Senior Thesis Archive
Learn more about past TDM thesis projects below. If available, information is provided for: student name, thesis title, thesis type (research paper or production - playwriting/design/performance), and brief description provided by the student. For production posters, please visit Past Senior Thesis Productions.
Claire L., The Fate of Poetry (production - performance - directing)
In 1948, on the eve of McCarthyism, a young woman wrestles between her hopes of becoming an artist and the fate that destiny has laid out for her in a single perilous night. Torn between her own passions and larger forces of the world, she puts everything familiar and known on the line. Inspired by Greek mythology, The Fate of Poetry is an original immersive play with music and dance that interrogates the determination, risk, and madness that comes with “following your dreams.”
Kayla B., Trace Origins (production - playwriting)
Two married women return to Brazil together to renew their wedding vows, but they quickly learn that their marriage has not been and never will be solely about them. A play about love and its absence, language and its absence, and cultural differences that are never absent; a play about persistence, loneliness, and growing old, as much as it is about happily ever after and the children that follow.
Avery H., An Actor Prepares? A Fictional and Non-Definitive Guide to Acting (production - performance - acting)
Inspired by Stanislavski’s An Actor Prepares, this senior thesis follows a student learning to act under the tutelage of an acting teacher specializing in being “real”. The thesis explores different techniques and lessons pioneered by 20th-century acting teachers while questioning what it means to train as an actor.
Cas L., while True (production - playwriting)
Amidst a quarter-life crisis, overachieving Chinese-American tech entrepreneur Sisi jets off to their ancestral motherland in search of connection and clarity. But when their nonstop flight to Beijing quite literally refuses to stop—trapping them in an endless time loop—reality begins to fracture, pulling them through visions of magpies, ideal selves, and the echoes of what-has-been and what-could-be. Blending sci-fi, mythology, and existential philosophy, while True is a meditation on the recursive nature of becoming.
Emma R., Out of Reach (production - musical playwriting)
High school is Penny’s chance to reinvent her image, a fresh start. Lorelei dreams of a simple, quiet life. When their paths cross, they can’t help but want what the other has. Facing the pressures of their peers, mothers, and social media, will these young women be able to uncover their authentic truth beyond our filtered realities?
Jonah S., Expectations (production - playwriting)
After years of unsuccessful auditioning in New York City, 26-year-old Margot returns to her childhood home to live with her parents. But when she receives a callback for a theatrical adaptation of Great Expectations, all bets are off. Racing against the dawn of adulthood and the pressures that it brings, she holes up in the attic to method act the role of Miss Havisham, a woman who has fashioned her entire life to remain trapped in a single moment of heartbreak. As fiction and reality begin to blur, so do past and present, ultimately offering the question: what happens when we can't outlive our own expectations?
Haley S., The Earthen Brothers; or, The Unmaking of the Übermensch (production - mixed media script)
It is a truth universally ignored that when young men of privilege gather in clandestine societies, they do so not to contemplate the virtues of justice and charity, but to conduct a far more enthralling experiment: to see how far they can go before the world—so tedious in its preoccupation with ethics—calls their bluff. This, in sum, is the predicament of Knox Wells, a bright young fellow who, by means of ambition, misplaced loyalty, and an unfortunate inclination to defer to those with deeper pockets, finds himself at the center of a most peculiar proceeding.
The evidence? A collection of artifacts, documents, and testimonials, each illuminating a different stage of his descent into the murky depths of the Earthen Brothers, a university society as exclusive as it is insidious. The charge? That he, with neither gun nor gallows at his back, walked willingly into a world of secrecy and subjugation, of ritual and reckoning, until at last he became not a mere participant, but a perpetrator. His defense? A narrative unraveled over two days, stitched together with memory, remorse, and the ever-convenient notion that human behavior, when viewed under the cold light of psychology, is less a matter of character than of conditioning.
This work takes the form of a trial—though the judge, jury, and executioner are none other than you, Dear Reader. As each piece of evidence is presented, borrowed from works of art that shape Knox’s mind as much as they shadow his deeds, you are left to decide: Is he victim or villain? Product of circumstance or architect of his own undoing?
Here is a work that refuses to resolve itself into a neat moral equation. It plays with form, offering not a simple tale but a fractured, ephemeral case file. It invites you to question whether the line between the accused and the accusers is, in the end, drawn with ink or with blood.
The trial is open. The evidence is before you. Now tell me—what will you make of Mr. Wells?
