Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Setting and scenery'

During the span of thirty years from 1968 - 1997 the Western Australian Opera Company grew from its infancy into a major regional performance group. Its significant contribution to the local entertainment industry is not solely the presentation of opera but also its support and fostering of technical theatre training in Western Australia.

This creative project focuses on the research, planning, design and field-testing of a kit of basic architectural elements that can be used to build simple spaces and small constructions. These elements are reusable, easy to handle, and allow for a nearly infinite number of configurations.The environment in which the system was developed is a setting of an improvisational outdoor theatre, called 'Live-Action-Role-playing-Games'- (LARP). Therefore the system does not provide a high quality indoor space, but rather focuses on the critical requirements of theatrical stages, such as flexibility, ease of erection and variety. Additionally, the system dealt with the pragmatic issues of affordability and cost-effectiveness.The design process commenced with great attention being paid to the very special requirements of LARP and attempting to test initial assumptions. It included two surveys of LARP participants and use of charrettes to incorporate users input into the design process. Prototype elements were then constructed and field-tested during a full-scale replication of an actual LARP-event over afour-day testing period.Following this an evaluation was made, lessons were learned, and the information gained was incorporated in to the final design.This document then records the entire design process and concludes with extensive documentation of the system.
Department of Architecture

This study provides an examination and application of heterotopic dérive, a concept that combines spatial theories originated by Foucault and psychogeographical methods advocated by the Situationists, as enacted within theatrical performance spaces. The first chapter reviews theories related to space, place, and heterotopias, as well as the psychogeographical methods of the Situationists, particularly the dérive. The literature review is augmented with accounts of my experiences of serendipitous heterotopic dérive over a period of several years as a cast member in, or a technical director for, theatrical productions in the Department of Communication Studies Black Box Theatre. Based on the review, I postulate that heterotopic dérive is a potentially valuable phenomenon that performance studies scholar/artists can utilize consciously in the rehearsal process for mounting theatrical performances. To test this proposition, I worked collaboratively with a theatrical cast to craft a devised performance, Desire Lines, with a conscious effort to engender heterotopic dérive in the process of creating the performance. This performance served as the basis for the second chapter of the study, which analyzes and discusses of the results of that investigation. This project enhances understanding of the significance of the places and spaces in which performers practice their craft, and argues for the potential of recognizing and utilizing the agency of heterotopic spaces such as the Black Box.

This thesis represents the written portion of the Degree Requirements of the Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Design. The Thesis production of HAMLET, by Wm. Shakespeare (edited by Brian C. Parkinson), was the University of Lethbridge Department of Theatre and Dramatic Arts third show of the 2011 – 2012 Mainstage Theatre season, running February 14 – 18, 2012, performed at the University Theatre in the University of Lethbridge Centre for the Arts, Lethbridge, Alberta. HAMLET was directed by Brian C. Parkinson, with the assistant direction of L. Jay Whitehead and Yvonne Mandel. Contained within this written portion of the thesis is a discussion of the design concepts for this production, along with photographic records of models, technical drawings, and other pertinent information.
viii, 176 leaves : col. ill. ; 29 cm

The career of Danny Daniels was significant for its contribution to dance choreography for the stage and screen, and his development of concept choreography. Danny's dedication to the art of dance, and the integrity of the artistic process was matched by his support and love for the dancers who performed his choreographic works.

Considered apart from the concrete; general; theoretical; hence, difficult; ideal. 2. A summary of epitome; a generality, in law, a compendium; in logic, an abstract idea or term; in grammer, an abstract noun, as virtue, goodness, etc.*
Department of Architecture

The purpose of this project is to assess the production level one person can achieve when directing, designing, and managing all aspects of a major theatrical production. It will identify strategies and techniques which are crucial for success in the areas of theatrical design and management.

This thesis documents my creative process as the Production Designer on the feature length micro budget film The Last Two Years of David Brachman, written and directed by Marc Casilli. The film is a dark comedy chronicling the life of David Brachman, a twenty-five year old with a stagnant life that is seemingly leading nowhere, as he pledges on his twenty-fifth birthday to change the path of his life in the next two years or commit suicide if he fails. The overall design concept of the film is rooted in realism, but allowed to contain elements that will remove the audience in order to lighten the load of the serious topic of death. With a nod to the 1950s family home and the nostalgia of decades past; David's world is created to show drastic shifts from his inert, routine life at home to the outside working world in to which he thrusts himself. The world outside of David's home is seen through a lens that exemplifies stereotypical social roles and thereby adds to his feelings of outcast and loneliness. Creating the versatile world of David Brachman presented challenges with the amount of locations, characters, and costumes changes; however, these challenges were further complicated by working on an overall micro budget of thirty-six thousand dollars, with approximately fifteen hundred dollars allocated to the art department and costuming. These challenges created a need for resourceful acquisition techniques and budgeting to ensure that the overall artistic vision was not sacrificed. Remaining true to the design aesthetic and the director's vision, my staff and I were able to overcome budgetary challenges, staffing changes that occurred during filming, and shifts in the production dynamic that created a sometimes chaotic filming environment. The careful planning and organization of each design element and their execution ensured the successful creation of David's world and a visual story to compliment the screenplay. Within this thesis I document my design process from my initial design proposal to the director through post production and final viewing of the completed film. Included here are specific details of my design process including script analysis, script breakdowns, location plots, budget tracking, stills from the film, a copy of the finished film, and all the paperwork generated in creating the film. A detailed journal of the filming process including obstacles I encountered as well as the solutions created throughout this process and a self evaluation and reflection on the final product of work are included.
ID: 031001283; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Includes shooting script: The Last Two Years of David Brachman.; Title from PDF title page (viewed February 26, 2013).; Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2012.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-277).
M.F.A.
Masters
Theatre
Arts and Humanities
Theatre; Design

The following thesis aims to investigate the structure of the left periphery of the sentence, focussing on scene setting adverbs. In the introduction I will be discussing the structure of the left periphery, starting from Rizzi's (1997) analysis and the Cartographic approach. I will be then examining the structure of Topic and Focus, including studies on both Italian and Russian. In the third chapter scene setting adverbs will be analyzed. I will take into account studies on their position in both main sentences and embedded clauses. I will then move on to a comparative analysis between Italian and Russian, taking the Russian examples from the Nacional'nyj korpus russkogo jazyka.

