Theatre Department

Thesis Archive

^{Reed Theatre end of year party, spring 2022.}

Class of 2023

• “Lean in, Engage, and Maybe Die”: A Critical Analysis of the Haunting World of Horror Theatre - Aaron Berlau (directing)
• Wild Boars Won't Let Me Sleep: A Study of Immersive Theatre - Anna Hendrickson (design)
• Virtual Reality and Theatre: Defining Lenses Through Which to Understand Virtual Reality Theatre and Audience Relationships - Ian Silverman (design)
• "O Fortunate Citizens, Bear Witness": Staging Memory and Performing Spectatorship in Antigone Furiosa - Sizheng Song (puppetry, design)
• Not Another Hideous Progeny: Frankenstein, Adaptation, and the Theatre - William Stevens (directing)

Class of 2022

• The “Theatre Bug”: An Analysis of Contagious Disease in Theatre - James Caponera (theatre history)
• Theatrical Alchemy Against Capitalist Realism - Alice Irvin (devising/directing)
• Designing in Motion: Dreaming Towards an Anticapitalist Scenic Design Practice - Ara Manoogian (design)
• Theatre in the Metaverse - Zoe Watch (design)
• The Language of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love a Spoonful of Jam - Gabe Wilkie-Rogers (theatre criticism)
• "At this point the audience must no longer know what is happening": Postdramatic Memory and the Embodiment of Ambiguous Loss in Marguerite Duras' Savannah Bay (1982-3) - Thalia Wolff (theatre-lit, directing)

Class of 2021

• Approaching the Absurd: A Physical Theatre-Based Acting Methodology for Theatre of the Absurd - Kieran Andrews (acting)
• Rehearsing Reality: An Investigation into Split Discs, Cell Migration, and the Power of Forum Theatre - Eva Licht (theatre/biology)
• "Could you ask as much from any other man?”: Religious Ritual, Musical Theater, and the Cost of Creation - Maria Wilkerson (performance studies)

Class of 2020

• Our Beds Are Islands: Creating Queer Intimacy Through Physical Theatre In The Age Of Streaming Media - Saga Darnell (theatre/dance)
• Physical Theatre As An Approach To Staging Gender - Index Marcus (theatre history and performance studies)
• The Practice Of Being Together: An Investigation Of Audience Participation In The Theatre - Abby Shrader (directing)
• Life As It Is, Not As It Should Be: Stanislavski, Brecht, and their Commensurability through Man of La Mancha - Chris Wolfe (theatre history)

Class of 2019

• The Familiar in a New Way: A Study of Adaptation - Sophie Bolomet (playwriting)
• "Of what use is it to be beautiful?": Costuming the Artificial Body - Emily Brod (costume design)
• Home: An Argument for Radical Intimacy through Food, Installation, and Performance - Juliana Cable (theatre/art)
• The Song Cycle: An Argument for an Interdisciplinary, Evocative, and Postdramatic Theatre - Ryan Gamblin (playwriting/devising)
• What Binds Us: Forsaken Violence Against the Sacred and the Mundane in the Western Theatrical Canon - Joshua J. Golsan (design)
• In the Black Box: Labor, Power, and Structure in Theatrical Production - Jack Jackson (playwriting/devising)
• All These Moments Will Be Lost in Time: A Framework for Understanding Live Cinema - Liam Mitchell (performance studies)
• Transformed and Reborn into New Color, No Longer Blending In: An Exploration of Open Text Playwriting to Redefine the Creative Process - John Mulholland (playwriting)

Class of 2018

• Magic Made Manifest: Using Magical Realist Playwriting to Articulate Space and Place - Alison Fortune (theatre/literature)
• The Secret Life of Puppets: Ritual Aspects of Puppetry - Violet McAfee (design/directing)
• Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Gayer: The Rock Musical as a Reach towards Queer Utopia - Somerset Thompson (playwriting)
• Mysterious, Inchoate, and Out of Sight: the Queer Directorial Process - Xiola Watt-Acciacca (directing)
• Moving Between Nightshade and Sunlight: Transformative and Violent Representations of Disability in Performance and Protest - Autumn Wheeler (performance studies)