Nia W., Our Friend Lyssa! (production - playwriting)
Lyssa wants to host a dinner. Lyssa invites over five friends she hasn’t spoken to in awhile. Lyssa turns on the oven and sets the table. Lyssa hides a knife in her pocket. Lyssa is not herself tonight.
Kristian H., A Sweet Tea Communion (production - performance)
A Sweet Tea Communion is a one-woman show following a burnt-out church girl in search of liberation. Spoken word, comedy, dance, and song are woven together to push boundaries, conjure new histories, and let one's inner light shine.
Mireya S.-M., How to Kill a Goat and Other Life Lessons (production - playwriting)
How to Kill a Goat and Other Life Lessons is a joyous and unflinching exploration of growing up Mestiza in the New Mexico borderlands. It is queer, bilingual, musical, joyful, and raw.
Laura C., Falling Together (production - performance - dance)
Falling establishes a relationship between body and ground which defines identity in relation. Through their common theme of falling, this project combines the movement languages of breaking and Contact Improvisation, considering this defining nature of limits with the question, What does it mean to fall together? On a larger scale, through the lens of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the project examines collaborative strategies and accountability.
Karina C., Ugly Feelings (production - playwriting)
Ugly Feelings is an original thesis play that explores the questions of racial belonging that I have never answered and continue to seek out the answers for. What does it mean to belong? How can multiracial identity be informed by the racialization of spaces you occupy? How can identity be projected onto you by yourself versus by others? Enter the abstract world of angst, confusion, and teenage fantasy as two mixed-race Chinese American twins navigate growing up in a world where they’ve never quite felt like they belong.
Isaac H., Unbind this book, Unstitch this body (production - performance)
Each of the four performances that comprise Unbind this book, Unstitch this body are an opening: openings in my body, openings in time, and openings across archives. Threading through these openings are questions about how to hold space for and with the past. As people, places, moments, and objects accumulate and come into contact with one another over the course of these performances, they create their own weight, catching at the edges of each opening and gesturing to the kinds of transformations that this touch can allow.
Angel H., Horizon: The Bodies We Forget (production - performance - dance)
A past, present, and future exploration of and alongside the bodies we forget forms a choreographic performance focusing on movement research and improvisation, drawing from José Muñoz's queer futurity theory and the Japanese art form and philosophy of Butoh. Together we pour through a project of process — not an endpoint — which asks the creators and the audience to stretch their perceptions of time, space, memory, and agency.
Elaine K., The Metaphysics of Metamorphosis: Applying Conway and Cavendish’s Theories of Inter-Species Change to Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (production - playwriting)
Ryan M., Mi Niño Bueno (production - scriptwriting)
A bilingual play that celebrates the joys and pains of living a life on the edge of in-between. Torn between Spanish and English, Queerness and Heteronormativity, American and Venezuelan, this exploratory piece dives into my personal story as a queer, FGLI Latino battling through life’s struggles alongside those I love most - my family and friends.
Kasia Z., A story from a room with a window overlooking a cemetery (production - performance - directing)
“What a brilliant idea! In a country without history... change history! Remake it from scratch!—in one fell swoop, by decree… just as the country was created... create it again…”
Structured as a guided tour around a museum space which quickly overflows with stories it cannot contain, with a chaos of a provincial Chilean high school and nostalgic memories of a Polish grandma and her Little Metal granddaughter, A story from a room with a window overlooking a cemetery creates a polyphonic story about the intertwined public and private history.
Nick A., Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (production - playwriting)
Shirley C., Chinatown, My Chinatown (production - performance)
Chinatown, My Chinatown is a one-woman one-act following four contestants vying for the Miss Chinatown USA 1966 crown. Loosely based on oral history interviews by real contestants and San Francisco Chinatown community members, Chinatown, My Chinatown screams, skips, and cheers alongside four fictional eighteen/nineteen/twenty-year-olds who stumble into the enchanting and disturbing glamor that impatiently awaits a lovely girl in a cheongsam.
Madi F., Dressed in White and Covered in Blood (production - playwriting)
Noah Gold, “National Socialism in Stone”: How the Nazi Thingspiel Movement Left Its Mark on the German Landscape (research paper)
Katie M., Sexy Girls and a Fish Contemplate Impermanence (production - playwriting)
Sexy Girls and a Fish Contemplate Impermanence is a new play where, as one might imagine, sexy girls and a fish contemplate impermanence. Wallow in the absurdity of the human condition. Become a God among fish or a fish among Gods. Fall in love. Die and be reborn. Laugh at some people making idiots of themselves. Taste the sweetness and devastation of a meaningful connection. These opportunities await you in this TDM thesis play reading.