The correspondence and antagonisms between writing and looking and fiction and painting were continually being explored by James, and this thesis continues that exploration, but with a view to seeing how the analogies collapse, writing and seeing often becoming interchangeable activities. This thesis is concerned with visual anxiety, the circulation of textuality and the construction of female identity in James, and, by extension, it also discusses the anxiety or 'blindness' of James's readers. My argument draws heavily on both the theory of the visual and anamorphosis discussed in Jacques Lacan's seminar 'Of the Gaze as Object Petit a' and on Hans Holbein's anamorphic picture, The Ambassadors. The challenge to seeing and identity that the anamorphic object raises I relate to the difficulties and anxieties posed by the challenge of writing for James and to the difficulties and anxieties experienced by the threat of reading James. Starting from the descriptions of writing and seeing in James's notebooks, I draw on a wide range of his work, including the late novels and some of the lesser known and unfinished fictions, but focussing on the ghost stories, the plays and theatre writings, and the paradox surrounding the commercial success of film versions of the 'repudiated' early novels, The Europeans and The Bostonians. The plethora of visual images and scenarios that emerge in Jamesian moments of crisis, either in the terror of planning his fiction in the notebooks, or in the horror felt when a character in the fiction is confronted by a sight that deeply shocks and excludes him or her, suggest a relation between the fear of seeing and the fear of writing that I analyse through Freud's descriptions of visual blocks: the primal scene, castration and fetishism. For Freud, from these climactic moments of delayed and displaced sight will emerge the direction and development of sexuality, subjectivity and visual pleasure, and these psychic scenarios are no less dense than the visual scenes that precede and preoccupy James's writing. But where psychoanalysis can provide an account of many anxieties, associations and visual seductions, it leaves the connection between anxiety, writing and vision unexplored. I try to examine, through a reading of Freud's case histories and thoughts on heredity, sexuality, error, chance and telepathy, why he is particularly silent on this problem and how a recognition of the relations between visual and writing 'blocks' can offer a way of reading James.

Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
Lester C. Loschky
While watching a film, the viewer begins to construct mental representations of it, which are called events. During the opening scene of a film, the viewer is presented with two distinct pieces of information that can be used to construct the event, namely the setting and an action by the main character. But, which of these two constructs are first cognitively represented by the viewer? Experiment 1 examined the time-course of basic level action categorization with superordinate and basic level scene categorization using masking. The results indicated that categorization occurred in a course-to-fine manner, inconsistent with Rosch et al.’s (1976) basic level theory. Interestingly, basic level action categorization performance did not reach ceiling when it was processed for a 367 ms SOA, suggesting that additional scene information and processing time were required. Thus, Experiment 2 examined scene and action categorization performance over multiple fixations, and the scene information that was fixated for each categorization task. Both superordinate and basic level scene categorization required only a single fixation to reach ceiling performance, inconsistent with basic level primacy, whereas basic level action categorization took two to three fixations, and led to more object fixations than in either scene categorization task. Eye movements showed evidence of a person bias across all three categorization tasks. Additionally, the categorization task did produce differences in the scene information that was fixated (Yarbus, 1967). However, could basic level theory still be correct when subjects are given a different task? When the same scene images were named, basic level action terms were used more often than basic level scene category terms, while superordinate level action terms were used relatively less often, and superordinate level scene category terms were hardly ever used. This shows that linguistic categorization (naming) is sensitive to informative, middle-level categories, whereas early perceptual categorization makes use of coarse high level distinctions. Additionally, the early perceptual advantage for scene categorization over basic level action categorization suggests that the scene category is the first construct that is used to represent events in scene images, and maybe even events in visual narratives like film.

Non-francophone teachers of French as a second or additional language (FSL) often struggle with overwhelming oral anxiety, consequent low self-confidence, and workplace marginalisation. Core French or Basic French teachers, in particular, and their subjects have been undervalued (Carr, 2007; Lapkin, McFarlane, & Vandergrift, 2006; Richards, 2002). Moreover, recent national FSL research points to challenges in the areas of teacher attrition, lack of methodological and /or linguistic preparation, and lack of professional development opportunities in the FSL context (Karsenti, 2008; Salvatori, 2007). In this dissertation, I present the findings of my qualitative research study, which examined the conditions and experiences of non-francophone FSL teachers in Manitoba. To do so, I looked at the teachers' relationship with French and how French oral competency and oral language communicative confidence are intertwined to foster the teachers' sense of agency. The theoretical orientations underpinning this study draw from socio-constructivism (Bruner, 1985, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978), Feminist Standpoint theory (De Vault, 1999; Lather, 1991), Bakhtinian dialogism (Vitanova, 2005), and Institutional Ethnography (Smith, 1987, 2005). The lens I used to understand and interpret the voices and self-perceptions of the teachers is Process Drama, delivered in the form of professional development workshops. Process Drama (Heathcote, 1991) consists of thematically based improvisations, which are used to explore a topic and, at the same time, to invite self-exploration. It possesses unique characteristics, and has been successfully used in the second and foreign language classroom (Dicks & Le Blanc, 2009; Kao & O'Neill, 1998; Liu, 2002; Marshke, 2005). My particular focus, however, was on the Manitoba FSL teacher as a student, rather than as a teacher of language. Findings from this study indicate reduced oral anxiety as related to French language competency, reduced “performance
Les enseignantes et enseignants non-francophones du français langue seconde et additionnelle (FL2) se trouvent parfois aux prises avec l'anxiété orale, le manque d'estime de soi et la marginalisation au travail. En particulier, les enseignants du Français de base sont souvent sous-valorisés par rapport à la matière enseignée (Richards, 2002 ; Lapkin, McFarlane & Vandergrift, 2006 ; Carr, 2007). Des sondages et des études récentes à l'échelle nationale indiquent des défis dans le domaine de l'attrition professionnelle, du manque de préparation méthodologique et/ou linguistique, et de la pénurie d'occasions de perfectionnement professionnel dans le contexte du FL2 (Salvatori, 2007 ; Karsenti, 2008). Ce mémoire de thèse présente les résultats de mon étude qualitative où j'ai examiné les conditions et les expériences des enseignants non-francophones du FL2 au Manitoba. Je me suis concentrée sur la relation entre l'enseignant et la langue française et comment la compétence orale et la confiance communicative se combinent pour construire l'identité linguistique et l'agentivité du locuteur non-natif. À la base de cette étude, mes orientations théoriques proviennent du socio-constructivisme (Vygotsky, 1978 ; Bruner, 1985, 1990), de la théorie de « Feminist Standpoint » (De Vault, 1999; Lather, 1991), du dialogisme bakhtinien (Vitanova, 2005) et de l'ethnographie institutionnelle (Smith, 1987, 2005). Les voix et les perceptions des enseignants-participants de cette étude sont interprétées sous l'optique du Process Drama. Le Process Drama (Heathcote, 1991) consiste en épisodes thématiques improvisés où les participants explorent un sujet et s'explorent parallèlement. Le Process Drama possède des caractéristiques uniques qui font l'objet de recherche dans des classes de langue seconde et de langue étrangère (Dicks & Le Blanc, 2009 ; Kao & O'Neill, 1998 ; Liu, 2002; Marshke, 2005 ). Mon intérêt, cependant, porte sur l'e

