Jason E. Weber

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I hold an M.A. from Emerson College and B.F.A. from Marietta College. My research interests include digital performance, interactive performance spaces, alternate controllers, gestural design for the stage, experimental theatre, devised and collaborative theatre, and autoethnographic performance.

I presented my paper, "Creating Together: Defining Approaches to Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre" at the 2011 Mid-America Theatre Conference's Acting and Directing Symposium.

In addition to academia, I am a multimedia designer and theatrical director. I work primarily out of Boston. My recent credits include sound for "Ghost-Writer" at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, sound for "Love Person" at Company One, lights for "Black Tie" at the Adirondack Theatre Festival and sound/projections for "Spooky Story Station" an interactive performance installation at the Puppet Showplace Theatre.

I am currently designing multimedia environments for EVET Arts' forthcoming trilogy, "Trajectories," scheduled to open part one in Chicago this Fall.
Supervisors: Maureen Shea, Ph.D.
Phone: 1 (617) 398-0195
Address: East Boston, MA

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Papers by Jason E. Weber

Creating Together: Defining Approaches to Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre

Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Po... more Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre has developed into a major movement in contemporary theatre. However, scholarship in this area has been weak due to a reliance on anecdotal analysis rather than using a comparable rubric. For this paper, the processes of three Massachusetts-based devising companies were analyzed to define three different approaches toward collaboration and devising, and present new terminology to aid the discourse surrounding companies and groups that create work in a collaborative way.

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Talks by Jason E. Weber

My Town, Your Town, Our Town: Community Theatre and Autoethnography

Community Theatre, broadly defined as theatre created by amateurs with a similar geographic or so... more Community Theatre, broadly defined as theatre created by amateurs with a similar geographic or socio-‐economic background, has existed for centuries alongside Professional Theatre as a means for untrained individuals to express themselves through performative means. In contemporary practice, however, Community Theatre is more completely defined as a mimicry of professional practice. Theatres strip popular plays from their cultural milieu and insert them in a new world without consideration of the effects thereof, consequently failing to recreate the original power of the work. It is the aim of this paper to show that this failure has less to do with training and budget on behalf of the community theatre and more to do with disconnection with the core thematic content of the piece. Broadway productions, when originally conceived, convey the emotional and philosophical moment of the creators. The separation of time, distance, and experience by the later Community production robs the amateur production of the same power. The solution to this disconnect is to use theatrical production as a means for community groups to be introspective and to encourage them to create works that have a direct relationship to their own immediate experience. This autoethnographic approach to amateur theatre-‐making is crucial to providing Community Theatre participants with the ability for artistic expression. Looking at Medieval pageant plays as an historic basis for autoethnography in Community Theatre and showing how a similar approach in a contemporary context—specifically Maryat Lee’s 1985 Hinton Play with the West Virginia-‐based EcoTheatre and my own 2011 production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with Riverside Theatre Works of Hyde Park, Massachusetts—can result in expressive productions that reach the core of a community’s experience and serve to tap the inherent artistic potential within amateurs.

Basics of Lighting Design

Creating Together: Defining Approaches to Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre

Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Po... more Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre has developedinto a major movement in contemporary theatre. However, scholarship in this area hasbeen weak due to a reliance on anecdotal analysis rather than using a comparable rubric.For this paper, the processes of three Massachusetts-based devising companies wereanalyzed to define three different approaches toward collaboration and devising, andpresent new terminology to aid the discourse surrounding companies and groups that create work in a collaborative way.

Teaching Documents by Jason E. Weber

Collaboration Triangle

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Syllabus, "Exploring Contemporary Theatre," OLLI at UMass Boston (Spring 2011)

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Creating Together: Defining Approaches to Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre

Download

My Town, Your Town, Our Town: Community Theatre and Autoethnography

Basics of Lighting Design

Creating Together: Defining Approaches to Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre

Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Po... more Popularized by the Theatre-in-Education movement in England and the work of Jerzy Grotowski in Poland, Collaboratively-Generated Devised Theatre has developedinto a major movement in contemporary theatre. However, scholarship in this area hasbeen weak due to a reliance on anecdotal analysis rather than using a comparable rubric.For this paper, the processes of three Massachusetts-based devising companies wereanalyzed to define three different approaches toward collaboration and devising, andpresent new terminology to aid the discourse surrounding companies and groups that create work in a collaborative way.

Collaboration Triangle

Download

Syllabus, "Exploring Contemporary Theatre," OLLI at UMass Boston (Spring 2011)

Download

Jason E. Weber

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Papers by Jason E. Weber

Talks by Jason E. Weber

Teaching Documents by Jason E. Weber

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