Class of 2017

• The Short Play: A Brief Moment in a Radical Structure - Aziza Azfal (playwriting)
• Color's Queer Bent: the Aesthetics of Queer Performance - Ry Burke (design)
• From theater to shining theatre?: Melodrama Audiences, Naturalism, and Napoleon - Michael Wilder Frazel (playwriting)
• Your Play is Charming, but Nobody Can Understand Any of It: Directing "Evittarran" Theatre to Engage Audiences - Jake Gonnella (directing)
• This Must Be the Place: Devising As A Device For Fostering and Fracturing Folklore - Ashlin Hatch (theatre/literature)
• There is Nothing Funnier Than Unhappiness: Balancing Humor with Suffering Using Repetition in Playwriting and the Works of Samuel Beckett - Sean Key-Ketter (playwriting)
• Sueños Americanos: An American Dream Counterhegemonic Narrative Strategies of Queer Performers of Color - Sidra Morgan-Montoya (dance/theatre)

Class of 2016

• Call to Me: An Analysis of Voice Acting in Context and Practice - Laurent Drui (voice acting)
• Gendering Strangers: Why, How, and Why Not - Liz Groombridge (theatre/psychology)
• The Rupture Begins: Breaking Down Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis - Jordan Jozwik (directing)
• Things Weren't Just Things After That: An Analysis of Transgressive Touch in the Plays of Naomi Wallace- Zoe Rosenfeld (directing)
• The Ecological Niche of Theater in Collective Liberation - Kevin Snyder (theatre history)
• Sound Design: A Systems Approach - Alexander Swann (design)
• (Em)Body Utopia: Constructing and Deconstructing the Performance of Patriarchy in Regency Romance - Brianna Walker (devising/design)
• Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story: Racial Transcendence and Racial Transgression in the American Musical - Fiona Wiedermann (performance studies)

Class of 2015

• Listen Well: an examination of the relationship between literary and theatrical narratives through a devised theatrical adaptation of Kevin Brockmeier's "The Year of Silence" - Leah Artenian (directing)
• Who Killed B.B. Homemaker?: Normative and Critical Whiteness in Beyoncé's Music Videos - Willamae Boling (performance studies)
• Indescribably Magic: A Comparison of Theatrical and Filmic Treatments of A Midsummer Night's Dream - Isobel Bradbury (dramatic literature/adaptation)
• Half-Lights and Profound Shadows: Towards A Theatre of Relationships - Meghan Comer (directing)
• To Passion Sorrow Clings: Adaptations of Kieu, The Vietnamese National Poem - Sophia Dunn - Walker(directing/adaptation)
• Here, Now: Immersion and Interactivity in Live Performance Events - Marisa Kanai (scenography)
• A Physical Trust: In Influence of Narrative on Circus Performers' Relationships - Claire Lewis (performance studies)
• Public Bodies, Private Lives: The Development and Contributions of the Early Modern Commedia dell'Arte Actress - Helena Pennington (theatre history)
• Philology Leads to Disaster: The Role of Physical Acting in Absurdist Plays - Gracie Rittenberg (directing)
• Live the Thing: Stanislavski's Psychophysical Technique at Work in the Plays of Eugene Ionesco - Colin Trevor (acting)

Class of 2014

• Gradations of Self: Autobiographical Solo Performance and the Utopian Performative - Corinne Bachaud (solo performance)
• A Play is Not Only So But Also: Aesthetic Immediacy and the Structure of the Dramatic Narrative in the Theatre of Gertrude Stein - Alan Cline (directing)
• Laughter and Liberation in "The Successful Life of 3" by Maria Irene Fornes - Walker Holden (directing)
• Lend Me Your Ears: Audiological Effects on Audience Experience - Jennifer Lindell (sound design)
• Bodies and Boundaries: Set Designs for Slaughter City and The Fever Chart - Deirdre Quirk (set design)
• Salomé/Salome: Representations of Desire in Wilde's Play and Strauss's Opera - Alex Marne Smith (design)
• "For the Sake of Harmony:" An Original Play and an Examination of Representing Consciousness in Theatre - Rebecca Thurber (playwriting)

