Resource Guide for Theatre
Contact:
Jack Levine
,
Acquisitions Librarian
Getting Started
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Encyclopedias, Dictionaries, and Handbooks
Dramatists Sourcebook
Ref PN 2289 .D73 2006
Directory of all kinds of resources for playwrights, performers, and technicians.
Cambridge Guide to Theatre
Ref PN 2035 .C27 1996
Long articles, international coverage.
A Pictorial History of the American Theatre; 100 years: 1860-1960
Oversize PN 2266 .B585 1960
Collection of photos on American theatre history.
Oxford Companion to American Theatre
Ref PN 2220 .B6 2004
Includes notable American authors and performers, companies, and play synopses.
Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre
Ref PN 2860 .C35 1997
Good geographical and ethnic emphasis.
Oxford Companion to the Theatre
Ref PN 2035 .O9 1983
Covers all aspects of theatre from ancient times to today. The concise version is available from Oxford Reference Online.
International Dictionary of Theatre
Ref PN 2035 .I49 1992
Includes plays, playwrights, actors, directors, and designers, historical and contemporary. International coverage.
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama
Ref PN 1625 .M3 1984
Mostly biographical, but includes articles on regional and ethnic drama.
Dictionary of the Theatre
Ref PN 2035 .P313 1998
Definitions and discussion of terms and concepts.
Contemporary Dramatists
Ref PR 737 .C57 1999
Good biographical and critical articles about living playwrights.
World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre
Ref PN 1861 .W67 1994
Lengthy articles for countries around the world.
Cambridge Guide to American Theatre
Ref PN 2221 .C36 1996
Historical slant, includes contemporary theatre.
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Indexes & Databases
Academic Search Premier (1975 - present)
Includes indexing and some full text for a few theatre and many general periodicals. For reviews of productions, search the title field for the title of the play.
Arts & Humanities Search (1975 - present)
Indexes general articles from over 1,100 arts and humanities journals. Includes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, reviews, etc.
Essay and General Literature Index (1985 - present)
Identifies essays and chapters in books. Search by subject by using playwright's last name, or on specific terms. General coverage.
Humanities Abstracts (1984 - present)
Humanities and Social Sciences Index Retrospective (1907 - 1984)
Indexes 300 core publications in the humanities. Search under name of playwright.
Index to Plays in Periodicals
Ref PN 1721 .K43 1990
Locates plays published in 267 periodicals through 1987.
International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance
Includes access to over 100 journals, books, and reference sources. Includes fulltext.
International Index to the Performing Arts (1864 - present)
Indexing and abstracts for over 160 international periodicals and newspapers on dance, theatre, music, film, and performance art. Abstracts are included only for those entries after 1997.
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism
A fulltext searchable database of articles on criticism and theory. Includes bibliographies.
JSTOR (Coverage varies)
Contains major research journals in a variety of academic disciplines, including theatre.
Lexis-Nexis Academic
Use this for access to current reviews in the New York Times. Includes a large number of fulltext newspapers and journals, including English-language international newspapers.
London Theatre Record
IMC PN 2596 .L6 L66 CD-ROM
Reviews of productions 1981-1990 in Britain.
Music & Performing Arts Portal
Brings together the International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) and the International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA) together in one site. Search both resources simultaneously to find articles on music, theatre, dance, television, film, and other performing arts.
MLA International Bibliography (1926 - present)
Online index to articles about plays.
New York Times Theater Reviews
Periodicals
Indexes reviews of Broadway plays.
Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections
Ref PN 1655 .O8 1988
Covers collections of plays published in England and the United States.
Play Index
Ref PN 1600 .P52
The best guide for finding plays in anthologies. Each volume has indices for casting and subject.
Project Muse
Searchable electronic archive of the fulltext of hundreds of journals in many subjects, including theatre. Coverage from 1993-. Connect from Library catalog, title search under Project Muse.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Use this database for access to reviews in historical newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe, among others. Coverage varies by title.
Theatre Record
Periodicals
Reviews of productions 1991+ in Britain.
WorldCat
The OCLC Online Union Catalog; over 24 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world. Includes books, journal and newspaper titles (but not references to individual articles), sound recordings, musical scores, films, manuscripts, etc. published in any year since about 1000. Includes Interlibrary loan button for easy borrowing from other libraries.
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Selected Websites
Webpage for the World Wide Web Virtual Library - Theatre and Drama Images
Links to images on other web sites.
Theatre History Sites on the World-Wide Web
Links to other web sites.
Theatre History Sites
Maintained by Jack Wolcott, formerly of U. of WA School of Drama.
The WWW Virtual Library page for Theatre and Drama
Theatre Resources
A collection of links of interest to theatre scholars and librarians. Maintained by the Theatre Library Association.
University of San Francisco Asian Theatre Site
A lot of links to stuff about Chinese, Japanese, Southeast Asian, and Asian American theatre.
Inter-play
An online index to plays in anthologies and collections. Note: call numbers refer to the PSU library, not Reed. You should verify call numbers in the Reed catalog.
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