Undergraduate student Tiara Partsch directs this senior thesis show, a performance of the devised work, People Are Things.

Sylvie is a woman like any other. She does not cry when her husband leaves her; in fact, she does not say a word – that is, until she slips a knife in her bag, before heading out to work.

As she navigates presence, absence and their respective boundaries, Sylvie finds herself on the edge of the world: although no one really gets hurt, this story deals in all-absorbing violence, the silent kind: the kind which Sylvie finds in every area of her life, her marriage, her house, her employer – an existential violence she attempts (and fails) to contain and define. People Are Things is a study of silence. The aura of it; the sound it might long for at night.

Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance: Directing.