Theatre Resources
A Resource Guide to Theater and Performance Research at the Library
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Finding Theater Resources in the ASU Library
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Generating and Using KeywordsOnce you have selected a topic for your research, the next step is identifying the keywords critical to describing your topic and generating more before you start searching one of the research databases.
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Theater OR Theatreworks of drama as acted on the stage
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Theaters OR Theatresworks on facilities used to stage drama
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Dramaworks of drama as a literary form
Key Databases
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Alexander Street Drama
Recordings of major dramatic works from the 19th to 21st centuries, featuring productions from Shakespeare to modern playwrights, and covering topics across multiple disciplines.
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Broadway on Demand
Streaming access to plays, musicals, dance performances, documentaries, masterclasses, and behind-the-scenes content that supports research and learning in theater and the performing arts.
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Digital Theatre+
A digital streaming collection of over 1000 full-length films of Shakespeare plays, modern dramas, classical music, dance, musicals, opera and adaptations of classic novels. Digital Theatre Plus includes behind-the-scenes documentaries as well as teaching and learning resources to facilitate a deeper understanding of the productions and texts. Learning resources include a detailed introduction, plot summary, character biographies, a relationship map, language analysis, scene study, performance background and historical context for each play.
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Drama OnlineA research database that combines playtext content and scholarly publications with filmed live performances, film adaptations and audio plays. This database is intended for drama and literature students, professors and teachers.
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Gale Literature Resource Center
Includes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from all literary disciplines, providing full-text access to journals, primary works, up-to-date analysis, and reviews to support literary research and critical thinking.
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International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text
In‑depth, expertly indexed coverage of theatre and dance scholarship enriched with full‑text access to leading performing‑arts journals and monographs.
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National Theatre CollectionCoverage: 2010-
Maximum Concurrent Users: Unlimited
A streaming video collection of thirty recent productions by the Royal National Theatre (London, England). Productions include Greek theatre (Antigone by Sophocles and Medea by Euripedes), William Shakespeare (Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello and Twelfth Night), classic European (Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard) and American (A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) plays, adaptations of novels (Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island), comedies and new writing. -
Performing Arts Periodicals DatabaseCoverage: 1864+
Maximum Concurrent Users: Unlimited
The Performing Arts Periodicals Database (formerly known as International Index to Performing Arts) includes both abstracts/indexes and full text publications, and is a comprehensive guide to the journal literature on performing arts – drama, theater, dance, film, television, and more – and a dynamic resource for the performing arts information and research community. -
Theatre in Video
Contains more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 100 film documentaries, online in streaming video.
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Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive (Gale Primary Sources)
Covers books, plays, films & exhibitions. Weekly book reviews discuss fiction, poetry, history, politics, philosophy, travel, archaeology, classics, music, etc. Special issues cover the U.S.A., China, Japan, the Middle East, France & Germany.
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Online Journal SubscriptionsLinks to ASU Library subscriptions to Online Drama or Theater journals
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EbooksLinks to ASU Library subscriptions to Theatre or Drama Ebooks
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Academic Search Ultimate
Access to popular press magazines and peer-reviewed scholarly journals across various academic disciplines, including open-access journals and historic Associated Press videos.
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Alt-PressWatch
Access full-text articles from selected independent newspapers, magazines, and journals offering alternative perspectives on local, national, and international issues.
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Nexis Uni
Find full text of various newspapers, trade publications, legal periodicals, and journals. Includes company directories, financial reports, biographies, federal/state laws, regulations, court opinions, and news transcripts.
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Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (H.W. Wilson)
Indexes articles from the most popular general-interest magazines published in the U.S. & Canada. Covers all subjects & such general news areas as current events, business, fashion, politics, crafts, education, history, sports, food, & science. The retrospective database covers the years 1890-1982 and includes links to full text.
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Theatre for Youth and Community CollectionDocumenting the international history of theatre for youth and theatre education, the Theatre for Youth and Community Collection is the world’s largest such archival repository, containing more than 9,000 books and dating back to the 17th century. The collection, an invaluable resource for scholars into the field’s methodology and pedagogy, includes materials providing theoretical and practical documentation on theatre education from preschool to high school, arts curriculum and training, standards and assessment, management and practices, artistry and plays for young audiences.