Vincent P., Broadway’s Ticketing Revolutions: A Survival Analysis on the Effects of TKTS and Dynamic Pricing (research paper)
Molly P., l is for in lieu of; or lo and behold me (and then don’t let go) (production - playwriting)
an ode to things inexpressible / the willful attempt to express them
Julia R., Shimcheong: A Folktale (production - musical playwriting)
Shimcheong: A Folktale is a musical adaptation of the Korean folk-tale 심청전 or 맹인 남자의 딸 (“The Blind Man’s Daughter”) about a brave young woman who will do anything it takes to return home. When young Shimcheong dives into the vicious sea to save her father, she falls beneath the depths of the ocean to the magical Dragon Kingdom. 10 years later, Shimcheong sets out to escape, determined to do anything it takes to return home.
Rachel S.-S., Fun Home: An Abridged Adaptation of the Musical: Exploring the Artistic Intersection of the American Sign Language and Musical Theater (production - performance)
This bilingual, bicultural adaptation of the musical Fun Home, based on the 2006 graphic novel, traces the coming-of-age of lesbian author Alison Bechdel. The story concerns Bechdel's growing up in a family that owns a funeral home (nicknamed the “fun home”), her discovery of her own sexuality, her relationship with her closeted gay father, and her attempts to unlock the mysteries surrounding his life. As Fun Home progresses, the adult Alison is drawn deeper and deeper into her memories, finally entering them, desperate to reverse her father’s self-destruction. Numerous roles will be played simultaneously by both Deaf and hearing actors, with American Sign Language (ASL) at the artistic helm. This production is a reminder that the core of music is not sound, but expression, and aims to help bridge the Deaf and hearing worlds on and off the stage.
Ruva C., For Daughters of Ezili: Or, How to be a Black Girl and Find Love and Survive 101 (production - playwriting)
How do black women find love amidst structures and institutions that were meant for their destruction? I invite you to come witness this love story, where you will witness the fiercely beautiful and beautifully fierce goddesses of the Ezili pantheon guide young Anna through her own revelations about love.
Jaspreet K., Khaamosh Lakeerain: Reimagining and Dignifying the Undocumented Narrative (research paper)
Devonne P., Everworld (production - playwriting)
Everworld is a trip through the mind of a young woman named Sarah, as she and her family struggle with loss and abandonment. When Sarah finally confronts her grief, she discovers how the powers of memory and imagination can help her heal.
Elle S., RECORDED LIVE! The Great American Family Jukebox Cabaret (production - performance)
RECORDED LIVE! The Great American Family Jukebox Cabaret, written by and starring Elle Shaheen, is a tribute and testimonial to the legacy of family. This televised special features Elle’s grandfather, Billy Shaheen, and the generations who came before and after him. The Cabaret highlights formative women in Billy's life and is performed by his first grandchild, Elle, on the precipice of graduation as she wrestles with this critical transition from youth to independence. Embark on a walk back in time with the music of Sophie Tucker, Peggy Lee, Chuck Jackson, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Carole King and the Drifters, Michael Bublé, and Billy Joel. In a world reeling from isolation and loss, RECORDED LIVE! will comfort as it reminds you of the need for connection, the ties that bind, and love’s transcendent power.
Genevieve L., In the Beginning (production - performance)
Gregory L., SQUAD (production - performance)
Have you ever wondered about what happens behind the stage of a world tour? Gregory spills all the tea in his live memoire, SQUAD. As new friendships form and patterns emerge, Gregory is forced to explore the glamour of travel and the darkness of exclusion. This intimate piece combines storytelling with music from the Great American Songbook to create a fun and moving experience.
Marvin M. IV, Dear Deer Isle (production - playwriting)
João P.K.P., A Choreographic Contribution to the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons: The Narrative Interrupted in is it a bad time to talk? (research paper)
Abraham R., Camp (production - design)
Danny R., the weight of clouds (production - performance)
Eli T., Family Tunes (playwriting)
Julius W., Terminal Hip: An American Dream in HD (production - performance)
The one-man performance explores the history of the USA//conceptions of the American Dream through the medium of Mac Wellman's American language play and in the context of the historic American art collections at the Harvard Art Museums.
Ian A., : A Story Project (production - performance)
: A Story Project is a series of gatherings inspired by rituals of sharing space, food, and stories. The project will be hosted at 12 Holyoke St. in Cambridge, November 7th through the 11th. : A Story Project prioritizes play, presence, and nourishment in a space designed to uplift storytelling and generate radical presence.
