‘Waving through a window’: Nostalgia and prosthetic memory in Dear Evan Hansen

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsey R. Barr
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
Dramaturgical Analysis ◽  
American Musical Theatre

Dear Evan Hansen, a popular Broadway musical whose narrative centres on connectivity and the protagonist’s social anxiety, offers a disruptive potential to the otherwise standard nostalgic leanings of the contemporary American musical. Operating dramaturgically, nostalgia offers the audience an opportunity to recall an idealized past that imbues the musical they are witnessing with their own positive affect. Dear Evan Hansen’s use of prosthetic memory disrupts the nostalgic tradition of the contemporary musical. Using dramaturgical analysis to identify the narrative operation of nostalgia and prosthetic memory, this article situates the disruptive potential of Dear Evan Hansen as an intervention into the American musical theatre canon writ large.

The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
American Musical Theatre ◽  
Opera Houses

This book examines the scope and ambition of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals by drawing on the perspectives of musicological and dramaturgical scholars, literary and film critics, and musical theater practitioners. Consisting of twenty-seven essays, it analyzes Sondheim’s radical re-invention of the artistic form of the Broadway musical in response to various traditions of artistic innovation and popular entertainment and how his work with several collaborators has radically transformed the history of American musical theatre. It explores problematic questions of authorship peculiar to the cultural milieu of Broadway musical theater by focusing on intertextuality in works ranging from Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth (1970) to the film Hangover Square (1945) and Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion. It also probes the dramaturgical technique of songs that enable comic performers to act out the logic of character and plot in a meta-theatrical style and discusses the notion of the musical as a performance event, patterns of interpretation in the repeated performance of Sondheim’s musicals in the United Kingdom, the pleasures and challenges of performing these musicals in international opera houses, Sondheim’s work for cinema and television and his “cinematic” approach to musical theater, and his subtle and often ironic exploitation of genre conventions such as pastiche and parody. Finally, the book considers questions of cultural, political, and personal identity raised by Sondheim’s musicals in relation to contemporary American society.

scholarly journals Social dominance and multiple dimensions of psychopathology: An experimental test of reactivity to leadership and subordinate roles

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0250099
Author(s):  
Sheri L. Johnson ◽  
Benjamin Swerdlow ◽  
Jordan A. Tharp ◽  
Serena Chen ◽  
Jennifer Tackett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Manic Symptoms ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Severity Of Depression ◽  
Subordinate Role

Background Theory and research suggest that social dominance is important for multiple forms of psychopathology, and yet few studies have considered multiple dimensions of psychopathology simultaneously, and relatively few have used well-validated behavioral indices. Method Among 81 undergraduates, we used a well-validated experimental approach of assigning participants to a leadership or subordinate position, and we examined how self-rated severity of depression, social anxiety, manic tendencies, and psychopathy relate to psychophysiological and affective reactivity to this role. Results Consistent with hypotheses, manic symptoms related to more discomfort in the subordinate role compared to the leadership role, as evidenced by more decline in positive affect, more discomfort, and a larger RSA decline, while depression symptoms related to a more positive response to the subordinate role than the leadership role, including more positive affect and more comfort in the assigned role. Social anxiety was related to discomfort regardless of the assigned role, and those with higher psychopathy symptoms did not show differential response to assigned roles. Limitations Findings are limited by the mild symptom levels and absence of hormonal data. Conclusions Findings provide novel transdiagnostic evidence for the importance of social dominance to differentiate diverse forms of psychopathology.

scholarly journals Digital Biomarkers of Social Anxiety Severity: Digital Phenotyping Using Passive Smartphone Sensors

10.2196/16875 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. e16875 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas C Jacobson ◽  
Berta Summers ◽  
Sabine Wilhelm
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Symptom Severity ◽  
Anxiety Symptom ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Digital Phenotyping ◽  
Passive Sensor ◽  
Digital Biomarkers

