Department of Theatre and Dance

Ph.D. Program in Performance as Public Practice

Susanne Shawyer

Title: Radical Street Performance in the Yippie Tradition

Synopsis: My dissertation is a cultural history of performance and the American revolutionary group known as the Yippies. My project investigates how the Yippies used alternative theatre practices to create mass demonstrations against the Johnson administration in 1968.

Christin Yannacci

Title: Designing Landscapes: The Cultural History and Geography of Modern American Scenography.

Synopsis: As a citizen artists, scenographers transform performance spaces into cultural landscapes, using the visual language of design to participate in local and national discourses about the places communities inhabit. This project studies modern scenographers Robert Edmond Jones, Norman Bel Geddes, and Jo Mielziner, examining their designs as cultural texts that reveal Americans' perceptions of themselves and the changing world in which they lived during the first half of the twentieth century.

Shannon Baley

Title: Towards a Gestic Feminist Dramaturgy

Synopsis: This dissertation investigates moments of radical feminist gestus (moments that explain the play and yet exceed the play) occurring around the gendered, sexed body in such plays as Naomi Wallace's Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Suzan Lori-Parks' Venus, and Sharon Bridgforth's love/conjure blues. Towards a Gestic Feminist Dramaturgy also explores the politics and consequences of a consciously feminist dramaturgy, both in terms of the poetics of a play and the process of production dramaturgy.

M.F.A. in Theatrical Design

Candida K. Nichols

Candida's thesis will look at the visual portrayal of the role of mother in dramatic literature.

Megan Reilly

My thesis will be a study of the evolution of the design of Debussy's opera Pelleas et Melisande. I will be looking at several key productions of the opera to examine how the scenic and lighting designs have been developed and moved from a more naturalistic design to an abstract or avant garde one. I will also be developing my own designs, on paper, for the opera as part of the thesis.

M.F.A. in Directing

Corey Atkins

Corey is directing the play "Slaughter City" by Naomi Wallace, to be performed in the Payne theatre March 2-11, 2007.

M.F.A. in Costume Technology

Stacey Bridges

Thesis Topic: The delicate art of beading

I am a costume technology student, so when it came time to decide on what to focus on for my thesis, I wanted a topic that was both new to me as well as one that had a practical application. I am focusing on the art of Tambour beading as well as making a hand beaded evening gown for the practical aspect of the thesis. Tambour beading is a French Couture method of beading where the fabric is stretched onto a frame and the beader works from the wrong side of the fabric. The beader uses a tambour hook, something that looks like a very tiny crochet hook, to attach beads, sequins and crystals to the fabric.