Theatre Arts 224: Theatre Traditions II: Romanticism Through the Present
About Research in Theatre
Remember that there are two acceptable English spellings, theatre and theater and that you may need to keep an eye out for both terms in your research. In many of the research databases, you can use the asterisk * as a truncation symbol, for example, theat* in LUCIA, and find all possible spellings.
The sources listed in this guide were chosen for the broad coverage they provide. Direct links are provided to Internet resources and searchable databases, as well as links to LUCIA, the library's online catalog. Be sure to check the library's Electronic Resources page regularly to see new databases and indexes; some of these will only be available to users on the Lawrence campus. Also, you may want to take a look at guides on related topics from the Library Research Guides page.
Evaluating the resources you find is an essential part of the research process. See this guide to hints on evaluation of books and articles and this guide to evaluating Internet resources.
As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.
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Background Information
Browsing the reference collection in the D call number ranges is a good way to find information on historical context. Among the reference titles you will find:
Encyclopedia of Romanticism: Culture in Britain, 1780-1830s. Laura Dabundo, et al, eds.
Ref. DA529 .E53 1992
Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era. Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast, eds. 4 vols.
Ref. [q.] DA550 .E527 2004
Books in the E call number ranges relate to American history.
Dictionary of American History. Stanley I. Kutler, ed. 10 vols.
Ref. [q.] E174 .D52 2003
Some general historical guidebooks that might be useful include:
Chronology of World History. H.E.L. Mellersh. 4 vols.
Ref. D11 .M39 1999
The People's Chronology: a Year-by-Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to the Present. James Trager.
Ref. D11 .T83 1994
The Timetables of History : A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events. Bernard Grun.
Ref. D11 .G78 1991
Who Was When? : A Dictionary of Contemporaries. Miriam Allen de Ford and Joan S. Jackson.
Ref. CT103 .D4 1976
Sources on Literature in General
Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia. Bruce Murphy, ed.
Ref. PN41 .B4 1996
Literature Resource Center
Use the Author search or the Advanced search. The title search doesn't always find everything you might want to see. In addition to biographical information, includes material from Contemporary Authors, the Dictionary of Literary Biography series, Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, and more.
The Harper Handbook to Literature. Northrop Frye, Sheridan Baker, George Perkins ; with a chronology of literature and world events by Barbara M. Perkins.
Ref. PN41 .F75 1985
Masterplots. Frank N. Magill, ed.
Ref. PN44 .M33 1976 12 vols.
Ref. PN44 .M33 1996 Expanded and updated version of the 1976 rev. ed. 12 vols.
Theater Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
The Book of 1000 Plays. Compiled and edited by Steve Fletcher and Norman Jopling with contributions from David Hallam ... [et al.].
Ancient Greece to modern. Organized by title of play. Plots summaries, date of premieres. Includes index to authors.
Ref. PN2054 .F54 1989
The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Martin Banham, ed.
Encyclopedia arrangement; no indexes. Illustrated. Good explanations of time periods. Entries on countries are quite lengthy. Good for historical background.
Ref. PN2035 .C27 1995
The Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre. Colin Chambers, ed.
Arranged alphabetically. Includes biographical information, theatrical terms, companies and theatres, national theatres.
Ref. PN2035 .C65 2002
Critical Survey of Drama. Frank N. Magill, ed. 8 vols.
Arranged by author. Extensive biographical information. Analyses of selected major plays plus a listing of other major works. Includes bibliographies.
Ref. PR1625 q.C68 2003 v. 1-8
The Crown Guide to the World's Great Plays, from Ancient Greece to Modern Times. Joseph T. Shipley.
Organized by author. Gives historical background and critiques. Some entries have synopses and descriptions of productions.
Ref. PN2054 .S45 1984
Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis.
Lengthy definitions of theater terms. Includes suggested further readings contained in the extensive bibliography.
Ref. PN 2035 .P2913 1998
The Ivan R. Dee Guide to Plays and Playwrights. Trevor R. Griffiths.
Focuses on playwrights from all time periods whose work is likely to be in performance today. Includes cross-references to other playwrights with related themes or interests.
Ref. PN2035 .G73 2003
Masterplots II. Drama Series. 4 vols.
Arranged by play title. Plot summaries and critical essay reviews.
Ref. PN44 .M33 1990
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama. 5 vols.
Entries for authors, styles, countries. "Extensive information about the surrounding context of performance." Criticisms listed in bibliographies. MANY illustrations.
Ref. PN1625 .M3 1984
Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Phyllis Hartnoll, ed. 4th ed.
Concise to lengthy entries on people, terms, theaters, countries, etc.
Ref. PN2035 .H3 1983
Theatre Language; A Dictionary of Terms in English of the Drama and Stage from Medieval to Modern Times. Walter Parker Bowman and Robert Hamilton Ball.
Short definitions of theater terminology.
Ref. PN2035 .B6
The World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatre. 6 vols.
Each volume covers a differeent region of the world; within volumes entries are arranged alphabetically by country and provide an overview of the contemporary theatre. Use the table of contents and the index.
Ref. PN1861 .W67 2001 v. 1-6
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Reviews of Productions
In addition to the sources listed here, be sure to look at the section of this guide on Articles. National newspapers such as the New York Times are excellent sources for reviews, as are the popular periodicals listed in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature. Also, be sure to search the library's online catalog for the author's name (last name first) as a Subject; you will find criticism and interpretation of the author's works.
