanie; Garrett, Ian P.
This thesis project playfully intertwines the concept of a hypothetical theatre café menu and naturally derived colourant. The remnants or same ingredients that come from the recipes are made into naturally derived colourant, for scenic art surface applications, that would be utilised in live performance. I add to the global conversation around more sustainable colourants in reference to the climate crisis. I have chosen this lighthearted interconnection to foster engagement within the core concept. I assert that by drawing people together amidst the pleasure and comfort of a café environment, we move closer to achieving the 3 Cs of Ecoscenography: Co-creation, Celebration, Circulation. Co-creation in the duality of both café items and resultant colourant, celebration in the community aspect of meeting to eat and drink and experience live performance, and circulation towards engendering a closed loop mindset in the creation of theatrical scenery.
Open Access
The Pearl
(2023-08-04) Vinitski Mooney, Daniella Leah; Armstrong, Eric
The Pearl is a multidisciplinary solo performance, integrating film noir and sci-fi B film aesthetic within the conventions of meta-theatre. The driving story is autoethnographic narrative and speaks to both the mourning process and the reconstitution of self post-trauma. In 2015, Vinitski Mooney discovered a briefcase containing substantial medical and legal records pointing towards severe medical malpractice experienced by her late father on the part of his presiding physicians. This live and filmed performance is a reclamation of her father’s narrative and her dramatized existential response. As auteur, Vinitski Mooney embarks on a heightened research-creation methodology, melding the contemplative with the dramaturgical towards a final project integrating original performance, direction, dramaturgy, and writing, as well as intermedial design. To this end, dramaturgical focus included archive-led research and the friction between the live and filmed event. More specifically, Vinitski Mooney is concerned with the function of staged memory from a narrative, spatial, and kinetic lens, and how repetition and the surreal dramaturgically inform a play about mourning, loss, and dementia. The Pearl is a play about devastation and redemption, and seeks to be as equally haunting as it is provocative.
Open Access
Dear Heart
(2023-08-04) Ho, Ka Kei Jeffrey; Robinson, Jamie
dear heart is an autoethnographic exploration around playwriting and creation processes. dear heart as an artistic offering is the textual record of the text-based experiment upon which this thesis is predicated. The thesis itself is a distillation around the methodology of the author’s process – a shareable articulation to serve as a bedrock for educational material in professional and academic settings. The author will articulate theoretical and analytical reflections of the role of instinct and positionality in the creation of performance texts, and to apply consciousness to the often-subconscious impulses of creation. The author interrogates the role of adaptation and community curiosity as methodology for other playwrights, through research into relational aesthetics and curational theory from visual art.
Open Access
Snowbound: Voicing the Actor's Perspective
(2023-08-04) Martin, Madeleine; Batdorf, Erika
This work is both a project of self-exploration as well as an attempt to give voice, as a writer and a director, to a child actor’s 20 year perspective of the television, theatre and film industry. Through a series of writing exercises and directorial projects the author experiments with and refines the use of metaphor to universalize her personal experiences. Investigations into memory and autobiography prompted the author to re-order her primary experiences into a work of art that might speak to adolescent and young adult identity formation. The two-year process of writing, performing and directing resulted in the production of the play Snowbound, which is an examination of how those we love influence our identity and of who we are outside of the roles we all play. This play, following the life of one actor from child to adulthood, speaks to the particular challenges of those who grow up in the shadow of the entertainment industry, as well as to the generalized difficulties of navigating adolescence into adulthood.
Open Access
Janice Almighty - A Contemporary Circus Dance Play
(2023-08-04) Dottor, Monica Christine; Batdorf, Erika
The following thesis records the process of writing, devising, designing, directing, choreographing and performing JANICE ALMIGHTY: A Contemporary Circus Musical. It is an autoethnographic exploration of anxiety and mental health exceptionalities as both hinderance and catalyst for performance and creation. The author examines storytelling techniques incorporating elements of Contemporary Circus, Text, Aerial Dance, Choreography, Music Comedy and Clown.
