Theatre: THE 292
Plays
- Play Index This link opens in a new windowAn author, title, and subject index to 30,000 plays from antiquity to the present that have been published in the US since 1949. Play Index covers a wide range of plays written in or translated into English, including mysteries, pageants, plays in verse, puppet performances, radio and television plays, and classic drama. Search for plays by title; author; subject (sisters, culture conflict, marriage); style (symbolism, experimental theater); genre (comedy, melodrama, musical); cast type; and more. Play Index includes plays published as single volumes and also plays in anthologies and collections.
- Theatre in Context This link opens in a new windowProvides information about plays, productions, playwrights and theater actors, companies, designers,and directors of North America. It links to texts of 5,000 plays and related information included in Asian American Drama, Black Drama, Latino Literature, North American Indian Drama, North American Women's Drama, Theatre in Video, and Twentieth-Century North American Drama. Continuously updated with new plays and information and productions and theater people. It includes some 40,000 pages of major reference materials, together with records to more than 30,000 plays, over 57,000 people, 5,400 theatres, nearly 22,000 productions and 2,500 production companies, and some 10,500 images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other resources.
- English Drama This link opens in a new windowEnglish Drama contains more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose from the late thirteenth century - the likely date of the Shrewsbury Fragments - to the early twentieth. It offers exhaustive coverage of the prodigious dramatic literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, as well as Restoration plays, medieval morality plays and mystery cycles, and nineteenth-century closet dramas. In addition to works by major dramatists such as Ben Jonson, Aphra Behn, William Wycherley, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Sheridan, Oscar Wilde and J. M. Synge, English Drama includes the dramatic writings of many more neglected writers long inaccessible in print form.
Online Reference Works
- Drama Online This link opens in a new windowThe Bloomsbury Drama Online platform provides access to playtexts, video recordings of staged performances, critical and contextual writings, and practical guides to performance and dramaturgy. Supports research in theatre and literary studies. Includes a tools for discovering monologues and play texts that fit selected criteria. Coverage of Shakespeare and British theatre is especially strong. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.
- Performing Arts - Oxford Reference CollectionSearches simultaneously in all of the Performing Arts titles in Oxford Reference Online, collectively covering theater, dance, music, and opera.
- Biography in Context This link opens in a new windowA full-text database of biographical information on people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.
- Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & CriticismLengthy articles, with bibliographies, on literary critics, schools, theories, and movements.
- Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Designed for undergraduate students, this contains information on literary figures from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more, drawn from these sources: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism (starting with vol. 95), and Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature. In addition it provides selected full-text, excerpted critical materials, articles from 260 literary journals, and links to selected websites.
- Shakespeare for Students: Critical Interpretations of Shakespeare's Plays and PoetryCollection of essays by Shakespeare scholars. Each entry includes a plot synopsis, character list, discussion of principal themes and historical context, and a critical overview for 27 plays and the sonnets.
Print Reference Works
Print reference books related to the study of Theatre are on the ground floor of King, in the IMC.
Here are a couple of basic titles that you might find helpful. This is a small sampling. Go to the IMC and browse this section for more reference works:
The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre ed. by Don B. Wilmeth. PN2221.C37 2007
The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama ed. by Gabrielle H. Cody and Evert Sprinchorn. PN1861.C65 2007 (2 vols.)
The Language of Theatre by Martin Harrison. PN2035.H297 1998
The Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook: An Actor's Guide to Over 1,000 Monologues and Scenes from More than 300 Contemporary Plays by Ed Hooks. PN2080.H665 2007
Online Newspapers with Theatre Reviews
- New York Times Historical This link opens in a new windowFull text of the complete run of New York Times from 1851 to three years ago, with page images, individual articles, ads, and illustrationss in downloadable PDF. It includes, and is searchable by, display and classified ads, cartoons, photos, maps, graphics, etc., editorials, obituaries, and commentary, as well as articles.
- Times Digital Archive, 1785-2010 This link opens in a new windowFull-text London Times. Coverage: 1785-1985.
- Nexis Uni This link opens in a new windowEnglish language, full-text news sources and foreign language news. Coverage: Varies for each publication, but earliest is 1980-
- Newspaper Source This link opens in a new windowIndexing for hundreds of newspapers, often but not always with full text. Coverage (varies by paper): Indexing 1979- ; full-text 1984-
- The New Yorker1925-2015
- The GuardianSearch for the name of your play. This doesn't have full text, but it does help you find articles that you can then order through interlibrary loan.
- Readers' Guide Retrospective This link opens in a new windowOxford campus users only. Index only to popular magazines (primarily United States) in the 20th century. 1890-1982.
- Newspaper Archives LibguideStill looking for reviews? You might find them in some of the newspaper archives listed in this guide.