Class of 2013

• The Rocky Horror No Picture Show - Tristan Nieto (directing); Arion Russell (costume design)
• Shakespeare As We Like It - Lisa Henderson (acting)
• The Suede Jacket by Stanislav Stratiev - Elizabeth Dinkova (directing)
• BRB - Autumn Dobbins (design)
• The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca - Andrew Brown (directing)

Class of 2012

• Shakuntala: An Indian Fairytale - Indumathi Manohar (directing)
• On the Ropes: Exploring the Technical Body - Claire Thomforde-Garner (choreography)
• The Fantastical Genderfuck Circus - Erika Irene Kurth (directing)
• One Flea Spare - Kenji Yoshikawa (acting) 

Class of 2011

• James Joyce's "The Dead" - Stephen Bennett (acting)
• Proustonomy - Dominic Finocchiaro (directing)
• Horror, or Her Mirror - Rosalie Lowe (directing), Ariana Karp (acting)
• The Glass Menagerie - Morgan Zimmerman (design)

Class of 2010

• The Miss Firecracker Contest - Jessamyn Fitzpatrick (acting)
• I Have Tasted Air Above the Clouds: The Life of a Sibyl - Mic Parker (playwriting/directing)
• Six Billion Utopias: A Collaborative Theater Project on Gender and Mental Health - Taiga Christie (theatre/anthropology)
• Measure for Measure - Allison Rangel (acting)

Class of 2009

• M's Orphanage - Alexandra Dahout
• Stories From the Time of Trees - Cassie Thurston Bianchi

Class of 2008

• Human/Nature - Kate Tarker
• Medea By Seneca - Erin "Pookie" Giblin (directing)
• Little Red Nose in the Hood, Digital Circus Remix - Peter Schroeder (directing/choreography)

Class of 2007

• Light at Night - Stacia Torborg (Playwriting)
• The Tree of Life - Elana McKernan (Playwriting)
• Frege in Space - Dan Dilliplane (Directing)
• The Easiest Way - Alex Gagne-Hawes (Directing)
• The Lover - Lindsay Matteson (Acting)
• Seeing Double
  Virginia Stephen: Beneath the Show - Bronwyn North-Reist (Performance)
  Pierrot and Moon (The Pierrot of the Minute, Pierrot Dandy and the Moon) - Jonathan Owicki (Performance)

Class of 2006

• The Flower Peddler - Michael Pape (Playwriting/Directing)
• Dirty Water - Devon Granmo (Playwriting)
• 'Tis Pity She's a Whore - Kati Sweaney (Dramaturgy)
• Gallow's Humor - Rowen Haigh (Directing)

Class of 2005

• Gorey Stories - Miranda King (Directing)
• The Actor's Nightmare - Julian Emanuel (Directing)
• The Last Five Years - Josh Roberts (Acting)
• Macbeth - John Russell (Acting)

Class of 2004

• Abzt - Silvia Rousseva (Directing)
• The New Poetry - Sylvia Drake (Directing/Playwriting)
• Catastrophic Conversations with Mr. X - Brendan Regimbal (Directing)
• The Holy Ghost - Brigid Pierce (Playwriting/music composition)
• Gross Generalization - James Ashby (Playwriting)
• Word Salad - Sarah Tomchesson (Directing/Playwriting)
• No More o' This Shit - Wright Cronin (Playwriting)
• Two Birds and a Stone - Mitchell Tribbett (Directing), Kate Piatt-Eckert and Heather Van Zee (Design)