Open Access
Plurilingual Performance Practice in nowhen and Exploring New Agency for the Contemporary Actor
(2023-03-02) Wong, Alison; Lampert, Paul
This dissertation presents the written component of Alison Wong’s investigation into her thesis project: the directing of the site-specific production titled nowhen, as a part of the 2021 Dream in High Park with the Canadian Stage Company. The directorial approach is outlined in the research paper, including the adaptation of source material from the publication Living Hyphen, the influence of plurilingual performance practice, and the consideration of translanguaging as methodology for performance creation. The journal excerpts reflect on the discoveries, accomplishments, and challenges the director, her collaborators, and the performers faced in a process that called upon new working relationships with language, space, and time in theatre-making, while also facing the COVID-19 pandemic. The epilogue highlights key learnings through the lens of plurilingual performance practice as it relates to the representation of transnational identities in theatre.
Open Access
Just because it's a road doesn't mean you have to take it: A journey of decolonizing resistance through storytelling
(2022-08-08) Geller, Philip Jonah Logan; Greyeyes, Michael J.
This paper outlines the road and journey taken by a Mtis-Jewish graduate student to direct a theatre project in partial fulfillment of an MFA in Directing. It is a contribution towards decolonizing theatre and performance study and practice. Offering processes, techniques, and tools that challenge and exist outside of colonial dominant Western theatrical practice and study. This paper is part story, part research, part process, and part reflection. Discussing the deep challenges of creating decolonizing practice within the confines of a colonial institution through an artistic field entrenched in colonial ideals. This is a presented as an activation to inspire ways of working that honour all our relations and allows us, as human collaborators, to show up as our full selves.
Open Access
Influenced: Artistic Truthfulness in the Age of Social Media
(2022-03-03) Chaulk, Samantha Maisie Anne; Robinson, Jamie
The following thesis records the process of researching and creating a solo theatre show called Influenced. It is focused on the pursuit of artistic truthfulness in the face of fears of how the work might be interpreted according to rhetorical trends propagated on social media platforms. It documents an approach to truthful art-making loosely organized by philosopher Ken Wilber's four quadrant model of truth. It examines creation techniques that draw on truth from each quadrant: inner work and visioning; subjective, external reflections of the work in myth and stories; intersubjective, and natural structures; objective. It outlines two ways that research into social media's algorithms; interobjective truth, was applied practically to create the characters and environment of Influenced with the aim of dramatizing behaviors and events that happen online. It defines three components of artistic truthfulness and reflects upon how honouring truthful work can lead to creative success.
Open Access
Grape Head: Rejecting Compulsion/Repulsion Through the Development of a Queer Trans Dramaturgy
(2022-03-03) VanWieren, Alisha Christine; Robinson, Jamie
The following thesis tracks the creation, development and production of my thesis show Grape Head. At first, I will develop a queer dramaturgy that I plan on engaging with through my development period. This dramaturgy will be rooted in techniques that I will establish in the artistic challenge section of the thesis document. The techniques are based on research, observation and practice. I will contextualize these techniques, the ways they did or did not work, creating a final rendition of a personalized queer dramaturgical approach. Finally I will explore with the content and development of Grape Head.
Open Access
Simple Gifts: Performing Place in Suburbia
(2021-11-15) Engstrom, Paula Ellen; Garrett, Ian P.
Political theorist Jane Bennett, renowned for her work on ethics and the environment, brings our gaze from the human experience of things to things themselves. In Vibrant Matter, Bennett theorizes an inherent vitality of materiality and promotes a non-binary approach between animal and human, organic and inorganic, matter and life, in favour of the vibrancy of matter. The thesis addresses these concepts through material distinction, performance, and preference of stage. The work is situated on a suburban front lawn and consist of foraged organic and inorganic materials that are incorporated with worms and open to the elements. My thesis examines the performance of staged sculptures on a suburban front lawn. Through creative investigation and multidisciplinary research in installation art, twentieth-century Western theatre development, and philosophy, I intend to illustrate how art can arise from place and address current artistic and environmental thought.