During the 500th Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 a huge emphasis was placed on the main Reformation characters of 1517, especially Martin Luther. Those that preceded him were side-lined. Jan Huss was hardly mentioned, although the 600th anniversary of his execution by fire was only two years earlier, in 2015. Valdes of Lyon did not feature at all. This study shows that this lay person, Valdes, about whom hardly anything is known, had a significant impact on the 16th Century Reformation. This impact is not immediately obvious. The researcher reveals it by looking at the movement that resulted from his conversion in 1174, normally called the Waldenses, but in this study referred to as Poor of Christ, a name that they identified themselves with. The research does not focus on the Romanesque part that later formed the Waldensian Church, but on those living and ministering in the Holy Roman Empire, especially the German region. Original sources such as papal letters, inquisition reports and reports of eyewitnesses of that time are researched and the information gathered. Through historical contextual analysis and synthesis, the information is brought together to show the impact that the Poor of Christ ultimately had in their own context and beyond. The researcher shows how the Roman Church, instead of engaging with these lay preachers, tried to silence and eradicate them over a period of 350 years. This action harmed the church itself more than it did the people it was fighting against. The study shows how doctrines and decrees were formulated in reaction to the Poor of Christ, which became major issues in the run-up to the Reformation. The study shows an important link between the Poor of Christ and the Augustinian Order, that is generally not taken note of, and throws a different light on why the Augustinian Order played such an important role in producing Reformation Theologians. Further, the research shows how the underground lay movement influenced the thinking in cities and regions in Germany which became the first strongholds of the 16th Century Reformation, and that through their ministry the basics of Solus Christus and sola scriptura where already taught and practised in homes and families for generations prior to 1517. The researcher argues that Martin Luther and the other prominent Reformers were not the originators of the 16th century Reformation. Unlike Jan Hus a hundred years before, they succeeded because the climate in Europe, and especially Germany, had changed due to the presence and ministry of the Poor of Christ. The real force behind the Reformation were not the theologians, but the lay men and women who for generations shaped Christ- centred values, who, for 350 years prior to 1517 had already been studying and teaching scripture in the local vernacular. This study hopes that the Poor of Christ will become part of main stream Reformation teaching, a place the movement deserves. The study heightens the historical value of this research by showing how core aspects of the Poor of Christ can help the church today to be resilient and relevant. Their authentic way of living their faith is an example worth following. Church leadership are reminded of the importance of servant leadership, and all theologians are reminded that the real strength of the church lies in the lay people who are not dependent on clergy, but empowered to live and share what they believe.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020.
Church History and Church Policy
PhD
Unrestricted

This project investigated the mechanisms underlying well-being outcomes as a function of dynamic environmental attributes in window views. The hypothesis posed that changes within the outdoor visual environment, like those produced by daylight variations across the day, would mediate positive responses toward these views. To test this hypothesis, a mixed methods study was designed, combining post-occupancy evaluation, geometric labeling procedures, and immersive virtual reality techniques. The outcomes of this work lay the foundations of interdisciplinary evaluation, decision-making, and design procedures aimed at sustaining individuals’ well-being in increasingly dense urban environments.

Marine areas represent complex and dynamic systems facing increasing threats and degradation due to multiple human and natural pressures. An integrated assessment approach evaluating the combined effects of interactive stressors is required in order to address future marine planning and management. A multi-risk methodology was developed and implemented in the Adriatic sea to evaluate cumulative impacts induced by climate and anthropogenic drivers on key marine targets (seagrasses, aquaculture, protected areas). The analysis is composed of five steps (hazard, exposure, vulnerability, risk and cumulative impact assessment), implemented through integrated tools and methods (i.e. GIS-based maps, MCDA, indicators) including the application of Bayesian Networks to visualize and compare the impact of alternative climate scenarios and management measures. Resulting output represent a decision support tool to drive adaptive management of marine areas under changing environmental conditions.

