Theatre

This thesis discusses the plays of Irish playwright Conor McPherson in the context of the Celtic Tiger. This study first seeks to clarify McPherson's work by distancing it from that of Martin McDonagh and others that are a part of a genre called "In-Yer-Face Theatre" as coined by theorist Aleks Sierz. The study then uses Kenneth Burke's "cluster analysis" to describe two of McPherson's plays-This Lime Tree Bower and The Weir-as artifacts of an Irish culture that is changing in response to Celtic Tiger. Next, McPherson's plays Port Authority and Shining City are discussed as artifacts of a changed, or "new," Ireland, that exists at the end of the Celtic Tiger. Finally, the conclusion makes a case for McPherson's place amongst the great writers of Irish theatre-Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, and Friel-because of the history revealed within the timelessness of his plays. iii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my wife Allison and to my amazing children. Without them, this work would have been impossible. Their unfailing support and love were a constant force of strength, which drove me throughout my research. Thank you-I love you.

In 2014 a group of students, faculty and staff at the Ohio State University’s (OSU) Department of Theatre, Department of Design and Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) joined their creative energies to devise the play “There is No Silence” based on the life and works of the iconic French mime Marcel Marceau. Marceau’s history of being the first performance artist motion captured at ACCAD in 2001 afforded the group artistic and technological opportunities to integrate digital animation and performance of real-time virtual avatars into their work. The process of devising revealed parallels between the practices of mime art and performing with virtual environments and offered new insights for devising with media.

Introduction to the Conference Michael N. Goddard-Immersive Media, Virtual Reality and Histories of Audiovision Sarah O'Brien-Performing the Zombie in Phantasmagorical Extended Reality (XR) Olu Taiwo-Subjugating Other Cultural Narratives in the Construction of Immersive Environments Andreas Schellewald-How to Approach the Coupling of Objective Appearances and Subjective Purposes? Melanie Chan-Radically Immersed in Narrative: Body, Space and Technologically Mediated Experience with Virtual Reality Matt Lewis-How Can we Listen with Our Future? Vince Dziekan-A Synoptic Overview of Virtual Reality and Museological Space Gabriella Giannachi-Documenting Hybrid and Participatory Artworks: The Role of the Audience Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás-The Virtual as a Condition and Its Implications for the Exhibition Space and Artistic Production Zsolt Bagi-Immersion and the Reign of the Opinion: The Power Relations of the New Baroque

Em 2014, um grupo de estudantes, professores e funcionários do Departamento de Teatro, Departamento de Design e do Centro de Computação Avançada para Artes e Design (ACCAD) da Ohio StateUniversity (OSU) se uniram para elaborar e criar a peça “Thereis no silence” baseada na vida e obra do importante mímico francês Marcel Marceau. Em 2001, a possibilidade de realizar, pela primeira vez na história, uma performance de Marceau, por meio de captura de movimento feito pelo ACCAD, proporcionou ao grupo a oportunidade artística e tecnológica de integrar animação digital e performance de avatares virtuais em tempo real em seu trabalho. O processo de elaboração revelou semelhanças entre a prática damímica e a atuação em ambientes virtuais, oferecendo assim, novas possibilidades criação com novas mídias.

Though Henry Blake Fuller’s 1896 publication of The Puppet Booth is largely forgotten, one of the plays in the anthology has come to be recognized as one of the first to be written in the United States with a homosexual theme. The play – At Saint Judas’s – begins moments before a wedding. As the drama unfolds, we learn that the Best Man has secretly been trying to sabotage the wedding out of a deep love for the Bridegroom. Yet, despite references to sharing each other’s clothes and an ambiguously (a)sexual bed, the extent to which their love has or hasn’t been consummated remains a mystery.

The crumbling, handwritten manuscript of the play resides at the Newberry Library in Fuller’s native Chicago. An analysis of the manuscript – the visible erasures, the inserted slips of dialogue, the dramatic alterations to the published text – reveals the author’s intentional ambivalence in dealing with the theme of same-sex sexuality. Yet, in examining my own position as a performance historian/archivist/ detective, this essay suggests that reading too far into Fuller’s ambivalence reveals more about our contemporary desires to lay claim to a gay past than it does about late-19th century homosexuality in the United States.

