Smiling Inside: Routinization, Representation, and Rat Race

Eric Jakobsen

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

Second Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Myhill, Nova

Keywords

Disney, Theme Park, Theater, Sociopolitical, SITI Company, Smith, Anna Deavere, Suzuki, Tadashi, Verbatim Theater

Area of Concentration

Sociopolitical Theater

Abstract

While theme park characters are recognized throughout the world, the people playing them remain largely hidden due to express corporate policies. This thesis investigates emotional labor, representation, routinization, and other social issues at play in theme park work. These issues are addressed in an analysis of informal interviews conducted with theme park workers and also in a theatrical piece that derives most of its text from the same interviews and was created using techniques of Anna Deavere Smith, Tadashi Suzuki, and Anne Bogart/SITI Company. The final piece presents the workers' stories and experiences, while simultaneously engaging the difficult issues surrounding such an attempt at representation.

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