Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Theatre

The subconscious mind gathers a lot about a person based on visuals alone. In the world of live theatre, this initial impression is highly controlled by the costume designer. Each element of live theatre combines to create a story that captures the attention of the audience; the actor walks onto the stage, their mind and heart completely in their performance, surrounded by an involved environment and adorned with skillfully detailed garments. Together with my professors and associates at The Ohio State University, we produced a surreal yet modern telling of Blood Wedding by early 20th century playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. We dove into the text, found our balance between poetry and realism, and created a world of bittersweet love. This thesis documents the costume design process from that production. The five chapters will discuss the producing situation, concept and design scheme, character analyses, production, and self-evaluation of the project.

Committee: Rebecca Turk (Advisor); Alex Oliszewski (Committee Member); Tom Dugdale (Committee Member) Subjects: Design; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

This study explores the phenomenon of gender-bending cosplay (GBC) through its material culture using costuming (the acts of making and wearing artifacts and the artifacts themselves) to examine the motivations/interests/expectations of women who participate. GBC embraces the shifting, or bending, of the identified gender and/or biological sex of a fictional character to match the gender identity and/or biological sex of the player. This study concentrates on self-identified women adapting male characters to female versions of the same characters. The principal approach of the research design is Practice as Research (PaR) from an Art-Based Research (ABR) paradigm. Research methods include costuming, performance, ethnography, narrative inquiry, interviewing, participant observation, and discourse analysis. The worlds of text and image are melded in the amphibious, mixed-methods design and presentations of this study. GBC involves creating and using material culture, the artifacts of a culture/community. It becomes a creative outlet for many who may not otherwise be making art. When material culture can be worn, an interactive embodied performance can be experienced between the maker and the player, the player and the artifacts, the player and the audience, the player and fellow players, the player and cultural texts. This performance simultaneously emphasizes and challenges gender binaries, gender roles, and expectations. It is a performance of culture. The communities of play collaborate to interpret and reinterpret the performance and the material culture. They tell and share stories that uncover insights into the phenomenon, society, and culture.

Committee: Shari Savage PhD (Committee Chair); Jennifer Schlueter PhD (Committee Member); Christine Morris PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1982, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Theater

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: History

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Theatre

Abstract For the completion of my Master of Fine Arts degree in Costume Design, I designed the costumes for the theatrical production of The Coast of Illyria by Dorothy Parker and Ross Evans, adapted by Jennifer Schlueter and Cece Bellomy. The production was performed in April 2016 in the Thurber Theatre in the Drake Performance and Event Center and was directed by Shilarna Stokes. The play is set in the early 1800s and uses historical literary figures such as Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as some of the characters. Due to the nature of the play, I researched the time period as well as the people present as characters in order to give an accurate representation. Because these are not contemporary figures, it is still vital to give the audience a believable image of these well-known British Romantic writers. While some audience members might be familiar with these writers and some might not, I strove to provide a snapshot of each character to enhance the audience's knowledge. Another challenge that was presented by this play is showing the mental, physical, and emotional decline of Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Mary Lamb. This change occurs between Acts Two and Three, giving the actors a limited amount of time to make a complete physical change. I worked with the director to use the costumes and makeup to develop the look of a person in a declining state. All of the elements together informed the design of my costumes to create a cohesive, time-period conscious design, while staying true to the nature of the characters.

Committee: Kristine Kearney (Advisor); Jennifer Schlueter (Committee Member); Shilarna Stokes (Committee Member); Mary Tarantino (Committee Member) Subjects: British and Irish Literature; Design; Fine Arts; Literature; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater Studies

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Theatre

The Ohio State University Department of Theatre's main stage production of An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen sheds a light on the egocentric lives we live in a polluted world. This production ran November 5, 2015 to November 15, 2015. With direction by Professor Lesley Ferris, scenic design by MFA Design candidate Joshua Quinlan, lighting design by MFA Design candidate Andy Baker, and sound design by undergraduate senior Michael Jake Lavender, we brought to life a unique telling of this layered story. This production of An Enemy of the People held a mirror to the audience and showed them that hypocrisy and self-serving natures still run rampant in 2015. In accordance with the director's concept provided by Professor Ferris, I designed and executed costumes that would help the audience to subconsciously bridge the events within the play to similar events of pollution being dealt with in 2015. I accomplished this by incorporating contemporary fashion elements of 2015 into the Victorian styles and silhouettes of 1882. I used preconceived notions that the audience may have of the Victorian era to my advantage; I dressed the characters at the top of the socio-economic status in strictly period clothing and added more contemporary fashion elements to the middle and lower class characters based upon his or her status. During the design and production process, I encountered a few challenges including resolving the logistics of the added characters of the Chorus of Women and the Townspeople, sourcing fabric originally swatched in April (four months before production began), budget concerns, in addition to the last-minute redesign of a major character's costume. Despite these challenges, I enjoyed the journey of finding answers and solutions. This production has aided in my growth as a designer that will stay with me throughout my career. The following thesis will discuss my design process, character analysis and production process from conception through product (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Kearney (Advisor); Lesley Ferris (Committee Member); Beth Kattelman (Committee Member) Subjects: Design; Fine Arts; Performing Arts; Theater

