Date of Award

5-2023

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

First Advisor

Tea Alagic

Second Advisor

Caden Manson

Abstract

Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries morality plays were used by Christianity to teach their moral values to the community. Focused on the life of an individual human being, an “everyman” that represented all of mankind, morality plays followed the everyman’s innocence, fall, and penitential redemption. Using spectacle, dramatization, comedy, and satire, morality plays preached of the mortal inevitability of sin and the spiritual importance of repentance.

Utilizing the most well known morality play, Everyman, as a lens, I will be examining and analyzing the 2008 Ride The Cyclone as a modern day morality play that is reflective of our modern world. Through my analysis and comparison of plot and structure, moral values, and character analysis, I will prove that the character of choir member Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg is a modern day everyman plagued by the selfishness and pride that is rampant in our society, who can only be saved by witnessing the vices and the virtues of those around her, and identify the musical’s message and moral as a call for humanity in a time when we seem to have lost it entirely.

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