This thesis research aims to define, identify, and promote community theatre as a “third space” for disadvantaged youth. A third space is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “...the in-between, or hybrid, spaces, where the first and second spaces work together to generate a new third space. First and second spaces are two different, and possibly conflicting, spatial groupings where people interact physically and socially: such as home (everyday knowledge) and school (academic knowledge)” (Oxford Dictionary, 2021). For disadvantaged youth, the creation of a third space in the theatre can give them a safe environment away from issues they may have at home or at school, it can further their learning about themselves and others, and it can also help those youth feel a sense of belonging to a community larger than themselves. Because of these benefits, it is clear that performing arts programs can offer a great impact on disadvantaged youth; however, many theatre companies struggle to market their programming to said communities. This may be in part, due to low marketing budgets, no specificity in labor resources dedicated to youth programming, or ineffective marketing strategies and tactics.<br/>In order to ideate marketing recommendations for these organizations, primary research was conducted to determine the attitudes and beliefs revolving around youth participation in community theatre, as well as the current marketing strategies and tactics being utilized by programmers. Participants included program managers of youth theatre programs, as well as youth participants from several major cities in the U. S. The secondary research aims to better understand the target demographic (disadvantaged youth), the benefits derived from participation in arts programming, and marketing strategies for the performing arts. Following data analysis are several recommendations for the learning, planning, and implementation of marketing strategies for theatre programmers.

This thesis research aims to define, identify, and promote community theatre as a “third space” for disadvantaged youth. A third space is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “...the in-between, or hybrid, spaces, where the first and second spaces work together to generate a new third space. First and second spaces are two different, and possibly conflicting, spatial groupings where people interact physically and socially: such as home (everyday knowledge) and school (academic knowledge)” (Oxford Dictionary, 2021). For disadvantaged youth, the creation of a third space in the theatre can give them a safe environment away from issues they may have at home or at school, it can further their learning about themselves and others, and it can also help those youth feel a sense of belonging to a community larger than themselves. Because of these benefits, it is clear that performing arts programs can offer a great impact on disadvantaged youth; however, many theatre companies struggle to market their programming to said communities. This may be in part, due to low marketing budgets, no specificity in labor resources dedicated to youth programming, or ineffective marketing strategies and tactics. This research aims to provide tangible recommendations for youth programmers to better involve their target audience.

Music has consistently been documented as a manner to bring people together across cultures throughout the world. In this research, we propose that people use similar musical taste as a strong sign of potential social connection. To investigate this notion, we draw on literature examining how music merges the public/private self, the link to personality, and group identity, as well as how it is linked to romantic relationships. Thus, music can be a tool when wanting to get to know someone else and/or forge a platonic relationship. To test this hypothesis, we designed an experiment comparing music relative to another commonality (sharing a sports team in common) to see which factor is stronger in triggering an online social connection. We argue that people believe they have more in common with someone who shares similar music taste compared to other commonalities. We discuss implications for marketers on music streaming platforms.

For this Creative Project, I decided to explore the elements that set novellas apart from other genres and then experiment writing in the form. In doing so, I took into account three main categories: Plot Structure, Character Development, Style/Format, and then used my findings to write 45 pages of a novella titled Emmy and Me.

Especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic and age of social unrest in the United States, there has been an increasing need for comfort, yet the idea of comfort is quite vague and rarely elaborated upon. To simplify the idea of comfort and communicate the ideas around it effectively, I am defining comfort as a subset of escapism in which a person escapes to reduce or alleviate feelings of grief or distress. As companies rush to comfort their customers in this current state of uncertainty, marketers are pressed to identify people’s insecurities and comfort them without coming off as insensitive or trite. Current comfort marketing focuses on inspiring nostalgia in its customers, having them recall previous positive experiences or feelings to comfort them. Nostalgic marketing techniques may ease mild grief in some cases, but using them to alleviate severe distress probably will not be as effective, and has contributed to several seemingly out-of-touch “COVID-19 era” commercials.<br/>When addressing comfort, marketers should understand the type and hierarchy of comfort that they are catering to. Not all comforts are equal, in that some comforts make us feel better than others and some do not comfort us at all. A better understanding of how and why comforts change among different individuals, and possibly being able to predict the comfort preference based on a product or service, will help marketers market their goods and services more effectively. By diversifying and specializing comfort marketing using this hierarchical method, marketers will be able to more significantly reach their customers during “uncertain times.”

Filmmakers seek to create story pieces that are visually beautiful and engage the full attention of their audience. They typically abide by a 3-step process moving through pre-production, production, and post-production. Within each step, there are a series of tasks that need to be accomplished in order to reach the completed film. A successful film requires careful planning and strategy in pre-production, timely and decisive execution in production, and minimal unforeseen retouching in post-production.<br/><br/>Even though filmmakers have continued to follow the same formula throughout the decades, the filmmaking process has remained largely inefficient. It is extremely common for pre-production planning to be undercut, for production filming to run far too long, and for post-production VFX and editing to send the project over budget. These instances can cause major issues as the project is being finalized. In many scenarios portions of the project need to be reshot, the box office revenue isn’t enough to make up for extensive VFX retouching, or the project may never even come to fruition. <br/><br/>The reason for this recurring theme of films being over budget and out of time is quite simply that technology has made filmmakers lazy. “Fix it in post” is a disgustingly common phrase used in the film industry. It describes the utter abuse of computer retouching in the post-production phase of filmmaking. Despite working in an industry that seeks to entertain the human eye, filmmakers have become blind to all of the small mistakes that could cost them hundreds of hours and millions of dollars in the long run.