A Guide to Critical Reviews. James M. Salem.
Ref. Z5782 .S34 vol. 3-4
Ref. Z5782 .S342 vol. 2-3
Ref. Z5782 .S342 1984 vol.1-2
Ref. Z5782 .S34 v.4 Suppl. 1963-80
LexisNexis Academic
Various dates; the Christian Science Monitor and the New York
Times have indexing back to 1980, with full text added at later dates.
Other papers are added dating mostly from the mid 1990's.
New York Theatre Critics Reviews. Microfilm, 1940-1957
New York Theatre Critics Reviews. Bound, 1970-1994
National Theatre Critics Reviews. Bound, 1995-1996
The library owns scattered issues of these publications, in print and on
microfilm. Publication ceased in 1996.
Microform Area
Periodicals Level A
New York Times. 1851-current.
The New York Times is on microfilm and on the web.
New York Times Index--Reference Indexes/Microform Area
New York Times (1851-2004)
Current issues available from many sources: see BESS
Theatre : Stage to Screen to Television. William Torbert Leonard.
More Theatre : Stage to Screen to Television. Alvin H. Marill.
Theatre--Ref. PN2189 .L44
More Theatre--Ref. PN2189 .L44 1993
Times (London, England). 1941-current.
The leading British paper. The Times itself is held
on microfilm.
Times--Microforms
Times index--Reference Indexes
Newspapers from ProQuest
Indexing and some full text for international English-language, national, and regional newspapers.
The World Wide Web is another good source of reviews, especially for smaller companies whose productions might not be reviewed in the larger newspapers. See the information below on Web Resources and the library's page on Searching the Internet for more help.
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Finding Books
To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. Try Title begins with, Author, Subject begins with or Keyword Anywhere searching.
Title begins with
These searches will let you see if we own an item whose title you already know.
Author
You can search the name of a playwright as an author to find works by the person named. Be sure to enter the last name first.
Subject begins with
Search the name of a writer as a subject to find works about the person's life and plays. Be sure to enter the last name first. You can also look for terms like drama. You will be referred to more subject headings. Be specific; there's a lot out there on drama. You can also use the Library of Congress Subject Headings for ideas on subject search terms; the five volume LCSH in print is located behind the Reference Desk on the library's first floor.
You should be aware that the Library of Congress Subject Headings use the spelling theater for general information: theatre is used when it is part of the proper name of a particular theatre, for example, Federal Theatre Project. A few specific headings that might be helpful:
- musicals
- musicals -- production and direction
- theater
- theater -- production and direction
- theater -- dublin
- theater -- england
- theater -- new york (city)
- -- dramatic production
- -- stage history
Keyword Anywhere
In this search, LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. Try a search for the phrase "stage history" using the quotation marks. You might want to try searching for some of the terms you find in the LCSH, or target your keyword search by using the Subject Keyword option. This tells LUCIA to look for the terms in the subject area of the records only. Compare a Keyword Anywhere search with a Subject Keyword search for (theater or theatre) and history.
Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.
Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.
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Finding Articles
The best index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options. Some of the indexes that will help with your research are spotlighted below.
Essential: this should be among your starting points for finding advanced secondary materials.
MLA International Bibliography. 1963-
The leading source for the field of literary studies. Wide ranging index to just about anything of a scholarly nature related to literature and language.
General and Multidisciplinary Indexes: include citations and some full text of materials from a broad variety of fields including literature and history. Some include current news articles and reviews of productions.
EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals, and will include reviews from major newspapers and journals.
Academic OneFile
A one-stop source for news and periodical articles on a wide range of topics. Includes full-text articles, many with images. 1980 - present; updated daily.
Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try the 
button to see if that particular article is available. You can also try Citation Linker, LUCIA, and
BESS, an
automated search of the library's full text databases, for electronic copies of articles.
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Web Resources
CurtainUp
"The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings."
Doollee.com
"...information on over 30,000 Plays produced or published in English since 1956..."
Internet Resources for Theatre and Drama
Links selected by the librarians of Mudd.
Lawrence University: Theatre Arts Department
The official site.
Milwaukee Repertory Theater Photographic History Mark Avery collection, 1977-1994
"The Milwaukee Repertory Theater Photographic History presents selected images of the plays
performed from 1977 to 1994. The digital collection includes 1,800 images documenting 195 performances."
Picture Collection Online
Select group of images from The New York Public Library covering over 12,000 subjects
including Costume and Design.
Playbill
"The national magazine of the theatre." Current issues and information. Also includes some reference information, like a list of long runs on Broadway and theatre seating charts.
TheatreHistory.com
Commercial site, but seems to have a wealth of information. Searchable and organized by categories, primarily by country. Be prepared for flashing ads.
Voice of the Shuttle.
One of the most widely used sources for information on the humanities and literatures.
World Wide Web Virtual Library: Theatre and Drama
Provides links to lots of resources, including online journals, image collections, and electronic texts.
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:
It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources. The library's Web Wise Guide to Searching give some helpful inside tips. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.
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Style Manuals
Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.
Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to
other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
The guide for any academic papers written in the literatures and languages.
RRef. LB2369 .G53 2003
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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:
Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready Reference, shelves behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and scores; at end of classes in other collections
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