Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    TRANSFORMING THE BEAST: THE THEATRE LABORATORIES OF THE “DISNEY RENAISSANCE” 1984-1994
    (2021) Mandracchia, Christen; Hildy, Franklin J.; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study investigates the ways that theatre professionals brought significant changes to the Walt Disney Company, from 1984-1994, in a period affectionately referred to, in popular discourses, as the “Disney Renaissance.” These individuals, including Peter Schneider, Linda Woolverton, Howard Ashman, Alan Menken, Bob McTyre, Ron Logan, Rob Roth, Matt West, Stan Meyer, and others came from Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatres, and local theatres, and represented a wide-cross section of theatrical disciplines, including production management, stage management, playwrighting, musical theatre, producing, directing, choreography, and design. In their respective Company divisions, such as animation and theme parks, they worked to transform their area of the corporation into theatre laboratories, where a series of experiments occurred. These tests challenged the lines of demarcation between theatre, animation, and theme park mediums, between the individual and the collective, between marginalization and the mainstream, and between spectatorship and participation. In 1994, these efforts culminated in the production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. Through a combination of archival evidence and interviews with the surviving subjects listed above, my findings demonstrate a direct link between their theatrical knowledge and practices to the rapid growth and unprecedented financial, popular, and critical success, which the Walt Disney Company enjoyed during this era. Written in a year of Covid-19, when the American theatre industry was decimated, this dissertation tells the stories of theatre makers who, over thirty years ago, ventured into the non-theatrical contexts of Disney and transformed the culture, values, and ways of doing things at the large Company, making it a more collaborative, more empathetic, more innovative, and bolder place than it was before. In this way “Transforming the Beast” refers not only to the pivotal moment of Beauty and the Beast in on film, the theme park stage, or Broadway, but the value of theatrical knowledge in transforming a large entity like Disney to do better as a business, as a creative space, and as a collective of people.
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    SIMULATION AND ANALYSIS OF ENERGY CONSUMPTION FOR TWO COMPLEX AND ENERGY-INTENSIVE BUILDINGS ON UMD CAMPUS
    (2017) Savage, Dana Mason; Ohadi, Michael M; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The Microbiology Building and Hornbake Library are two multi-purpose and complex buildings, and are among the highest energy-intensive buildings on the University of Maryland College Park Campus. This thesis details the energy analysis and energy consumption models developed to identify energy savings opportunities for these two buildings. Three reports are given per building: one – a comprehensive summarization of relevant building information; two – a utility analysis, including an energy benchmarking study, evaluating the relative performance of each facility; three – a detailed energy model to replicate current operation and simulate potential energy savings resulting from no-and-low cost energy conservation measures. In total, 11 of the 12 measures simulated are strongly recommended for implementation. The predicted combined energy and utility savings are respectively 18,648.4 MMBtu and $436,128 annually. These actionable proposals to substantially reduce the buildings’ energy consumption contribute to the University’s commitment to achieve greater energy efficiency throughout campus.