Né en 1727 à Briançon, Jean-Antoine Morand a 14 ans lorsqu’il se lance, suite à la mort de son père, dans une carrière artistique. C’est à Lyon qu’il s’installe et fonde, en 1748, un atelier de peinture. Il reçoit des commandes officielles et privées, travaille régulièrement pour la Comédie, se spécialise dans la peinture en trompe-l’œil et la scénographie, y compris les machines de théâtre. À la fin des années 1750, encouragé par Soufflot, il se tourne vers l’architecture et l’embellissement, ainsi que l’y disposent différents aspects de sa première carrière.Architecte autodidacte, Morand souffre d’un déficit de légitimité et tente d’y remédier en recherchant la reconnaissance publique. Mais ses succès, en particulier la construction à titre privé d’un pont sur le Rhône, n’y suffisent pas. La carrière de Morand est tiraillée entre fierté entrepreneuriale et appétence institutionnelle. Son image pâtit de l’opposition entre spéculation foncière et promotion du bien public. Cela concerne en particulier son grand œuvre, un projet d’agrandissement de Lyon sur la rive gauche du Rhône, compris dans un plan général donnant à la ville la forme circulaire.Morand a peu construit et il ne subsiste presque rien de son œuvre pictural. On dispose en revanche d’un fonds d’archives privé d’une grande richesse, sur lequel s’appuie cette thèse, afin de mettre au jour les intentions, les relations et la psychologie d’un architecte autrement méconnu
Born in 1727, Jean-Antoine Morand is 14 years old when he embraces an artistic career, following his father’s death. Having settled down in Lyon, he establishes his own painter’s workshop in 1748. Receiving public and private commissions and working for the theatre on a regular basis, he specializes in trompe l’œil painting and stage-setting, including machinery. In the late 1750s, spurred on by Soufflot, he turns to architecture and city-planning, as various aspects of his previous career could have prompted him to.As an autodidactic architect, Morand suffers from a lack of legitimacy against which he pursues public recognition. But his successes, which include the building of a privately-owned bridge across the Rhône, aren’t enough. Morand’s career is torn between entrepreneurial pride and his longing for tenure. His public image is marred by the alleged opposition between land speculation and the defense of public good. This concerns mostly his great work, a project for the extension of Lyon on the left bank of the Rhône, included in a circular general city plan.Morand hasn’t built much and very little remains of his pictorial work. This thesis is based on an extensive private archive that allows us to explore this otherwise unsung architect’s intentions, relations and psychology

Des « Six Contes moraux » aux « Comédies et Proverbes », des « Comédies et Proverbes » aux « Contes des quatre saisons » se déploie une œuvre organisée par cycles dont le centre, toujours réactivé de film en film, est constitué par la question du désir, de ses excès et de ses manques. Comment ce cinéma, marqué par une esthétique classique privilégiant le naturel, peut-il donner passage à une théâtralité ? Théâtralité précisément dont l'apparition et les modalités détermineront notre étude de l'oeuvre rohmérienne, dont la cohérence formelle s'appuie sur les principes d'un cinéma vérité initié au mitan des années 1900 par les auteurs de la Nouvelle Vague, et que nous interrogerons principalement de manière à dégager les conditions, les formes et les effets d'une esthétique privilégiant, de film en film, une dramaturgie de la parole et du regard. Nous étudierons dans cette perspective les mises en scène de la parole et du corps dans leur rapport avec les lieux, envisageant la manière dont ce cinéma construit ses personnages au travers d'un théâtre de l'être en rapport étroit avec des procédés de valorisation par l'image. Recourant à des cadrages privilégiant la saisie du corps et de ses émotions, articulant par ailleurs les intrigues en étapes marquées par une forte dramaticité, ce cinéma fait, enfin, intervenir une esthétique de la fascination qui n'est, en dernier ressort que le reflet, sans cesse thématisé dans le film, d'une identification par le cinéaste du cinéma comme une quête toujours relancée de la beauté du monde. L'usage dramaturgique du ressort du hasard, principe équivalent, sur le plan de l'intrigue, au deus ex machina, permettra, le cas échéant, de transformer la quête déceptive du personnage en la joie de la découverte que l'Autre était celui, ou celle, que l'on attendait. Et si, dans un tel cadre narratif, le risque existe d'une forme excessive de sentimentalité, c'est, précisément, par le caractère dynamique que la théâtralité lui confère, que l'oeuvre y échappe, jouant de tous les ressorts de la surprise, de la variation des registres et des tonalités, introduisant enfin une certaine ironie dans le décalage entre le montré – l'image – et le dit – le discours
From "Six Moral Tales" to "Comedies and Proverbs", from "Comedies and Proverbs" to "Tales of the Four Seasons" Eric Rohmer develops a work that is organized in cycles whose center, always reactivated from film to film, is constituted by the question of desire, its excesses and its shortcomings. How can this cinema, marked by an aesthetic favoring the natural, embrace theatricality ? Theatricality precisely whose appearance and modalities will determine our study of the Rohmerian work, whose formal coherence is based on the principles of a cinema vérité initiated in the mid-1900s by the authors of the New Wave, that we will mainly examine, so as to identify the conditions, forms and the effects of an aesthetic favoring, from film to film, a dramaturgy of speech and gaze. From this perspective, we will study the staging of speech and the body in their relationship with places, considering the way in which this cinema constructs its characters through a theater of being and enhances them through the image. By framing that favors the capture of the body and its emotions, articulating plot in stages marked by a strong dramaticity, this cinema finally applies an aesthetics of fascination which is, ultimately, only the reflection, constantly thematized in the film, of an identification by the filmmaker of cinema as an ever renewed quest for the beauty of the world. The dramaturgical use the mechanism of chance, an equivalent principle, on the level of plot, of the deus ex machina, will make it possible, if necessary, to transform the character's deceptive quest into the joy of discovering that the Other was the man or woman we expected. And if, in such a narrative framework, there is a risk of excessive sentimentality, the works escapes it by the dynamis conferred by theatricality, playing with all the mechanisms of surprise, with the variation of registers and tones, finally introducing a certain irony into the discrepancy between what is shown – the image – and what is said – the discourse

