Date of Award
5-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair/Advisor
Nic Brown
Committee Member
Clare Mullaney
Committee Member
Carol Collins
Abstract
Sarah Ruhl, as a contemporary American playwright, has established her career with a signature style of poetic playfulness. By blending poetry with playwriting, engaging with both poetic and theatrical constraints, Ruhl’s stage directions emerge as open-ended opportunities for staging. This essay approaches Ruhl through a disability studies reading to consider the ways in which her dramatic style invites new questions on playwriting and accessibility in theatre. This attention to accessibility is informed by disability studies writer and activist, Mia Mingus, and her notion of “access intimacy.” As Mingus’ access intimacy articulates access in terms of building community, this essay uses that framework to think of what Ruhl’s stage directions mean for theatre as a community as well. This essay functions as the production notes for a sample of playwriting that draws from research on Emily Dickinson’s poetry and status as a figure of disability.
Recommended Citation
Steck, Taylor, "Beyond “Muscular Blueprints”: Sarah Ruhl and Access Intimacy in Dramatic Writing" (2024). All Theses. 4319.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/4319