Open Access
Un Regard Oblique - A Distorted Gaze Designing Confinement
(2021-11-15) El Hayeck, Cesar Jean; Przybylski, Teresa
My thesis project is a tribute to generations of people, like myself, who grew up without a voice, crushed by psychological confinement, without the feeblest option of an unconventional identity. My intention is to explore and to tell a raw, uninhibited narrative, and to explain the traumatic anguish that is still extremely prominent in many underprivileged societies today. Its a paraphrase of human suffering and oppressive conditions. Using my solitary artistic explorations during the Covid-19 pandemic, I will create an installation that best translates these emotions, using multimedia projections, tactile installations, and sound experimentations. The pivoting element of this installation will be the relationship between the visitors and the spectacle of emotions. It will create an opportunity for the people to draw triggers, to interact with the physical dramatic spaces, to reflect on communal beliefs and to incite a feeling of social awareness.
Open Access
Exploring Sex, Shame, and Transformation in Amy Rutherford's Mortified
(2021-11-15) Roveda, Amanda Lea; Wilson, Mark E.
This paper presents written support material for Amanda Roveda's direction of an augmented audio experience of Amy Rutherford's stage play Mortified for the Department of Theatre's 2021 Theatre@York season. The directorial approach for the production is outlined in the research paper, focusing on the exploration of sex, shame and transformation inherent in the script. The director's journal excerpts and the epilogue detail the significant challenges encountered by the director, the student cast members and the student production team in the pivot from an in-person theatrical event (originally planned for York's Faire Fecan Theatre) to an immersive audio format cast, designed, rehearsed and recorded remotely, necessitated by the exigencies of Covid-19. Finally, the paper reflects on the accomplishments of the director and her team in a unique period of creative adaptation to new circumstances, as well as the areas which might have been strengthened in this tumultuous journey.
Open Access
The Grand Balcony; The reflection of a corrupt world. Directing The Balcony by Jean Genet
(2021-07-06) Legere, Margaret Muriel; Lampert, Paul
In directing Jean Genets The Balcony, I consider Genets voice, especially how it manifests in his novels The Thiefs Journal and Our Lady of The Flowers. I look at the ways his desire to connect to the audience by breaking traditional barriers between artist and patron manifests in The Balcony. In my consideration of directing the play, I examine the importance of good, thoughtful leadership, referring most significantly to Simon Sineks Leaders Eat Last, and eventually to The Harvard Business Reviews Dealing with Difficult People. I consider how the current President of the United States of America and his campaign manager share qualities with the characters in Genets play; they care more about possessing a title than considering the actions and responsibilities that come along with that same power position. Most significantly, I examine my own process as a director and leader, and the important learning that comes with struggle.
Open Access
Vessels: Designing for Autonomous Sound
(2020-05-13) Reshef, Sharon; Kerwin, Shawn
This thesis explores the process of designing for natures autonomous soundscape through an experimental meditation on the phenomenology of acoustic resonance: the sonic vibrations of objects. Manifested in a series of sculptural resonant cavities, formed from found objects, these vessels became instruments, listening devices and reliquaries of a resonant relic through creation, performance and preservation. The intent of this thesis was to design for natures soundscape to expose sound as a powerful medium capable of eliciting intimate, self-reflective moments with nature.
Open Access
Measure for Measure: Measuring Morality for a Contemporary Context
(2020-05-11) Thompson, Severn; Wilson, Mark E.
This paper presents written support material for Severn Thompsons ninety-minute adaptation of Shakespeares Measure for Measure for Shakespeare in High Parks thirty-seventh season. The concept and script edit for the production were based on a number of factors outlined in the following chapters, from historical context, source material, past productions, and contemporary relevancies. Also investigated are the challenges inherent in the script, which have led Measure for Measure to be commonly categorized as one of Shakespeares problem plays. Identifying and embracing the plays ambiguities and contradictions become part of the conceptual approach, while setting the production in an alternative now highlights the issues with which our society continues to wrestle, such as extreme morality, political corruption, gender politics, justice, and mercy. Finally, the paper reflects on the accomplishments as well as the areas for improvement in the production of this complex dark comedy, presented in a unique outdoor venue.