Thesis (MTech. degree in Performing Arts) -- Tshwane University of Technology. 2010.
The training of students for the technical side of the Entertainment Industry in South Africa is not something that has been with us for many years. It is only for the last 33 years that an institution, the then Technikon Pretoria, started a course that trains Scenic Artists in South Africa. Not many institutions are training Scenic Artists in South Africa, and the current Department of Entertainment Technology has always been the leader in this field. In the United Kingdom, training students as Scenic Artists has been part of their programmes for the last ninety years. One finds that there is a demand for training Scenic Artists in the United Kingdom, because of the size and complexity of the Entertainment Industry there. During the Apartheid era, South Africa was excluded from the International scene, so the demand did not really exist here for a number of years. Lately, the Entertainment Industry in South Africa has picked up momentum and expanded its borders immensely, and this has created a great demand for trained Scenic Artists in South Africa. Today one can proudly say that one is part of an industry that trains people as Scenic Artists in South Africa that contributes to the global Entertainment Industry. The Scenic Artists who completed their studies at TUT are employed nationally and internationally, and deliver a very high standard of work on the most impressive projects. During the research that was done between the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa and the Rose Bruford College and Guildhall School of Drama and Music, both in the United Kingdom in London, one can see that there are no major differences between the three institutions. Each institution has its own methodology, but at the end, all are working towards one goal, and that is to train the best Scenic Artists possible. The differences that present it are in the course structure, available facilities and the amount of staff allocated to do the training.

Contemporary operatic scenography has been undergoing broad aesthetic, theatrical and technological transformations. My dissertation analyzes the work of three key designer-directors—Robert Wilson, Achim Freyer, and Karl-Ernst Herrmann—in order to investigate the changing relationship between the visual and the theatrical in contemporary opera, as well as opera’s place within current trends in theatrical design and broader visual culture. Combining an analysis of current productions with wide-ranging archival research, I reconstruct and explore these artists’ individual stylistic development and their mutual influence. Through this focus on the hybrid figure of the contemporary designer-director, I address two key historical changes in operatic culture: first, the greatly increased importance of scenography and visuality in global opera and second, the emergence of new scenographic idioms, which have rapidly displaced the dominance of historicist and realist conventions in staging. Throughout, I show how Wilson, Freyer, and Herrmann’s work has been central to the development of a “new international style” in operatic scenography. Combining close visual analysis with historical contextualization, I examine how this style—characterized by abstraction, rich colors, striking lighting and radical theatrical effects—has transformed the look of opera, while also framing these developments within the longer history of modernist scenography, and the long-standing tensions between stylistic innovation and aesthetic traditionalism.

This dissertation demonstrates that seventeenth-century dramatists and theatrical practitioners invented a dazzling series of specialized technologies for representing space. I argue that ubiquitous stage technologies, such as doors, props, musical instruments, and curtains, were used to create a dynamic sense of location—both fictional locations within the represented action and the audience’s location within a specific theater structure. Scholarship on the early modern spatial imaginary has tended to focus on broader cultural changes in how English people understood the world around them, in part through the massive growth of London as an urban center, and in part through England’s burgeoning empire and increasing contact with the world beyond its shores. At the same time, theater scholars have increasingly emphasized the material conditions of theatrical production, including the composition of theatrical companies, the features of different theater buildings, and the nature of costumes and cosmetics. My research extends this theater historical work to show how the details of theatrical practice shaped perceptions of space, including the space of the theater itself as well as the rapidly expanding sense of both urban and global space outside the theater’s walls. My chapters are organized around the different tools used to represent particular types of place, while also tracing a chronological development marked by both continuity and change. In part, this means looking back towards the theatrical traditions out of which this drama sprang, as when I show how the disposition of stage doors in Roman New Comedy or the use of props in medieval morality plays were redeployed by playwrights such as Ben Jonson or Thomas Dekker. I also argue for a more complex relationship than we have assumed between the spatial arrangements of the prewar Shakespearean stage and that of the Restoration. While the introduction of painted scenery is typically taken to mark a break in how space was represented onstage, I establish that playwrights in this era continued to experiment with many of the same spatial techniques used by their precursors in the prewar theaters. By carefully tracing how the same spatial tools – the movement of actors in and out of the doors, the management of discovery spaces, and the positioning of musicians and sound machines – continued to be used alongside the painted scenery, I help us see more clearly how those tools were already active in shaping the perception of theatrical space in the pre-1642 theaters.

This dissertation analyses the influence theatre space and the dramatic genre have on the design process, by examining three designs of Greg King: Aladdin (2007), a pantomime presented at the Playhouse Drama Theatre, Oleanna (2008) a drama at the Seabrooke's Theatre, and The Wizard of Oz (2008), a musical presented at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. Through a semiotic analysis of the productions, the scenographic choices of King are interrogated to ascertain the ways theatre space and dramatic genre affected his design choices. The theories around sign systems in the theatre of Keir Elam (1980), Martin Esslin (1987), and Elaine Aston and George Savona (1991) are examined and used to decode King's designs. This dissertation theorises that the theatre space has influenced and continues to influence the decisions and choices of the scenographer, and it is this linkage that informs the discussion around the historical development of the proscenium arch theatre and the scenographer. The case studies offered in this dissertation highlight the challenges involved with the physical limitations of the theatre space, as each venue selected differs in size, shape, and the technical equipment available for the designer. The dramatic text provides the primary basis for both the director and the designer to develop a production concept. However, dramatic texts can be divided into many different genres and the following three genres, namely drama, musical and pantomime, provide the focus for this study. As these three genres have evolved from earlier forms, the historical development of the three genres is examined to ascertain how the genre affects the scenographic process. Atheatre production is the result of a collaboration between many specialists and therefore, the relationship between the designer and other member of the production team is examined. A set design is a visual image of an imagined environment and many designers use symbols, consciously or subconsciously, to communicate their ideas. A theatre production is the result of a collaboration between many specialists and therefore, the relationship between the designer and other member of the production team is examined. A set design is a visual image of an imagined environment and many designers use symbols, consciously or subconsciously, to communicate their ideas. The work of three international designers, Josef Svoboda, Ming Cho Lee and Ralph Koltai is examined further to understand the influence theatre space and the dramatic genre have on the design process.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

