Grieshofer, Julia;
(2024)
Getting in and out of role:
What does the aesthetic work of acting entail and is resilience a central factor in the actor’s ability to perform?
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Actors’ creative work and its connection with resilience is a poorly understood process. This thesis aims to stablish a theoretical framework about actors’ creative work in connection with resilience and explore the mechanisms of the acting process and their links to resilience. A comprehensive literature review across multiple databases was conducted to identify studies examining the role of resilience in actors' mental health and creative process. Subsequently, a mixed-methods longitudinal design was employed to explore resilience among a sample of actors, evaluate the influence of wellbeing factors on resilience and reflective capacity, and delineate the mechanisms involved during the acting process. Six self-report questionnaires were administered to gather quantitative data on participants' resilience, wellbeing, and reflective capacity, while semi-structured interviews provided qualitative insights into these domains. This study pioneered a novel approach to understanding the acting process by delineating a four-stage creative arch and identifying the personal resources utilized by actors at each stage. Additionally, it revealed that resilience in actors was influenced by reflective capacity and wellbeing, and documented longitudinal changes following the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic. The thesis concludes that actors’ creative work is heavily reliant on their psychological capacities. Therefore, exploring resilience in relation to the creative process provides a foundation for evidence-based improvement in mental health support for actors. Examining resilience in relation to the creative work broadened our understanding in this respect and demonstrated that building resilience could help actors to function better professionally, even if it does not necessarily improve their mental health as initially stated.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Getting in and out of role: What does the aesthetic work of acting entail and is resilience a central factor in the actor’s ability to perform? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | Acting, creative process, resilience, reflective capacity, wellbeing, Covid-19. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10185164 |
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