Thomas Otway’s Classic, A Plot Discovered through my own theatrical adaptive process: an exploration of the relationship between power, gender, drugs, music, love, and violence. Conceptually, the piece was adapted into two worlds. The first, a blatant, elizabethan, contrastingly intense world of realism. The second, a black light neon fueled frenzy of storytelling through song and choreographed movement. The presence of these two worlds living side by side resulting in a deeper look at the effect of drug use on how we perceive our social, political, economic, and emotional climates. The proposed (and completed) time frame for adaption of the play is two semesters, followed by a semester of pre production, casting, designing, directing, and producing. The show went up in the Prism Theatre through Binary Theatre Company April 12th, 14th, and 15th, with an extension to the next weekend by popular demand.
The purpose of this project stands: An idea that sparks a passion, idea, or question in the audience that ties directly into our current political discussion, while remaining integral to the academic world, serving as one of the most concentrated locations of permission to think openly and ask difficult questions. A Plot Discovered in particular achieves this by asking what it means to have power and to not, to be a man in another man’s world, to be a woman in any man’s world, to be neither really man or woman but somewhere in between, the consequences of dictatorship and revolution, why the human condition loves to get high, as well as the devotion and blindness of love on three different levels: friendship, romance, and family. These themes serve the script as it was written in all three of the applied timelines (it’s original 1600s, the adapted 1970s, and our current) leading to the biggest question of them all, do we as humans really evolve or is it a mere illusion painted by our ability to enhance the environment around us?
The desire to adapt A Plot Discovered came during a conversation with my peers during a semester spent studying classical drama at Oxford University. As we debated the themes of the play, a guitarist played post Vietnam War era music in the street below echoing up the cobblestone street and entering our dining hall window. The result was an artistic revelation that would drive my passion into this project for the next two years. Rewriting, designing, casting, directing, and reflecting upon A Plot Discovered has proved not only the most difficult but also the most rewarding event within my undergraduate studies.
View A Plot Discovered miniature documentary here: https://vimeo.com/325355612

During the time when contemporary feminism was gaining ground in the West, the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church promulgated the encyclical Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), articulating the Church's understanding of women to a culture in crisis. More than twenty-five years post-promulgation of the document, complex questions still linger on the international stage in the realm of femininity, motherhood, and the vocations of women in the world today. While several voices compete to answer these questions, the Catholic Church offers her expert understanding of woman \u2014 indeed, of the human person \u2014 rooted in over 2,000 years of Scripture and tradition \u2014 a comprehensive, life-giving anthropology at the service of Jesus Christ and humanity. In the face of a radically relativistic, ever-evolving culture that continuously presents new challenges and questions, we have the responsibility to assimilate St. John Paul II's teaching in Mulieris Dignitatem in order to cross new thresholds, to further a theology of femininity and "feminism" that all persons can embrace. This thesis examines these crucial issues through the lens of the Church's expertise, the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as the strengths and challenges of the encyclical, arriving at the conclusion that women bear the greater part in redeeming culture through a renewal of authentic femininity.