This dissertation is a micro-analysis of one particular type of communicative practice, the "mise-en-scène communication," which emerges as people talk and build scenery in their everyday work experiences in a theater consulting company in Taiwan. This dissertation engages in interaction analyses of participants' naturally occurring talk and face-to-face interaction in the set design meetings. Three findings are documented. First, mise-en-scène communication is multimodal. The participants use visual representations to communicate. These visual representational tools include architectural drawings, scale models, miniature props, and 3-D models and animations. The use of visual representations and communicative resources of language, gestural and postural conduct, the material surround, and physical objects enable the participants to visually communicate, envision, and construct scenes in and through talk and interaction. Second, mise-en-scène communication concerns three key organizing, work practices of creating an entirety of the theatrical space, including the scene-setting practice, the staging practice, and the measuring practice. This study finds that in these three major mise-en-scène practices identified, the theater artists express and formulate scenes and dramatic ideas in their talk. At the same time, they also frequently turn to bodily conduct as a source of insight into configuring, expressing, and formulating dramatic scenes. Third, the architectural drawings, the scale models, the props in miniature, and the computer simulations of theater space provide a material, perceptual field, which shapes embodied interaction systematically performed within it. The architectural drawings enable the participants to project the perceivable space through language and bodily behaviors. The miniature model and objects in a set create a full stage of symbolic communication in which scenes are arranged and dramas are spoken and created. Moreover, the theater artists manage to use language, gestures, and semiotic resources of the computer program, Maya, and its design interface to communicate and build 3-D scenes together. This research concludes that the plurality of channels exists in human communication. The micro-analysis of mise-en-scène communication reveals such a communicative process in which the participants draw on multiple modalities to visually construct theatrical meaning out of the set of visualization objects.
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This dissertation aims to analyse the re-creation and transformation of animated films into theatrical spectacles, by examining two Walt Disney animations and productions as case studies: Beauty and the Beast (1991 & 1994) and The Lion King (1994 & 1997), designed by Stanley Meyer (Beauty and the Beast [1994]) and Julie Taymor (The Lion King [1997]), respectively. Through a semiotic analysis of the productions viewed in the Monte-Teatro in Johannesburg (Beauty and the Beast [2007]) and the Lyceum in London (The Lion King [2010]), the scenographic choices of the designers are examined to ascertain the ways in which the re-creation and transformation from animation to theatre occurs. A study of the different styles is conducted, as the case studies were visually different from each other, and from their animated counterparts. Each case study contributes to an understanding of the process whereby an animated film can be transformed and re-created for the theatre. An investigation into The Walt Disney Company, from its inception to its present day theatrical productions, is undertaken to illustrate how The Walt Disney Company has become an influential force in the international performance industry. Responses by reviewers are used to demonstrate how The Walt Disney Company was influenced to alter the conceptual approach for its subsequent theatrical production. To aid in the analysis of the scenographic designs, the theoretical writings of Martin Esslin (1987) and Keir Elam (1980) are consulted to develop an understanding of how designs are integral to the reception of any production. Developments of scenography are explored from Aristotle who states that theatre does not need any spectacle (design) to portray the poetry of the performance, to Sternfeld’s analysis of megamusicals which illustrates the spectacular designs that have become integral to the development of certain productions, and genres. Using Wickstrom’s article on The Lion King an examination of how the commodities produce meaning from the production is undertaken. This dissertation provides insight into the development of scenographic designs and the recreation and transformation of specific elements from animated film to theatrical spectacle through an appropriation of theories about transposing theatre into film (Egil Tornqvist, 2009). This, in conjunction with Guy Debord’s theories (1995) on the society of the spectacle, aids in the analysis of the spectacle/scenography.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2010.

The aim of this dissertation is to comparatively analyse the set designs for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) opera, The Magic Flute (1791), with specific reference to selected set designers from the 18th to the early 21st century. The selection was made in light of each set designer’s unique design concepts for The Magic Flute which were all realised as stage settings in a proscenium arch theatre. In order to analyse the designs, it is necessary to trace theatrical practices and chronologically examine the reforms that affected the visual and spatial representation of scenography from the 18th to the 20th Chapter one provides a brief overview of the development of the proscenium arch stage. It examines the architectural reforms that were made to the proscenium arch in order to accommodate deeper stages and changes in stage settings. In addition, Chapter one investigates methods that theatre architects used to alter the proscenium arch and forestage in order to create a unity between the audience members and the performance. century. The set designs for The Magic Flute by Emanuel Johann Schikaneder (1791), Karl Friederich Schinkel (1816), David Hockney (1978) and William Kentridge (2007) will be analysed within the context of this investigation. Chapter two further considers the architectural modifications that were made to the stage and auditoria of opera theatres in more detail, from the first U-shaped auditorium onwards. It is essential to consider the different architectural structures of opera theatres because in order for each designer to initiate their design concept, they would be required to consider the architectural limitations of their chosen auditoria. The architectural structure would be determined by the foyer area, the style and arrangement of seating and the size of the proscenium arch and stage. Chapter three, by means of a comparative analysis, considers the social and cultural influences on the design concepts of Schikaneder, Schinkel and Hockney and how they informed those of Kentridge for The Magic Flute. It also provides a brief overview of stage lighting, scenic styles and stage machinery used in opera from the 16th to the 20th Chapter four classifies the theatrical spaces used in opera theatres by examining three key areas in an opera theatre, in relation to the foyer, auditorium and stage area. This investigation will be conducted with specific reference to the Theatre Auf Der Wieden, The Royal Opera House, the old Glyndebourne Opera House and The Artscape Opera House. In addition to this it will examine the selected designers’ approach to their design concepts by comparatively analysing the stage settings of Schikaneder, Schinkel, Hockney and Kentridge for The Magic Flute and the stage technology that was used to realise their design concepts. Thereafter, the set designs for Kentridge’s production and how they were conceptualised from a South African perspective will be examined. century Chapter five summarises the ways in which scenography is influenced by architectural, cultural and theatrical discourses, from the analysis of the designs and concepts for The Magic Flute.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