Reviews in Books
- The New York times theater reviewsSome of these are in SWORD and some are in King Reference. The call number is PN2266 .N48
- A guide to critical reviewsKing Reference | PN2266 .S18
- Selected theatre criticismKing Reference | PN2277.N5 S44 1985
- New York theatre critics' reviewsKing Reference | PN2000 .N76
- Critics' theatre reviewsKing Reference | PN2000 .N76
Databases
These databases and indices are a good place to find journal articles relating to the study of Theatre. You'll find both scholarly articles and play reviews. I recommend starting with International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text or MLA International Bibliography first.
- International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new windowLists books and articles about about theater and the performing arts. The resources covered by IBTD include articles in scholarly journals, books, chapters in books, and articles in literary and theater magazines, published around the world and in several languages. Emphasizes theater-as-performance in contrast to the emphasis on literary criticism in the "MLA International Bibliography" and other literature and humanities indexes. IBTD does not list reviews in newspapers, magazines, or popular media.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowAn index to scholarly articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations published internationally on modern (Medieval to today) languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics (including composition and rhetoric since 2000). Coverage has varied but now includes literature from all over the world--Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. Folklore is represented by folk literature, music, art, rituals, and belief systems. Linguistics and language materials range from history and theory of linguistics, comparative linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and syntax to translation. Other topics include literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater), and history of printing and publishing. Works exclusively on classical Greek and Latin literatures are excluded. EBSCO coverage starts with 1926; the print edition starts with 1921. See also Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowCovers a wide range of full-text scholarly content, academic journals, primary sources, and e-books, across a wide range of subject areas. Also searches artwork in ARTstor. Collections I-X all campuses. Collection XI Oxford and Middletown campus users only. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowE-books and journals the Libraries have purchased through Project MUSE. The Libraries do not have access to all content available in Project MUSE.
- Drama Online This link opens in a new windowThe Bloomsbury Drama Online platform provides access to playtexts, video recordings of staged performances, critical and contextual writings, and practical guides to performance and dramaturgy. Supports research in theatre and literary studies. Includes a tools for discovering monologues and play texts that fit selected criteria. Coverage of Shakespeare and British theatre is especially strong. Users may encounter content in this database the library has not purchased.
- Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new windowHumanities International Complete is an index to articles (many full-text, online) in scholarly journals and literary magazines. Provides very good coverage of little magazines and literary reviews and, for 2000- , for scholarly journals in the humanities (history, literature, philosophy, and religion). Incorporates coverage formerly provided by the American Humanities Index (published by Whitston, 1975-2005).
- Humanities with Full Text This link opens in a new windowHumanities Full Text provides full text, abstracts and bibliographic indexing of the most noted scholarly sources in the humanities, as well as specialized magazines. Content includes feature articles, interviews, obituaries and original works of fiction, drama, and poetry, and periodical coverage dates back to 1910. The content encompasses all fields of the humanities, including art, classical studies, dance, film, journalism, philosophy, religion and more.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA broad index to periodicals, Academic Search Complete covers most academic areas of study, including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.
Your Librarian
Where is the article?
Click on the "Find it!" icon to find more information about where to get the actual article once you find it in an index or database.
If the article is available online, you will see a link to it.
If the article is available in print, you will see a library location (e.g. King Library) and a call number. Go to that library's periodicals section and look up the call number. Make sure you write down the volume, issue, and year of your article before you go.
If no copies are available, click on the link that says "InterLibrary Loan Options." Click on "Journal Article" and fill out the info. We will try to find the article for you and mail or email it to you.
Electronic Encyclopedias
Given the nature of your project, you will also be consulting broader historic and cultural sources. Some good encyclopedias include:
- World Book Online This link opens in a new windowA collection of primary sources, books, documents, selections fully integrated with encyclopedia content. Research and teaching tools include timelines, citation builder, and saved research.
- Oxford Research Encyclopedias This link opens in a new windowEncyclopedias written by world-class experts to provide subject overviews that can be understood in half an hour of reading or less.
- Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window3 simultaneous users. Oxford Art Online contains more than 45,000 articles on every aspect of the visual arts - painting, sculpture, graphic arts, architecture, decorative arts and photography - from prehistory to the present day. Includes the Grove Dictionary of Art, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2nd edition), The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.
- Oxford Very Short Introductions This link opens in a new windowConcise introductions to a diverse range of subject areas from Climate to Consciousness, Game Theory to Ancient Warfare, Privacy to Islamic History, Economics to Literary Theory, offering a bridge between reference content and higher academic work. All titles provide introductions to a huge range of subjects written by experts in the field.
Other Online Resources
- Billy Rose Theatre CollectionThe Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public.
- The Internet ArchiveInternet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
- Federal Theatre Project, 1935 to 1939This online presentation includes items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured here are stage and costume designs, photographs, posters, playbills, programs, and playscripts.
Links to Theatre Collections Online
- Digital Collections in Performing ArtsAn excellent website by theatre historian Eric Colleary that lists digital collections in the performing arts.