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Art History

After eighty years of obscurity the German Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927) has reemerged as a valuable subject of study. The Baroness was an artist and a writer whose media included poetry, collage, sculpture, performance and costume art. In chapter one I firmly establish the Baroness's position as a Dada artist through examining her shared connections with the emergence of European Dada. In final chapters I will examine the most under-examined aspect of the Baroness's various mediums-her performance and costume art. In the second chapter I will explore the Baroness's work utilizing performative and feminist theories in relation to Marcel Duchamp's female alter ego Rrose Selavy. Finally, I will discuss the theme of “The Other” as a social and cultural commentator within the Baroness's performance art. A study of the Baroness's Dada performance art during her ten years in America can broaden our understanding of New York Dada.

Committee: Theresa Leininger-Miller (Advisor) Subjects: Art History; History, Modern

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2007, College of Arts and Sciences - International Studies

Inspired by nine Greco-Roman goddesses, I designed, patterned, and produced eveningwear. I then directed two photo shoots and informal fashion show to showcase these designs as well as showed one dress in one additional fashion show. This paper describes the thought processes behind those designs and illustrates them using the photographs taken during the photo shoots, my mood boards, and my fashion renderings.

Committee: Linda Conaway Conaway (Advisor) Subjects:

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1961, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1956, Theatre

Committee: F. Lee Miesle (Advisor) Subjects: Theater

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Theatre

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is a comedy about love's challenges, dreams and magic. The play was presented in the Thurber Theatre located in the Drake Performance and Events Center at The Ohio State University with performances that ran November 15 through 22, 2019. This production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was directed by Associate Professor Kevin McClatchy, with scenic design by MFA Design candidate Cade Sikora, lighting design by undergraduate Andrew Pla, and sound design by Program 60 student Lee Williams. McClatchy decided to place the play in the 1920s because he wished to emphasize the societal changes following World War I. Important themes of post-war World War I were: women becoming more educated, the Jazz Age exploding, a persisting division of classes, and rising surrealism in the visual arts exemplified by artists such as Gustav Klimt, Georgia O'Keeffe and Henri Matisse. My costume design process began in March 2019. My research focus identified the mid-1920s, particularly 1925 America, as a point of reference that aligned with the director's concept. The four distinct groups of characters and their costumes — the lovers, the upper-class, the fairies and the rude mechanicals — have roots in historical accuracy through the clothing patterns, fabric choices and treatments I have made. My research for the two pairs of lovers and the rude mechanicals concentrated on clothing pictured in historical photographs as well as clothing documented in vintage mail order catalogs and department store advertisements. Inspiration for the fairies came from fashion, costume and graphic designers such as Erte and Alphonse Mucha. Additional inspiration came from art and architecture of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements. In my accompanying thesis, I will discuss the play and its historical importance, the director's concept, overall design concept, character analysis, a description of the production process and a self-evaluation of the final de (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristine Kearney (Advisor); Kevin McClatchy (Committee Member); Alex Oliszewski (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Theater

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Theatre

This thesis will document the costume design process for The Ohio State University Department of Theatre's production of Legally Blonde the Musical. This production ran from November 8th, 2018 through the November 18th, 2018 in the Thurber Theatre, under the direction of Associate Professor Mandy Fox. The production team consisted of the following people: third year graduate student Cassie Lentz as scenic designer, third year graduate student Kelsey Gallagher as lighting designer, and undergraduate student Emily Schmidt as sound designer. Based upon the 2001 hit romantic comedy film Legally Blonde and the book of the same name written by Amanda Brown, Legally Blonde the Musical takes the iconic character Elle Woods and places her and her friends in a singing, dancing, over the top spectacle. Together as a cohort, the production team worked to preserve the charm of the movie, but give it a fresh, feminist, facelift for 2018. The production team and I researched designer fashions, trends, and architecture from the early 2000s and pushed those styles into a heightened reality. The goal of this production was not to change the iconography of Legally Blonde, but to embrace and amplify it. With a budget of five thousand eight hundred dollars, it was my challenge to wardrobe a cast of thirty-two performers, each of whom played one to six characters. As the musical progresses, there are many distinct locations that require complete costume changes. This allows approximately thirty-two dollars per costume with an average of five looks per actor. This thesis will explore the creative solutions employed to design a beautiful show with hundreds of costume pieces under the constraints of a limited budget, as well as limited time and labor constraints.