Class of 2003

• 6 Billion Weapons - Jacob Fenston (Playwriting)
• Burials at Sea - Andrea Miller (Playwriting)
• The White Uniform - Stephanie Wood (Acting)
• Funeral Games - Tamara Carroll (Directing)
• Hands Around - Sarah Champ (Design) 
• The Betrothed - Rachel Anderson (Directing), Ayelet Arbuckle (Acting)
• The Color of August - Kevin Hodges (Directing)
• Oddville: the Rebirth of Stupidfresh - Elliot Sharron (Playwriting/Acting)
• Hiding Places - Laura Birek (Playwriting)

Class of 2002

• Intersections - Richard Kotulski (Playwriting)
• Sakharov! - Austin Sherris (Playwriting/Directing)
• Endgame - Morgan Spector (Acting), Tyler Sinclair (Directing)
• Disastrous Paris - Rhianna Gordon (Acting)
• Triumph of Love: The Musical - Paul G. Miller (Directing)
• Much Ado About Nothing - Sarah Gibson (Acting) 
• Good Night Desdemona Good Morning Juilet - Anne Michelson
• The Green-eyed Monster - Caleb Jacobs-Smith (Acting)
• Mother Night - Toby Schine (Playwriting/Directing)

Class of 2001

• The House of Yes - Robin Thompson (Acting), Alyssa Santos (Directing)
• Til the Day I Die - Michael Weinberg (Directing)

Class of 2000

• Three Performances by the Idiot Machine - Gavin Kroeber (Design) & Owen Edson (Directing)
• Nativity - Jamie Ashby (Playwriting)

Class of 1999

• Biting My Neighbor - Brooke Rogers (Acting)
• St. Jons Brother - Jonathan Roche (Playwriting / Directing)
• The Baltimore Waltz - Alexis Poledouris (Directing)
• King Strang - Dan Harris (Playwriting / Directing)
• La Vida Es Sueno - Patricia Pancio (Directing)
• Feather Towing - Jessica Blount (Playwriting)
• Travesties - Jesse Baldwin (Directing)
• They're Playing Our Song - Jamie Rea (Acting)
• How I Learned to Drive - Nathan Emmons (Directing)
• Amerika! - Leslie Good (Acting)

Class of 1998

• Advantage of Surprise - Addie Eastman (Playwriting/Directing)
• You're so Smooth, the World's so Rough - Robert Quillen Camp (Playwriting / Directing)
• As An Imperfect Actor - Steven Klems (Acting)
• Polly Honeycomb - Rachel Wier (Design)
• Extemities - Britney Burgess (Directing)

Class of 1997

• Good Woman of Szechwan - Dana Josslin (Directing)
• Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll - Ed Tilghman (Acting)

Class of 1996

• The Bacchae - Joshua Webb (Directing)
• Bein' Green - Anne K. Rasmussen (Playwriting)
• A Mexican Funeral in Paris - Dave Bennet (Playwriting)
• Phaedra - Mary Roberts (Directing)
• Planet Embudo - Terra Nevins-Hassin (Playwriting)
• Shakespeare's Women - Deva Nicole Macdonald (Acting)
• Two Rooms - Kristy Marie Kambanis (Directing)
• Durang Durang - Chris Loza'ch (Design) 
• The Cherry Orchard - Myrlin Hermes (Acting) 
• Yarima Atafa and the King - Amy Enell (Choreography/Directing)
• Warden of the Tomb - Geoff Spady (Directing)

Class of 1995

• Great Chaos - Alex Rundell (Directing)
• Long Ago - Eun Jung Yi (Directing)
• Coyote Ugly - Oona Kersey (Directing)
• As You Like It - Rebecca Shea (Design)

Class of 1994

• Albert's Bridge - Jeremy Wiener (Directing)
• The Maids - Melanie Zeca (Directing)
• Naropa - Cassy Beekman (Directing)
• Yellow Wallpaper - Robin Gordon (Choreography/Directing)
• Motley - Darcy Salchak (Directing)

