Doctoral Projects in Progress in Theatre Arts, 2000

This is the forty-eighth annual report of dissertations in progress in the theatre arts in the United States. The success of this report continues to depend upon prompt and accurate replies from the graduate departments of theatre, speech, English, and others, and their cooperation in this regard is gratefully acknowledged. Any graduate department that is not annually receiving requests for information for this report is invited to contact the compiler in order to be added to the mailing list.

This survey is limited to colleges and universities in the United States. For similar information from Canada, one may contact the editor of the ACTR/ARTC Newsletter, Glen Nichols, Department of English, University of Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick E1A 3E9. Each year that newsletter lists completed articles, books, and dissertations in the area of Canadian drama and theatre history.

The format employed here is adapted from that used by Frederick M. Litto in his American Dissertations of the Drama and the Theatre (1969). The graduate departments were asked to classify each dissertation by its subject matter according to the geographical divisions proposed by Litto. In the cases of England and the United States, they were further asked to assign each to an arbitrary time period as indicated below. Within each of these subdivisions, entries are alphabetically arranged according to the surname of the researcher. There is no room here for the lavish cross-referencing and multiple listing Litto employs; consequently, those dissertation topics that would not yield to the geographical classifications used in Part I are listed by topic in Part II. Here again, the topic headings are those proposed by Litto; a fuller description of each may be found on page 3 of his work.

Each entry includes the following information: the researcher's name, the title of the project, the institution, the academic department within that institution, the faculty supervisor, and the expected year of completion.

Volume 1, Number 1 (1949) of the Educational Theatre Journal contained the first bibliography of research projects in progress, compiled by James M. Klain. Albert E. Johnson took over responsibility for the series in 1955 and Philip G. Hill continued the project from 1976 until 1997. Irregularities in the early years resulted in this being the forty-eighth such report. The present compiler may be reached at The Department of Theatre Arts, Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Highway, Greenville, SC 29613.

Part I

Africa

Lewis, Megan. Staging the Afrikaner in South African Theatrical and Public Life. Minnesota. Theatre Arts & Dance. Michal Kobialka. 2000.

Nelson, Amanda. On Tour: Victorian Actresses on the Imperial Stage. Tufts. Drama. Barbara Grossman. 2000.

Bulgaria

Warner, Vessela. Cultural Identity in Post-Sixties' Balkan Drama. Washington. Drama. Barry Witham. 2000.

Czechoslovakia (former)

McConnell, Lauren. After The Velvet Revolution: A Study of Czech Playwriting and the Effects of the Post-Socialist Transition. Northwestern. Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Theatre and Drama. Susan A. Manning. 2004.

England

Medieval

Harbin, Andrea R. Space and Movement on the Medieval English Religious Stage. Catholic. English. Stephen K. Wright. 2001.

Von Loewenfeldt, Paula. "Diffaced, rent and damned forever": The N-Town Manuscript at the Religious Divide. Purdue. English. Paul W. White. 2000.

Renaissance

Baskin, Richard. Figuring the Commoner-Hero on the English Stage, 1588-1600. Tennessee-Knoxville. English. D. Allen Carroll. 2000.

Choi, Kyung Mee. Unruly Women in Renaissance Drama. Kansas. English. Richard Hardin. 2002.

Dinkins, Christopher. The Politics of Magic in Early Modern Drama. Illinois-UC. English. Carol Neely. 2001.

Harmon, A.G. Contracts, Bonds, and Sureties: The Use of Legal Instruments in Shakespeare's Problem Plays. Catholic. English. Michael Mack. 2001.

Mardock, James D. Local Habitations: The Epistemology of Space in the Theatre of Early Modern London. Wisconsin-Madison. English. Heather Dubrow. 2002.

Smith, Amy. Performing Marriage in Early Modern Drama and Culture. Illinois-UC. English. Carol Neely. 2000.

Restoration & Eighteenth Century

Tobar, Michael. Does Ornament and Its Relationship to Formal Structure Operate in Similar Fashion in Congreve's The Way of the World and Purcell's...