Open Access
Much Ado About Nothing: The Challenge of Directing Shakespeare's Romantic Comedy for a Contemporary Audience
(2020-05-11) Balkan, Liza Phyllis; Wilson, Mark E.
This paper offers the written component of Liza Balkans investigation into her thesis project: editing and directing the 2019 production of Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing, produced as part of the 37th season for the Canadian Stage Companys Shakespeare in High Park. The inquiry within these pages involves the challenges of directing this merry war of a classical, romantic comedy (written in 1598/99) for the High Park audience of 2019. How do hearts and minds living in an era of #MeToo take on its themes of love, war, patriarchy, wit, shaming, deception, failure, comedy, and gender politics written from the male perspective of the 16th century? The goal of creating a vibrant, relevant production that embraces and includes the modern audience in its storytelling and dramaturgy inspired the rigorous line of inquiry and propelled the vision for this production.
Open Access
Travels with my Family
(2019-11-22) Kelly, Aaron Robert; Kerwin, Shawn
This paper examines the processes, research, and theories drawn upon to create an interactive physical world using set, lighting, and media design. This world -- a full scale set -- built in the Joe Green Theatre was used to stage and photograph narrative rich large-scale images. The exhibit itself questioned creative agency in theatre story telling by placing the design of the environment before the creation of the story. The audience experience of the exhibit enabled the questioning of the relationship between audience and creator by breaking down the barriers between the two. This project and paper examine the process of creation and questions who is the performer, who is the audience, and who is the creator.
Open Access
The Object/The Body/The Ritual: An Affectual Dissection of Plastic Bags Through Performance Design
(2019-07-02) Olscamp, Alan John Lucas; Przybylski, Teresa
Roland Barthes has famously noted plastics as miraculous substances of infinite transformations and transmutations, yet we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which the material plays an increasingly destructive role in our society and environment. The thesis addresses the question of how meaning is made and transformed by theoretically and practically dissecting plastic through three distinct research areas: object, body, and ritual. Most prominently, my thesis demonstrates how situating the plastic bag in a funeral can forge human to non-human reverence and reformulate affectual associations. Through creative investigation and extensive multidisciplinary research in visual arts, film, and queer theory, I aim to provide a deeper understanding of how plastics can obscure and entangle the boundaries between theatre and performance art.
Open Access
The Green Line: An Investigation of the Arabization of the Playwriting Process through an Exploration of Intergenerational Memory
(2019-07-02) Ayache, Makram Riad; Lampert, Paul
The author examines the limitations and potential in the "Arabization" of the playwriting process through an exploration of the Lebanese Civil War and the inheritance (or erasure) of intergenerational memory. Through a series of studio and written explorations, the author investigates conventional play-writing techniques and questions the capacity to de-center the locus of knowledge from a European lens. The two year exploration culminated in the play "The Green Line," which in and of itself is a discussion of transmigration and racial/ethnic building identity politics. The author interrogates the effectiveness of the "Arabization" endeavor and discusses findings that point to the potential ways the exploration failed and succeeded.
Open Access
Rethinking Performance: A Cognitive Journey toward Excellent Play
(2019-07-02) Stieb, Corey Tazmania; Dobie, Gwen
Perfectionistic traits, which have both cognitive and behavioral facets, can have negative effects on a performing artists psychology and/or their ability to perform at their best. A review of literature was undertaken, focused on psychological research studies that identified best practices in both sports and the performing arts. This review identified two types of practices - the cultivation of resilience skills, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strategies - as the most promising means of addressing perfectionism while under pressure to excel as an actor in a theatrical performance. These practices were implemented in training, rehearsals and performances of a thesis role in a university masters program. Both types of practices were effective in, first, identifying environmental and individual stressors, and then creating behavioral replacements for perfectionism that were actionable, growth oriented, and engendered ownership of artistic process. These strategies have potential long term benefits in actor training programs, and deserve further attention.