Background Social anxiety disorder is a highly prevalent and burdensome condition. Persons with social anxiety frequently avoid seeking physician support and rarely receive treatment. Social anxiety symptoms are frequently underreported and underrecognized, creating a barrier to the accurate assessment of these symptoms. Consequently, more research is needed to identify passive biomarkers of social anxiety symptom severity. Digital phenotyping, the use of passive sensor data to inform health care decisions, offers a possible method of addressing this assessment barrier. Objective This study aims to determine whether passive sensor data acquired from smartphone data can accurately predict social anxiety symptom severity using a publicly available dataset. Methods In this study, participants (n=59) completed self-report assessments of their social anxiety symptom severity, depressive symptom severity, positive affect, and negative affect. Next, participants installed an app, which passively collected data about their movement (accelerometers) and social contact (incoming and outgoing calls and texts) over 2 weeks. Afterward, these passive sensor data were used to form digital biomarkers, which were paired with machine learning models to predict participants’ social anxiety symptom severity. Results The results suggested that these passive sensor data could be utilized to accurately predict participants’ social anxiety symptom severity (r=0.702 between predicted and observed symptom severity) and demonstrated discriminant validity between depression, negative affect, and positive affect. Conclusions These results suggest that smartphone sensor data may be utilized to accurately detect social anxiety symptom severity and discriminate social anxiety symptom severity from depressive symptoms, negative affect, and positive affect.

scholarly journals Digital Biomarkers of Social Anxiety Severity: Digital Phenotyping Using Passive Smartphone Sensors (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas C Jacobson ◽  
Berta Summers ◽  
Sabine Wilhelm
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Symptom Severity ◽  
Anxiety Symptom ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Sensor Data ◽  
Digital Phenotyping ◽  
Passive Sensor ◽  
Digital Biomarkers

BACKGROUND Social anxiety disorder is a highly prevalent and burdensome condition. Persons with social anxiety frequently avoid seeking physician support and rarely receive treatment. Social anxiety symptoms are frequently underreported and underrecognized, creating a barrier to the accurate assessment of these symptoms. Consequently, more research is needed to identify passive biomarkers of social anxiety symptom severity. Digital phenotyping, the use of passive sensor data to inform health care decisions, offers a possible method of addressing this assessment barrier. OBJECTIVE This study aims to determine whether passive sensor data acquired from smartphone data can accurately predict social anxiety symptom severity using a publicly available dataset. METHODS In this study, participants (n=59) completed self-report assessments of their social anxiety symptom severity, depressive symptom severity, positive affect, and negative affect. Next, participants installed an app, which passively collected data about their movement (accelerometers) and social contact (incoming and outgoing calls and texts) over 2 weeks. Afterward, these passive sensor data were used to form digital biomarkers, which were paired with machine learning models to predict participants’ social anxiety symptom severity. RESULTS The results suggested that these passive sensor data could be utilized to accurately predict participants’ social anxiety symptom severity (<i>r</i>=0.702 between predicted and observed symptom severity) and demonstrated discriminant validity between depression, negative affect, and positive affect. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that smartphone sensor data may be utilized to accurately detect social anxiety symptom severity and discriminate social anxiety symptom severity from depressive symptoms, negative affect, and positive affect.

The Collector's Guide to the American Musical Theatre

1985 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Doris E. McGinty ◽  
David Hummel ◽  
Tom Fletcher ◽  
Jack Schiffman
Keyword(s):  
Musical Theatre ◽  
American Musical Theatre

Dinner Theatres

2019 ◽  
pp. 279-312
Author(s):  
Stacy Wolf
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
East Coast ◽  
The United States ◽  
Musical Theatre ◽  
Negative Response ◽  
Front Range ◽  
Hybrid Form ◽  
Road Trip ◽  
Broadway Musical ◽  
History Of

This chapter takes a road trip with the author and her sister to four dinner theatres in cities along the Front Range of Colorado. The first part of the chapter summarizes the history of dinner theatres in the United States and the negative response of critics in East Coast newspapers in the early 1970s when dinner theatres were invented and became popular. Critics accused dinner theatres of fostering middlebrow taste in both the theatrical repertoire and the food. Dinner theatres sprouted up in Colorado around ten years later, where they were welcomed by critics and then similarly disdained as proffering bad taste in the food and middlebrow taste in the theatre. Nonetheless, even as dinner theatres have all but disappeared across the United States, a handful of this hybrid form of restaurant and musical theatre remain successful in Colorado. Though many people have heard of dinner theatres, only in certain parts of the country can one experience this unique activity, which combines profit motives with community investment by way of the Broadway musical theatre repertoire. The chapter shows how dinner theatres are a boon to the local artistic community and how actors and audiences appreciate the dinner theatres in their region.

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