This thesis is an exploration of Tennessee Williams' idea of 'plastic theatre,' locating its origins within the theatrical context of the period, with the object of identifying its chief principles and seeking something approaching a definition 'of plastic theatre,' as a starting point from which to demonstrate its application to theatre production and especially to set design. In 1945, with the published version of The Glass Menagerie, Williams launched his theory of 'plastic theatre,' a theatrical mode that would, he believed, answer the problems he perceived in American war-time theatre, and that would help develop a stronger post-war American theatre. Williams claimed that theatre in America placed too much emphasis on words and not enough on the essential elements of theatre. Taking an anti-realist stance, he asserted that this emphasis on words should be replaced by a theatre that recognised the plasticity of the stage and the expressivity of all the elements of play production. In his scripts he sought to present his vision of how his plays would work on stage by demonstrating how these elements should be integrated with text. From Williams' assertion that the physicality of the stage environment is as important as the text, we can deduce that the manner in which the stage space is arranged is a crucial performance element. The notion of 'plastic theatre,' therefore, has significant implications for the practice of set design. The aim of this project is to place Tennessee Williams' ideas within the history of American scenic design and demonstrate the way designers have expressed his ideas. This project engages in two types of research methodologies: historical and practical. The first component begins with an exploration of Williams' theory by reference to his published and unpublished works, particularly his journals and notebooks, followed by a consideration of the rise of the set designer in America so as to contextualise the work of designers of Williams' major plays. I look at the first designers of his plays, leading practitioners who responded to his all-encompassing vision and created designs which not only answered the demands of his scripts, but were to influence the history of stage design in America. I then explore the work of leading designers of Williams plays since 1960, considering how their designs have related to their precedents and to dominant trends in twentieth-century set design. Even though this thesis explores design issues up to the twenty-first century, the focal plays will be limited to those major works of Williams' career up to 1960, the period in which he developed his idea of 'plastic theatre' and wrote plays which demonstrably illustrate its principles. In order to assess what a practical engagement with the texts can reveal about 'plastic theatre,' the practical component comprises the designing of three major Tennessee Williams plays: The Night of the Iguana, Suddenly Last Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Designs for these plays were created and constructed for performances in Canberra, Australia. --provided by Candidate

碩士
臺北市立教育大學
心理與諮商教學碩士學位班
100
The Experience of Scene-Setting in Psychodrama ---A Study in Phenomenology of Body Chen Yu-Rin Abstract The aims of this research were to explicate the scene-setting experience process of the psychodrama protagonists,and the situated structure of experience of the protagonists during the scene-setting activity. This study was conducted in the way of psychodrama scene-setting experience workshop.A total of four protagonists were enrolled in this study,and each protagonist selected a meaningful event from their own life to conduct scene-setting.After the workshop,the researcher interviewed the protagonists to understand their scene-setting experiences,and each interview was recorded and turned into a transcript.The method of hermeneutic phenomenology called “situatedness” was applied to analyze the transcripts.As a result,the protagonists’ situatedness structures were established,and finally,the general structure was inducted.By these structures,the implications of the protagonists’ experiences in scene-setting field were discussed as follows: First,the implications of “body perception” in the field of scene-setting in psychodrama. Second,the implications of “rememberings” in the field of scene-setting in psychodrama. Third,the implications of “dialogue” in the field of scene-setting in psychodrama. Fourth,the implications of “spatial perception” in the field of scene-setting in psychodrama. Finally,this thesis offers an integrative discussion of the above research findings and gives suggestions to clinical application and follow-up studies.