Committee: Jeanine Thompson Professor (Committee Chair); Amanda Fox Associate Professor (Committee Member); Oliszewski Alex Associate Professor (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater; Theater Studies

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2017, Art

The Space Program is a program of missions and media in space, including: • Space Program (program), 56-page printed program accompanying the Space Program (live), 2017 • Space Program (live), installation-performance (30 minutes) with six video projections, technical equipment, convex mirror, and ukulele, 2017 • Missions in Space, pilgrimages and performances in space, 2016 - ongoing Mission Equipment, functional sculpture for Missions in Space, 2016 - ongoing • Transmissions, postcards and other communications from Missions in Space, 2016 - ongoing • Support the Space Program, a yard sale exhibition to fund the Space Program, 2016 The Space Program in all its forms—including this document—is necessarily reflexive, which is to say that it addresses its own form as content and acknowledges the “I” of the author(s). I, Melissa Yes, am an artist and graduate student at The Ohio State University (OSU), and I am a time-space mechanic, a wily bricoleur. I take things apart and remake them. When I break something down, I see how it contains and is contained within systems that can be rewired. In the Space Program, I deconstruct images, sounds, timelines, and popular Western values and narratives to tweak a system of connections among people, media, and messages. In the Space Program (live), I steal snippets of (mostly) popular American film and television programs, break them into pieces, and pattern them into my own (re)invented narrative. In so doing, I take apart constructs such as masculine American individualism, Manifest Destiny, and habits of dualistic logic. The Space Program is a mixed signal, both in the fact that it is a mixture of forms and sources of media, but also because with the Space Program I am communicating multiple (seemingly opposed) things at once. Making and unmaking—seeming opposites—are ways of naming transformation. Production and consumption are one process—a digestion—and the Space Program digests objects, interactions, moving (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Todd Slaughter (Committee Chair); Ann Hamilton (Committee Member); Michael Mercil (Committee Member) Subjects: Fine Arts; Performing Arts

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1985, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Fine Arts

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1968, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Home Economics

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1961, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Home Economics

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2016, Theatre

Theatre is a liminal environment between performers and a live audience, and between the past, present and future. Theatre practitioners often bring to life old scripts that have graced the stage many times while highlighting the relevance of key themes and motifs in relation to a modern audience. The work of playwright Henrik Ibsen is produced worldwide because of its modern subjects, despite having been written in the late nineteenth century.Under the direction of Lesley Ferris, I designed the scenic environment for Rebecca Lenkiewicz's version of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People at The Ohio State University. I used a combination of sketches, digital modelling, and a physical white model to communicate my scenic design. By way of reducing, reusing, and recycling, I executed a sustainable scenic environment that complimented the themes of environmental awareness within the play without compromising the aesthetic of the design.

Committee: Brad Steinmetz M.F.A. (Advisor); Mary Tarantino M.F.A (Committee Member); Lesley Ferris PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Architectural; Architecture; Art History; Design; Environmental Education; Environmental Health; Environmental Management; Environmental Studies; Fine Arts; Gender; Gender Studies; Performing Arts; Scandinavian Studies; Theater; Theater History; Theater Studies; Womens Studies

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2015, Art

The purpose of this paper is to document the costume design and production process for Larry Gelbart, Cy Coleman, and David Zippel's musical City of Angels, a co-production of The Ohio State University's Department of Theatre and School of Music, directed by A. Scott Parry, the School of Music's Director of Opera and Lyric Theatre. The musical was presented in the Thurber Theatre at The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio, October 30, 2014 through November 9, 2014. City of Angels is a fast-paced musical comedy that weaves together two reflexive plots set in the heart of the Los Angeles film industry, one in the `real world' of the writer as his book becomes a screenplay, “City of Angels”, and the other in the `reel world' of the fictional film on the big screen. The musical is in homage to the film noir genre and relies heavily on American jazz elements from the same period during World War II. Designs for the production are to be derived from film noir movies such as Sunset Boulevard, in addition to contemporary movies reflecting life in Hollywood's `Golden Age', such as Sin City and Gangsterland. The scenic design will illustrate the change between the many locales of the `reel world' and `real world'. The lighting design will aid the production in creating hard angled shadows of light for the film noir `reel world' and vibrant `full' colors for the everyday `real world'.

Committee: Kristine Kearney (Advisor); Janet Parrott (Committee Member); A. Scott Parry (Committee Member) Subjects: Theater