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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Item SYNERGIZING SHADOWS AND SCREENS: LIGHTING AND MEDIA DESIGN FOR A BICYCLE COUNTRY(2024) Garcia, Luis M; Mezzocchi, Jared; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis explores the artistic ideas, concepts, design process, and execution of Luis Manuel Garcia’s lighting and media design for the University of Maryland - College Park’s production of A Bicycle Country. The production opened Friday, November 10th, 2023 in the Kogod Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. A Bicycle Country was written by Nilo Cruz, with direction by Fatima Quander, scenic design by Sofía Olivar, costume design by Becca Janney, and sound design by Justin Schmitz.Item Men on Boats: A Lighting Design(2024) Laverty, Christina Kouni; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis provides written and visual documentation of the lighting design process for Jaclyn Backhaus’ play Men on Boats, produced by the University of Maryland, College Park’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. The production opened on March 1, 2024, and had six performances. This paper details dramaturgical analysis, research, the design process, technical documents, performance photographs, and reflections.Item Decadence, Decay and Divine Retribution: Reframing Don Giovanni Through Costume Design(2024) Janney, Rebecca Anne; Huang, Helen; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This document describes the process of concepting, designing, and realizing the costume design for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte’s opera, Don Giovanni. This iteration of the opera centered the principal women Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina in their quest for retribution against Don Giovanni for his sexual abuse of them. The production uses the 1780s as a period touchstone but manipulated modern asymmetry and Baroque color to create the dramatic world of the show. This thesis contains a record of the entire design process from early concept to completed production. This includes research, renderings, fitting photos, production photos, and paperwork. The show was produced by the Maryland Opera Studio between April 14th to April 23rd, 2023. This production was conducted by Craig Kier, directed by Corinne Hayes, scenic designed by Brandon Roak, lighting designed by Heather Reynolds, and costume designed by Becca Janney.Item THE PROM: A SCENIC DESIGN(2024) Roak, Brandon; Kachman, Misha; Conway, Daniel; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this thesis is to provide a record for the scenic design process for The Prom, a musical by Matthew Sklar, Chad Beguelin, and Bob Martin, produced at the University of Maryland – College Park by the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. This thesis contains documentation for the scenic design and production process for this performance. These documents serve as the foundation of this scenic design. Each element was used to communicate design ideas and technical specifications to the director, other designers, and craftspeople involved in this production. Included are research images, photographs of ¼” scale models, drafting plates, paint elevations, a properties list and a properties book detailing furniture and hand props, along with a final reflection of the scenic design and production process.Item WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS TRUE: DESIGNING COSTUMES FOR DANIEL CATÁN’S FLORENCIA EN EL AMAZONAS(2024) Von Ruden, Cody Conrad; Huang, Helen Q; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this document is a description of the process of conceiving and implementing the costume designs for Maryland Opera Studio’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán. A fantastical operatic journey inspired by the writings of Gabriel Garcia Márquez. The production was set on a steamboat sailing down the Amazon River at the turn of the century. Contained within this thesis are the original concept designs and final product, including research, renderings, fitting photos, production photos, and supplemental paperwork. This show was produced by Maryland Opera Studio April 13 – 21, 2024. The opera was directed by Corinne Hayes, Scenic Design by August Henney, Lighting Design by Scott J. Monnin, Media Design by Jerran Kowalski, Wigs and Makeup by Priscilla Bruce, and Costume Design by Cody Von RudenItem “By The Way, Meet Vera Stark”: An Exploration of Process, Film, and Collaboration(2023) Collins, Deja; Mezzocchi, Jared; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis documents my design process and the discoveries I made as the projection designer for the production of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, directed by Scott Reese and Alvin Mayes, and the cinematographer for its short film Belle of New Orleans. The production opened on October 7th, 2022, in the Kay Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.Item THE MAN IN THE BACKSEAT: A REFLECTION ON THE PROJECTION DESIGN PROCESS OF HOOKMAN(2022) Preston, Sean; Mezzocchi, Jared; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following thesis navigates the artistic ideas and concepts, design process,and execution of Sean Preston’s projection design for the UMD School for Theatre Dance and Performance Studies-College Park’s production of Hookman. The production opened November 13th, 2021 in the Kogod Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Hookman was directed by Nathaniel P. Claridad, with scenic design by Mollie Singer, costume design by Stephanie Parks, lighting design by Heather Reynolds, and sound design by Tosin Olufolabi.Item The Minutes, The Hours, The Daze; An Exploration of Lighting Design Amid The Poly-Pandemic(2022) Cronin, Joseph Mitchell; Chandrashaker, Amith; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this thesis is to document the design process for the theoretical lighting design of the production of The Minutes by Tracy Letts, and comparing it to the realized production process and lighting design by Brian MacDevitt which made it’s Broadway debut at Studio 54 in April 2022 while exploring the historical and cultural context by which both the story and the storyteller are framed.This thesis provides the following: Explorations in Vectorworks and Augment3D, physical lighting studies, digital lighting studies, explorations in digital rendering, production photos, visual research, a full set of original renderings which details the creation process, a full drafting package including supplemental paperwork- instrument schedule, channel hookup, and shop order.Item 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.Item Women in White: Performing White Femininity from 1865-Present(2021) Walker, Jonelle; Harding, James M; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores how white woman character tropes on stage, page, and screen are both haunted by histories of post-Civil War racial terror and themselves haunt white women’s everyday embodiment. This spectral framework is undergirded by a less traditionally academic approach: a self-reflexive interrogation of a compulsion to endangerment, peril, fear, and self-destruction the author observes in representations of white women and in herself. The study of white femininity represented in theatre, literature, film, and social media is narrowed to focus on this predilection for danger and its political implications for racialized-gender embodiment. The dissertation attributes this phenomenon to a dialectic central to white femininity in an Anglophone context: being in/the danger, that is simultaneously being victim and instigator of violence, tragedy, and destruction. The project pursues being in/the danger within the context of theatre and performance studies by asking: How has the white woman been made and continuously remade through staging white woman character tropes? Which gestures, affects, and self-fashionings from these tropes haunt everyday white womanhood? Each chapter examines one trope and its implications in detail, including the damsel in distress, the girl crime victim, the suicidal authoress, the anorexic waif, among others. The dissertation examines how characterizations of melancholy, endangerment, and frailty in these characters shaped common and highly racialized understandings of white womanhood during the period studied. To illustrate this broad cultural phenomenon, the dissertation studies an appropriately broad set of objects including plays; films; literature; artist biographies; and social media communities.