http://hdl.handle.net/1903/2229 2013-05-22T15:41:55Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13797 Title: Costume Design for Rent Authors: Diaz, Adriana Carolina Abstract: The following thesis documents the costume design process and execution for the production of Rent by Jonathan Larson. Supporting documents included are research, renderings, fabric samples, fitting photographs, and production photos. The Production presented in this paper was produced October 21,2011 at the University of Maryland in the Ina and Jack Kay Theater a six hundred and fifty seat proscenium theatre. Alan Mingo Jr. directed the production, the set was designed by Douglas Clarke, the lighting was designed by Andrew Dorman, the projection design was designed by Jedediah Roe, and the sound was designed by Neil McFadden. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13634 Title: Material Murders: "Authenticity" in Early Nineteenth-Century True Crime Murder Melodrama Authors: Steele, Erin Bone Abstract: In the early nineteenth century, London's illegitimate playhouses featured melodramas based on murder accounts. The value of comparing a true-crime drama to its historical antecedent lies in asking how the theatre makes its claim, and what social or political issues jump to the fore. Spectatorship at public hangings is a regular feature of this period, but crowds sought to "see more" and "know more" by attending all sorts of spectacles. The courtroom, scaffold, publishing house, fair, and theatre all proclaimed their goal was to provide a moral lesson. The intent was education as well as profit; the effect for the audience was one of titillation. This study is rooted in archival print material including playscripts, pamphlets, newspapers, and broadsides, and employs theoretical concepts developed by theatre historians to illuminate the ways competing public narratives functioned in the minds of audiences. Four cases are examined in detail: the Ashford/Thornton case and a "trial by battle" courtroom confrontation, the Weare/Thurtell case featuring a sloppy murder amongst gamblers, the Marten/Corder case of murder in a red barn, and the Bradford case following a wrongly-accused innkeeper. The dramas they spawned appeared between 1818 and 1833. Broadly speaking, each play communicates a warning to the working classes beyond simple moral proscriptions. Doomed characters might have no opportunity for redemption but there is a sense that social and political structures could and should be changed, reflecting the lived experience of a period when the legal system was being reformed, cities were being rebuilt, workers' associations were growing, and the police system was being established anew. Dramatizations invariably diverge from news reports, yet melodrama playhouses consistently claim they provide "authentic" experiences and present "true" stories. Material, tangible objects serve many functions, chiefly acting as a concrete link between circulating press accounts of a murder and theatrical representations. In the most extreme instance, the Surrey playhouse acquired property previously owned by accused murderers and used it on stage. More often, playhouses like the Coburg and Pavilion invoked or recreated specific material goods. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13493 Title: Going Viral Authors: Andary, Nathan Abstract: This paper details, through Phenomenological Inquiry, the experimental marriage between the body's internal movements to technology and digital choreography. The choreography drew from the movement of human Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) in order to link the inner body to its outward expression known as dancing. In researching the dance field, I did not find successful explorations of choreography and DNA. Choreographers replicated the microscopic views of DNA. Geneticists use movement language to describe the moving parts within the cell body, but never mention an organic origin for movement. This paper details the various movement processes exploring DNA's motion through and with the human body. The choreography culminates into a series of dancing transfigured human forms technologically created, mastered, and performed. Motion tracking and digital art projections enhanced the choreography and the human body. All my scientific and somatic movement findings resulted in the MFA Dance Thesis concert, Going Viral. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1903/13293 Title: Vaudevival: Old is the new New Authors: Oleson, Emily Abstract: Vaudevival: Old is the new New was an evening-length concert performed October 20th & 21st, 2011 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in partial fulfillment of the M.F.A. degree in Dance from the University of Maryland's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. Vaudevival was a "trad" dance theater project that challenged concepts of aesthetic hierarchies in popular culture. The show ricocheted through twentieth-century vernacular dance to create a vibrant statement about the cyclical nature of art and society, with live music and multi-media projections. This paper is a written account of theoretical and practical problems of identity politics and appropriation that unfolded during the choreographic process. Envisioning a creative utopia free of exploitative hierarchies - both on the stage and on the page, Vaudevival invokes the old to reinvent the new through the intertextuality of American dances, bringing scholarship to the theater, and bringing some theater to scholarship. 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z