Class of 1993

• Chicks - Christine Kolodge (Acting)
• Control - Elise Modrovich (Playwriting/Directing)
• Fronteras - Adriana Troxell (Playwriting/Directing)
• Just Kidding - Daria Eckhardt (Playwriting/Directing)
• A Man Who Fell Out of Bed - Noah Weinreb (Playwriting/Acting)
• Tone Clusters - Elizabeth Stevens (Directing)
• The Wizard of Aids - Kevin Coulson (Directing)
• La Bete - James Weidman (Acting)
• Waiting for Change, You Fat Cow You? - Jennifer M. Dillon (Playwriting/Directing)
• As Women Do - Rachel Carnes (Choreography/Directing)

Class of 1992

• Aversion Antigone - Sophie Haviland (Directing)
• A Life In Theatre - Adam S. Moore (Directing)
• The Chairs - Jule Polk (Directing)
• Glengarry Glen Ross - Ephraim Rosenbaum (Directing)
• Little Shop of Horrors - Randy Gifford (Directing)
• Quartet - Alicia McMillen & Johanna McKeon (Co-Directing & Co-Acting)
• Seduced - Bill Stout (Directing)
• Family Voices - Kay Speilman (Choreography/Directing)
• Bread and Ice Cream - Amy Partridge (Directing)

Class of 1991

• Bloode: Winter in a Hot Climate - Anne Washburn (Playwriting)
• Song and Dance - Althea Gregory (Acting)
• The Water Engine - Tom Jansson (Directing)
• Baby with the Bathwater - Greg Quinlan (Directing)
• Twelfth Night - Leslye Eamon (Design) 
• Be What You Should Seem to Be - Tanya Ignacio (Choreography/Directing)

Class of 1990

• Cloud Nine - Sara Ross (Directing)
• Katzelmacher - Jeff Edman (Directing)

Class of 1989

• A Man's a Man - Erin Merritt (Directing)
• Fando and Lis - Lucia Jane Joiner (Directing)
• Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris - Carlton Rounds (Directing)
• Comings and Goings - Chelsea Zephyr (Directing)

Class of 1988

• Waiting For Godot - Jeremy Appleton (Directing)
• The Game - Shannon Dailey (Directing)
• Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Routines - Chela Cadwell (Directing)

Class of 1987

• At the Hawks Well & The Only Jealousy of Emer - Claia Bryja (Directing)
• White High Heels - Brenda "Bryn" Fillers (Playwriting)
• The Overcoat - Gregory Meyer (Directing)
• Home - Conrad Burmester (Design)

Class of 1986

• The Real Inspector Hound - Joel Summerlin (Directing)
• The Unseen Hand - Emily Harris (Directing)
• Tales of Spider Women - Holly O'Neil (Directing)
• Three Policemen - David Ayers (Directing) & Bret Fetzer (Playwriting)

Class of 1985

• The Maids - Lori Gilman (Directing)
• Seascape - Brain Caven (Directing)
• Sticks and Bones - Patrick Hurley (Directing)

Class of 1984

• The Waterfall and A Piece of Monologue - Eric Wiley (Acting)
• Antigone - Doug Goodwin (Directing)

Class of 1983

• The Boor – Max Leventhal (Directing)
• The Physicists - Jill Reinier (Directing)
• The Ride Across Lake Constance - Katie Laris (Directing)
• Letters Home - Mary Dilles (Directing)
• Old Times - Gordon Dahlquist (Directing)
•  (Untitled) - Mark Worthington (Directing)
• Tongues & Savage/Love - Eric Walter (Acting)
• ?? – Louise Gignoux

Class of 1982

• Two for the See Saw - Jim Luckett, Jane Titus (Acting)
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Richard Olmsted (Directing)

Class of 1981

• A Slight Ache - Ron Frank
• The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds - Loren Hoover (Directing)
• Woyzeck - Brown McDonald (Directing)