b'Sustainability on the StageAbby E. GillSponsor: H. Duke Guthrie MFATheatre is not exactly known as the paragon of green energy. Throughout the production process, reams of paper are used and then promptly refused or shredded. Many props and costumes are made for specific moments, characters, and body types, making repurposing a challenge. Scene shops will destroy and discard entire sets after closing a show, and environmentally friendly alternatives to tried and true methods can be costly. Despite all of this, we are deep in the midst of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, where theatre is changing more rapidly than ever. During this time of change, we can ask what can we do better? Reducing, reusing, and recycling is difficult in an industry that creates only the illusion of reality, yet many theatres have already begun finding alternatives. To make theatre more sustainable, one must first research existing green initiatives in the theatre industry, the legality of these initiatives when considering artistic integrity and copyright law, and green representation in theatre-based unions.Hidden Figures and African American Women in STEM Fields of StudyBenjamin T StricklandSponsor: Dr. Nicole CoxThis paper takes a cultural studies approach towards analyzing the feature-length film Hidden Figures starring Taraji Hensen, multiple award nomination recipient Octavia Spencer, and Kurt Cosner, and directed and co-written by Theodore Melfi. The media text follows the story of three African American women hired as computers for NASA during the early stages of the Space Race, which took place in the 1960s. Each of the women challenged the intersectional discrimination of the time in different ways all related to the STEM field. The paper covers how Melfi created personifications of the socionormative hierarchy of intersectional discrimination within the confines of NASAs Langley Research Center and how characters personify the proponent and opposition of the socionormative hierarchy. The paper delves into the journeys of each of the three main characters opposing the discrimination by addressing each of the different tiers of the hierarchy and taking action towards society, outside of the storys main boundaries.26'