W rozprawie doktorskiej rozważania dotyczące wybranych dzieł Juliusza Słowackiego prowadzone są z wykorzystaniem kategorii sceniczności, którą autorka pracy definiuje jako zespół zabiegów i konwencji literackich oraz ich tekstowych eksponentów, tworzących warstwową kompozycję utworu dramatycznego poprzez organizację różnych sposobów prezentacji, mogących wchodzić ze sobą w relacje zarówno komplementarne, jak i opozycyjne. Wykorzystana w dysertacji perspektywa sceniczna odwołuje się do wykonawczego projektu dramatu zakodowanego w tekście. Taka strategia otwiera możliwość opisu wielopłaszczyznowej struktury tekstu, a przy tym umożliwia odtworzenie architektoniczno-przestrzennej konstrukcji dzieła. Godzi w ten sposób literacką i teatralną koncepcję lektury dramatu, nie umniejszając jednocześnie żadnej z nich.Swoje rozważania autorka rozpoczyna od przeglądu stanu badań nad dramatem w trzech kluczowych dla jej koncepcji obszarach: metateatralności, didaskaliów (właściwych i wewnętrznych) oraz opozycji mimesis – diegesis. Z badań tych wyprowadza pytanie o warstwową kompozycję utworu i typy wypowiedzi ją konstytuujących. Oparciem dla zaprezentowanej w dysertacji koncepcji teoretycznej jest podział struktury dramatycznej z wykorzystaniem Genettowskiej koncepcji fokalizacji oraz związanych z nią kategorii perspektywy i punktu widzenia. Na tej podstawie badaczka tworzy własny zestaw narzędzi, które pozwalają na opis kompozycji dramatu. Za podstawową jednostkę uznaje kadr sceniczny, definiowany jako zespół wszystkich możliwych (zapisanych w tekście) technik prezentacji danego zdarzenia. Trzy składające się na niego warstwy określa mianem: warstwy zdarzeń, ramy scenicznej (wypowiedzi odwołujące się do stricte materialnego osadzenia epizodu) oraz przesłony (sposoby wewnętrznej interpretacji akcji). Całość, złożona z określonej liczy kadrów i łączących je związków syntagmatycznych i paradygmatycznych, uznawana jest w rozprawie za projekt sceniczny.Wybór dramatów Juliusza Słowackiego na przedmiot analizy podyktowany jest przekonaniem, że dzieła te w swojej płaszczyźnie tekstowej celowo eksponują zabiegi kompozycyjne typowe dla dramatu i zwykle ukrywane w strukturze dzieła. Rekonstrukcje konkretnych utworów zostały przez autorkę pogrupowane w trzy główne działy, odpowiadające ewolucji formy dramatycznej, wykorzystywanej przez autora "Króla-Ducha". Transformację tę metaforycznie oddają tytuły poszczególnych części rozprawy: Patrzeć – widzieć – rozumieć.Pierwszy dział, skupiony wokół analiz "Kordiana", "Horsztyńskiego" oraz "Balladyny", skoncentrowany jest na odtworzeniu relacji między pierwszą i drugą warstwą kompozycji dramatu – tej związanej z bezpośrednim „dzianiem się” wydarzeń oraz tej organizującej wokół niego ramę sceniczną. Drugi dział tworzą analizy poświęcone "Mazepie" oraz "Fantazemu", które skupione są na trzeciej warstwie scenicznej, odsyłającej, zdaniem autorki, do swoiście rozumianej płaszczyzny wewnętrznej interpretacji. Badania zaprezentowane w tej części wskazują na niezwykle skomplikowaną, ale zarazem konsekwentną zasadę budowania dzieła dramatycznego. Trzeci dział rozprawy w całości został poświęcony dramaturgii mistycznej Juliusza Słowackiego ("Ksiądz Marek", "Sen srebrny Salomei", "Samuel Zborowski"). Centralnym punktem dwóch tworzących ją rozdziałów autorka czyni analizę sposobu istnienia w tekście monologów teichoskopicznych. Refleksje badawcze dotyczą przede wszystkim trybu ich prezentacji, sposobu wpisania w strukturę tekstu, a w konsekwencji relacji między bohaterem-narratorem a pozostałymi postaciami. Rozprawę doktorską wieńczą wnioski dotyczące możliwości wykorzystania kategorii sceniczności jako narzędzia w opisie utworów dramatycznych innych autorów. Wskazane zostają również potencjalne pola badawcze, dla których szczególnie przydatna może okazać się zaproponowana perspektywa.
The doctoral thesis provides an analysis of selected plays of Juliusz Słowacki, by using the category of scene setting, which is defined by the author of the thesis as a range of literary operations and conventions and their textual exponents, that create a multi-layer composition of a drama by setting different methods of presentation; those can both complement and oppose one another. The scenic perspective, used in the thesis, refers thus to the executive design of a drama, encoded in a literary text. The author proves that it not only facilitates describing the multi-layer structure of a text, but it also makes it possible to reconstruct the architectural and spatial construction of drama.The author begins her deliberations by reviewing the current state of research on drama in three fields, which are crucial for her concept: metatheatricality, didascalia (actual and internal) and the mimesis – diegesis opposition. These analyses allow her to pose the key question for drama about its multi-layer composition and the types of discourse which form the text of the drama. The theoretical concept presented in the thesis is based on the division of the drama structure which refers to Genette's concept of focalization and point of view.The author of the thesis treats scene setting as a tool which makes it possible to inscribe an executive disposition, specific for this genre, into the text of a drama. Based on that, a toolbox is created, which allows the author to describe the composition of a drama. A scenic frame – defined as a set of all possible (i.e. inscribed in the text) techniques of presentation of a given event – is thought to be a basic composition unit. Layers that form it are called a „scenic framework” (lines referring solely to the material set-up of an episode) and an „aperture” (methods of interpreting the action). A drama as a whole consisting of a given number of frames is said to form a scenic design.The author has chosen to analyse Juliusz Słowacki's dramas as, in her opinion, the scenic design of "Balladyna" and "Samuel Zborowski" proves to be unique when compared with similar solutions applied by William Shakespeare, Calderon or Ludwig Tieck; since it is autotelic in a specific way, it requires a detailed description. Słowacki seems to uncover, in his works, composition operations which are hidden in the structure of the text. Analytical deliberations devoted to particular works have been divided into three main sections, which correspond to the evolution of the drama form used by the author of "King-Spirit". The transformation is metaphorically reflected by the subtitles of particular parts of the thesis: Look – see – understand.The first section, revolving around the analysis of "Kordian" "Horsztyński" and "Balladyna", is focused on reconstructing the relationship between the first and the second layer of drama composition, i.e. the one related to an immediate action and the one setting the scenic framework around it. The second study section is devoted to the analyses of "Mazepa" and "Fantazy", which focus on the third scenic layer, referring, in the author's opinion, to a unique ground for interpretation. The studies presented in this part of the thesis indicate an extremely complex, but consistent principle of the drama work construction. The third chapter is fully devoted to Juliusz Słowacki's mystic dramaturgy ("Father Marek", "The Silver Dream of Salomea", "Samuel Zborowski"). The analysis of the way in which teichoscopic monologues of chosen characters appear in the text has been turned into the focal point by the author. The doctoral thesis “The Category of Scene Setting in the Analysis of Selected Plays of Juliusz Słowacki” is crowned with deliberations on a possibility to use the category of scene setting as a tool of describing dramas of other authors. In addition, potential study fields are identified, for which the proposed perspective may prove to be useful.

The subject of the presented paper is the analysis of the position of scene-setting adverbials based on parallel texts. The aim of the study is to find out the most typical position for placing of such adverbials realized by verbless construction and to determine the factors influencing the position in both languages with respect to differences between the Czech and English word order. The theory is based on the functional approach described in Brno linguistic school and is applied to 200 examples from the corpus Intercorp. Out of the given number of examples, exactly one hundred tokens belong to the translation direction from En to Cz and the second half to the opposite direction of translation. With respect to the English word order, which takes over some of the grammatical functions resulting in relative rigidity, scene-setting adverbials are usually placed in the final position. However, it is assumed that most languages have a tendency to place the most important information to the end of the sentence. It follows that one of the goals of this work is to describe the factors allowing these adverbials to be placed in this position with no effect on the communicative dynamism of the adverbials themselves as well as on other sentence elements. The term 'scene-setting' suggests that these adverbials...