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Theater Arts

This guide lists basic resources for theater research.  For further assistance, contact Ed Teague, liaison for Theater Arts.


Library catalogs

  •  UO WorldCat - Find books and other resources owned by the UO Libraries and throughout the world.


Reference dictionaries, encyclopedias

Dictionaries and encyclopedias provide information that ranges from basic facts and figures to scholarly articles. These reference works can assist in refining the scope of a paper or topic and often have bibliographies.

  • Performing Arts, Oxford Reference Online. -  Includes full-text, searchable versions of the Oxford Companion to American Theatre, Oxford Dictionary of Dance, International Encyclopedia of Dance, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Oxford Companion to Music, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, Who's Who in Opera, Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, Concise Oxford Companion to Theatre.  

  • Biography and Genealogy Master Index is one of many titles  listed in the library guide,  Finding Biographical Information
  • Contemporary Authors -- biographical and bibliographical data on more than 120,000 authors
  • Gale Virtual Reference Library includes a wide range of full-text encyclopedias with images, including Dictionary of American History (10 v.), Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Contemporary Fashion.   International Dictionary of Theatre. v. 1, Plays. v. 2, Playwrights. v.3, Actors, directors, and designers.  KNIGHT REF PN2035 .I49 1992 v.1-3.
  • Oxford Reference Online collection contains over 120 full-text Oxford reference sources in dozens of subjects.
  • Oxford Art Online includes Grove Art Online, Encyclopedia of Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics.  Oxford Music Online includes Oxford Dictionary of Music and Grove Music Online.


Articles & more

Use an index to find articles in journals, newspapers, or magazines. Most are available as databases. Once you have retrieved an article citation, you'll need to verify that UO has the journal that holds the article if it is not obviously identified as full-text.  Clicking on the  FindText which appears with citations helps you locate an item.  Multi-database searching is a feature that can be employed.  UO WorldCat also includes article citations.

  • Academic Search Premier - An interdisciplinary journal index. Full-text of over 1,250 journals is available from 1990 to the present. In addition, indexing and abstracts are provided for nearly 3,000 journals from 1984 to the present.
  • American Periodical Series - consists of digitized reproductions of more than 1,100 periodicals that first began publishing between 1740 and 1900. Includes special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines, and many other historically significant periodicals.
  • International Bibliography of Theatre. REF KNIGHT Z 6935 .I53 1983-1999. - Annual  index for theatrical journals, international in coverage. It also covers most drama journals, and includes references to books.
  • LexisNexis.  Provides access to five billion searchable documents from more than 40,000 legal, news and business sources.  Good for reviews and more.
  • MLA International Bibliography - Indexes articles about drama and theater. Does not cover technical theater topics, nor does it include reviews of productions.
  • New York Times (1851-2004). Provides the full text, with images, of articles published in the New York Times from its first issue in 1851, up to three (3) years prior to the current year. Searchable by keyword, subject, author, and article title. Includes advertisements.


Plays, Dramatic Criticism

Plays are listed in the Library catalog by author, title, and subject.  Plays are sometimes complied into anthologies.  Catalog searches for plays can be narrowed by terms such as 'one-act', 'monologues', etc.

Guides
  • IInternet Broadway Database (IBDB). Provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theater until today.
  • Doolee (doolee.com)  Extensive database of modern playwrights and plays written in or translated into English since in 1956.  Includes c. 30,000 playwrights and 100,000 plays, with access points by author, title, and number of male & female roles.
  • Inter-Play: an On-line Index to Plays in Collections, Anthologies, and Periodicals. Contains more than 18,000 entries for plays searchable by author and/or title. Cites PSU call numbers of sources for the texts of plays.
  • The London stage, 1660-1800; a calendar of plays, entertainments & afterpieces, together with casts, box-receipts and contemporary comment. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960-68.  KNIGHT REF PN2592 L65.  Basic reference  for 18th century theater compiled from newspapers, playbills, and contemporary theatrical diaries.
Full-Text Sources, Non-Print
  • American Variety Stage. Multimedia anthology from Library of Congress holdings illustrating popular entertainment, 1870-1920.  Includes scripts, playbills, motion pictures, recordings.
  • Early English Books Online (EEBO).  Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700
  • Eighteenth Century Collecction Online (ECCO).  Use Eighteenth Century Collections Online to access the digital images of every page of books published during the 18th Century. With full-text searching of millions of pages, the product allows researchers new methods of access to critical information in the fields of history, literature, religion, law, fine arts, science and more.
  • Three Centuries of Drama.  Microprint collections include thousands of plays
    • Three Centuries of Drama: American. Microprint 812.08 T413. Henry W. Wells, Editor. Finding aid: Three centuries of English and American plays, a checklist. England: 1500-1800, United States: 1714-1830 (REFERENCE Z2014.D7 B45 1963a).
    • Three Centuries of Drama: English. Micropint 822.08 T413. Henry W. Wells, Editor. Finding aid: Three centuries of English and American plays, a checklist. England: 1500-1800, United States: 1714-1830(REFERENCE Z2014.D7 B45 1963a).
    • Three Centuries of French Drama. (MICROCARD 842).
Criticism, Reviews
  • See Articles section above
  • New York Theatre Critics' Reviews. 1940-1996.  KNIGHT REF PN1601.N4.   Theatre Reviews is a complete guide and record of the New York stage, reprinted from New York Sun, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York Post, New York Daily News, New York World Telegram (1940-); reprinted from the New York Daily News, Wall Street Journal, Time, New York Post, Women's Wear Daily, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Newsweek.
Production histories
  • Internet Broadway Database (IBDB). 
  • American Theatre Companies, 1749-1887. KNIGHT REF PN2237 .A43 1986
  • American Theatre Companies, 1888-1930. KNIGHT REF PN2256 .A44 1987
  • American Theatre Companies, 1931-1986. KNIGHT REF PN2266 .A54 1989
    Provides history of the company and includes listing of productions for each season. Each entry has a bibliography for further research. Use the title index to determine which companies performed particular plays.
  • British Playwrights, 1880-1956: A Research and Production Sourcebook. REF PR736 .B7 1996
  • British Playwrights, 1956-1995: A Research and Production Sourcebook. REF PR736 .B75 1996
    Lists first production, runs of significant productions, and important revivals. Summarizes published criticism of the productions. Also includes biographical information, assessment of the playwright's career, archival sources, and bibliographies of primary and secondary sources.
  • The London Stage, 1660-1800. KNIGHT REF PN2592 .L6 (11 vols.)
    A calendar of plays, entertainments & afterpieces, together with casts, box-receipts and contemporary comment.
Cultural Context
  • Starting Research in History is an online guide with links/references to key library resouces that lead to an understanding of the historical contexts of plays.   


Images & sound


DVD's & Videos

This guide, Videos & Music, helps you identify the Library's extensive resources in these formats.


Performing arts web portals

Maintained by Ed Teague, ehteague@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 10/16/2009