Macalester College: Fall, 2014.
Introductory course in Theatre and Dance department for majors and non-majors, with a department expectation that the class will be one of the primary courses that will teach play texts. Second half of semester focuses on the development of a new play - written individually by students, but developed in collaboration with peers.

University of Minnesota: Spring, 2010. Special topics course examining representations of homosexuality on the American stage, with diversions to dance halls, pride parades, bathhouses, and more. Syllabus was re-developed in 2014 for a course on Queer Performance Theory and Practice at Macalester College.

Macalester College: Spring, 2014. Special topics course that looks at musicals within the context of representing American identity in history. Each musical studied becomes a way of unpacking how Americans saw or wanted to see themselves in a particular moment. This course was revised and expanded in Spring, 2015 at Macalester College and was also redeveloped for the Fall of 2014 as a First Year writing course.

Grounded in the archive of 1960s performance artist Jack Smith, this chapter theorizes the possibilities of approaching a queer archive as a space of productive and radical disorientation. This is chapter four of my doctoral dissertation on LGBT and Queer archiving, defended at the University of Minnesota in October, 2014.

Macalester College: Spring, 2015. For over a century, museums and historical sites have used live performance as a method of interpretation to engage, educate, and entertain the public. Sometimes called “living history,” this kind of performance has been called a “simulation of life during another time” (Anderson), “a form of theatre in which participants use performance to create a world, tell a story, entertain, and teach lessons” (Magelssen), and “a history that does work in the world and influences the course of history” (Becker).

In recent years, more and more museums have turned to performance as a way of telling their particular story – nationally at places like Colonial Williamsburg and Plimouth Plantation, or locally at places like Historic Fort Snelling and the James J. Hill House.

In this course, we will be working directly with the James J. Hill House and Minnesota Historical Society to develop an interpretative program that will be presented by the class participants at the end of the term. Just down the street from the Macalester campus, the Hill mansion housed the great railroad barron and his family at the turn of the last century. As the “Downton Abbey” of Saint Paul, the large family lived comfortably upstairs entertaining the highest members of society including the President of the United States, while their team of servants downstairs – cooks, gardeners, maids, housekeepers, etc. – worked to keep the estate running.
Students will immerse themselves in the history, culture, and politics of turn-of-the-century Saint Paul, grappling with contemporary issues of gender, class, race and sexuality. Through class discussions, guest historians, site visits and archival research, students will construct ‘characters’ they will then perform to interpret an aspect of the life and times of this historic house. While the work of this class is located within a particular historic time period and physical site, the skills developed will be useful to any student interested in history, performance, museum studies, American studies, and civic engagement.

Objective. To evaluate the clinical therapeutic efficacy and safety of modified Erzhi granules (MEG) in patients with menopauserelated vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA). Methods. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study comprised two groups, including the treatment and control groups. Patients receive MEG and placebo for 12 weeks, respectively. Vaginal health score (VHS), vaginitis score, vaginal maturation index (VMI), female sexual function index (FSFI), and modified Kupperman Index (modified KI) were used as efficacy endpoints and assessed at baseline, 4, 8, and 12 weeks during administration, and 4 weeks after drug withdrawal. At baseline and 12 weeks, serum estradiol (E 2 ), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), pelvic ultrasound, breast ultrasound, and other safety parameters were measured, recording adverse events. Results. At 12 weeks, VHS, percentage of superficial cells in the vaginal epithelium and FSFI were significantly increased, while vaginitis score, percentage of basal cells in the vaginal epithelium, and modified KI were significantly decreased in comparison with baseline and control group (all P<0.05); these differences persisted for up to 4 weeks after drug withdrawal. The placebo group showed no significant change during treatment compared with baseline values (p>0.05). Serum E 2 and FSH levels, endometrial thickness, and breast thickness in all patients were within the normal ranges before and after treatment, with no serious adverse reactions observed. Conclusion. MEG significantly alleviates menopause-related vulvovaginal atrophy, with no overt adverse effects on the endometrium, breast, hepatic, and renal functions.