Date of Completion

2023

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Theatre

Thesis Type

Honors College, College of Arts and Science Honors

First Advisor

Zeina Salame

Second Advisor

Sara Nelson

Third Advisor

Steve Budington

Keywords

theatre, scenic design, set design, queer, design

Abstract

The play Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee emphasizes challenges to established suburban norms of straight white masculinity, what it means to be a family, and how it feels to be home for the holidays.

In my scenic design for the Royall Tyler Theatre’s production in 2022, I used personal experience as a middle-class, queer white woman to shape the familiar suburban living room into a simulated, queered display to explore empathizing with the straight white male characters of the show, and those who the audience may know in real life. My fellow collaborators and I had the opportunity to explore identity and suburbia, build a space which is often exclusionary and imbue it with care, queerness, and empathy.

Through the construction of a heterosexual home, I discovered things about scenic design, myself as an artist, and the importance of representation in cultivating healthy creative spaces for non-straight, non-white, and/or non-men.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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