Ali A., Baggage (production - playwriting)
Landy E., Co-Ed (production - playwriting)
Tiffany L., figures; (production - performance)
an immersive performance that explores groundlessness;
offers a space for holding on, letting go, mourning, and hope;
traverses space in a disorienting environment;
celebrates connection, agency, and identity;
mediates between figure and ground, personal and universal...
Mitch P., A Streetcar Named Desire (production - directing)
The Goat Exchange and Harvard's Theater, Dance, and Media present a radical new interpretation of Tennessee Williams' beloved classic A Streetcar Named Desire, widely considered the greatest American drama. This production weaves together media from the ground-breaking 1951 film staring Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh with live performance, music, and dance into a thrilling multimedia event presenting a profound contemporary perspective on this timeless story.
Jacob R., “The Comic Philosopher of Authentic Inauthenticity” (research paper)
Sarah R., Next To Normal (production - performance)
Next to Normal, a Pulitzer Prize winning musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, tells the story of a woman and her family’s struggle to “hold it all together” in the face of mental illness, trauma and loss. This moving and often irreverent musical provides an incomparable platform for conversations that expand understanding of debilitating mental illness and its effects on individuals and their families.
Inaara S., “The Entanglement of the GULLY BOY with Bollywood and the BJP” (research paper)
Ben U., 78th and West End (production - playwriting)
Julia B., Shirley (production - performance)
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said: “as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.” In collaboration with the Theater, Dance, and Media department, this look into the life of “America’s Little Princess” shares her incredible personal journey from Hollywood stardom to motherhood to international diplomacy. Featuring songs made popular by Shirley Temple, including “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” this show’s original take on a global sensation is an unforgettable story of ambition, fame, loss, and resilience.
Sarah G., lived experience (production - digital play script)
lived experience is a multi-media playwriting thesis. Weaving together language, images, sounds, colors, and video, this entirely digital script explores the world of dream logic, nightmares, what constitutes reality, and fractured consciousness.
Sam H., "Some Versions of American Pastoral: The Representative Laborer from Farm to Factory” (research paper)
Eliza M., Tis Pity She’s a Whore (production - performance)
“My reason tells me now that ‘tis as common
To err in frailty as to be a woman.” (IV.iii)
Annabella and Giovanni, a pair of siblings that are well-respected in Parma, are hopelessly in love and forced to fight for each other as society forbids their union.
‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore in the Loeb Ex seeks to explore gender, language, and the body: how the three are mapped onto each other to create violence and to blur the lines between public and private, harming female-bodied and femme-expressing individuals’ autonomy and safety.
Thomas P., Roy Loves America (production - performance)
Roy Cohn died of AIDS in 1986. It has been more than thirty years since his death, but his protégé now sits in the Oval Office. We live in Roy Cohn’s America, an America of political ruthlessness, of fabricated media spectacle, of power without meaning. This piece is about Cohn and the world he has left us, but it is also a reckoning with the queer utopian vision of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Roy Loves America is a TDM senior thesis directed by Thomas Peterson and created collaboratively with an ensemble of nine performers who tell the story through found and invented text, dance, music, media, and the joy of playing on stage.
Derek S., Columbinus (production - directing)
On April 20, 1999, two students entered their suburban high school in Colorado and opened fire on their classmates and teachers killing 15, including themselves. The actions of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine high school in the final spring of the 20th century has left us with more questions than answers today: how do two seemingly good boys from good families commit such an act? What are the environments we create in the school, in the house, interpersonally, etc that allow this to happen? And how do we ask the right questions, to prevent this from happening again? An ensemble cast of 8 will begin to tackle these questions in what is sure to be a wonderful and fulfilling challenge for the actors.
Aislinn B., Dryside (production - performance)
Dryside tells the story of two interracial couples fighting to survive in a city devastated by global climate change. The poor and minority population of the city has been disproportionately affected by the changing climate because they, like many others around the world, cannot afford to move out of a coastal city that has flooded as a result of rising world temperatures. Forced to confront their own powerlessness to help the people around them, the two couples search for what it means to make a difference in this chaotic world. Nature itself, represented by a chorus of Stars, attempts to put them on the path towards salvation but the four still struggle to live out the destinies imagined for them.
Morgan M., Aloha, Say the Pretty Girls (production - performance)
In this quirky ensemble play, 10 people struggle to discover who they are and where they belong in a chaotic and fast-paced world. Vivian is recently divorced and looking for a new start. Derek is trying to write the next great American novel. Martin is a dog…Or is he? Join these characters and many more as they travel from New York City to Alaska, Hawaii, and beyond in search of themselves and their tribe.