Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection

This creative project is a short story in the Gothic genre followed by an explanation of certain literary elements and decisions. The Gothic genre often explores supernatural and uncomfortable topics that can challenge the reader’s perception and understanding of the world. Through this means of storytelling, authors are given the opportunity to connect the supernatural with complex and sensitive topics that may be difficult or even taboo to speak about in certain locations and time periods. In this thesis, I embrace the traditions of the Gothic-genre with a story that focuses on the issues prevalent today. The years 2020 and 2021 have been unprecedented times for humanity. Technology continues to grow at an alarming rate, suicide rates of young people have been on the rise for years, and a global pandemic has people adapting to all new ways of living. During these ever changing times, it is the Gothic that may provide guidance through these uncertainties by shedding light on the problems that will plague humanity both today and tomorrow. The story follows an outcast from society who aids in the creation of a divine monster, and the consequences that follow.

For my creative project/thesis, I gave a fully rehearsed, fully performed hour long recital using rare baseball music I researched, hunted down, studied, practiced, and then performed in a recital setting. I used my long history with and personal knowledge of Baseball, as well as my newly studied knowledge of and newly acquired skills with Musical Theater, Opera, and Voice to make a project that celebrated both my past achievements and what I learned with my performance degree these last 4 years. I, in total, learned 16 new songs and performed each of them back to back to back, with breaks in between each set and an intermission, as well as brief histories and summaries of each song or each song set. I then performed the recital on February 25th in the ASU School of Music Recital Hall, and invited as many friends, peers, colleagues, and family members as I could to attend, while also sharing the streaming and subsequent recording online as well. I was accompanied by pianist Stephen Kuebelbeck on piano, and the two of us spent hours upon hours rehearsing in addition to performing the recital itself. My thesis director, Carole FitzPatrick, helped me with all the vocal technique, song selection, memorization, recital approach, and planning out the logistics of my recital, while Dr. Kay Norton helped me with research such as song selection, history of the pieces, history of the composers, and historical context of the pieces. While this is an unconventional project, I feel like it best reflects my unconventional major. It gives me both advanced knowledge on a niche in my field of performance, provides me with rehearsed music that I love and can use and carry forward into most any concert or performance setting, and provides me with personal artistic satisfaction by combining together two worlds I dearly love and am a part of, in a creative way. It also gives me the irreplaceable experience of putting together my own recital (completely outside of class and on my own time), as recital performances will hopefully become a regular part of my life as a singing performer.