Reference and Background
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The Actor's Survival Handbook
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ISBN: 1135470421Publication date: 2014-03-18Drawing upon their years of experience on stage, backstage, and with the camera, Patrick Tucker and Christine Ozanne offer forthright advice on topics from breathing to props, commitment to learning lines, audience response to simply landing the job in the first place. The book is rich with examples - both technical and inspirational. And because a director and an actor won't always agree, the two writers sometimes even offer alternative responses to a dilemma, giving the reader both an actor's take and a director's take on a particular point. -
Analytical Sourcebook of Concepts in Dramatic Theory
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Call number: PN1631 .A55xISBN: 0313213097Publication date: 1981-08-21 -
The A to Z of African American theater
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ISBN: 9780810870611African American Theater is a vibrant and unique entity enriched by ancient Egyptian rituals, West African folklore, and European theatrical practices. A continuum of African folk traditions, it combines storytelling, mythology, rituals, music, song, and dance with ancestor worship from ancient times to the present. It afforded black artists a cultural gold mine to celebrate what it was like to be an African American in The New World. The A to Z of African American Theater celebrates nearly 200 years of black theater in the United States, identifying representative African American theater-producing organizations and chronicling their contributions to the field from its birth in 1816 to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 500 cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, directors, playwrights, plays, theater producing organizations, themes, locations, and theater movements and awards. -
Encyclopedia of Asian theatre
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ISBN: 9780313335297Publication date: 2006-12-30This book is a detailed and authoritative survey of traditional and contemporary Asian theatre. The Encyclopedia includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries written by more than 90 expert contributors. Entries on the most important topics cite works for further reading, and the Encyclopedia closes with an extensive bibliography. Social studies students will appreciate its glimpses of Asian culture, while literature and drama students will value its exploration of the Asian theatrical tradition. Includes hundreds of alphabetically arranged entries written by more than 90 expert contributors Covers individuals, genres and forms, regional theatres, and special topics Cites numerous works for further reading Includes extensive cross-references -
A Handbook of Costume Drawing: A Guide to Drawing the Period Figure for Costume Design Students
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ISBN: 9781136083341Publication date: 2013-07-04Perfect for students of costume design and history, A Handbook of Costume Drawing illustrates and describes the dominant male and female costume silhouettes for major historical periods ranging from Egyptian dynasties through the 1960s. Important details, including head and footwear, hair styles, fashion accessories, shoulders, waist, hem, and neckline are provided to maximize the historical accuracy of each design and to help you fully recreate the look and feel of each period. -
Historical dictionary of contemporary American theater 1930–2010
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ISBN: 0810855321Publication date: 2011-06-01Historical Dictionary of Contemporary American Theater presents the plays and personages, movements and institutions, and cultural developments of the American stage from 1930 to 2010, a period of vast and almost continuous change. -
Historical dictionary of Latin American literature and theater
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ISBN: 0810874989Publication date: 2011-01-01The Historical Dictionary of Latin American Literature and Theater provides users with an accessible single-volume reference tool covering Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the 16 Spanish-speaking countries of continental Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela). Entries for authors, ranging from the early colonial period to the present, give succinct biographical data and an account of the author's literary production, with particular attention to their most prominent works and where they belong in literary history. The introduction provides a review of Latin American literature and theater as a whole while separate dictionary entries for each country offer insight into the history of national literatures. Entries for literary terms, movements, and genres serve to complement these commentaries, and an extensive bibliography points the way for further reading. The comprehensive view and detailed information obtained from all these elements will make this book of use to the general-interest reader, Latin American studies students, and the academic specialist. -
The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre
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ISBN: 9781408145913Publication date: 2013-10-28The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre is an essential reference tool and companion for anyone interested in the theatre and theatre-going. Containing over 2500 entries it covers the international spectrum of theatre with particular emphasis on the UK and USA. With biographical information on playwrights, actors and directors, entries on theatres and theatre companies, explanation of technical terms and theatrical genres, and synopses of major plays, this is an authoritative, trustworthy and comprehensive compendium. Included are: synopses of 500 major plays, biographical entries on hundreds of playwrights, actors, directors and producers, definitions of nearly 200 genres and movements, entries on over 100 key characters from plays, information about more than 250 theatres and companies. -
The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare
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ISBN: 1139002864Publication date: 2011-01-28Written by a team of leading international scholars, this Companion is designed to illuminate Shakespeare's works through discussion of the key topics of Shakespeare studies. Twenty-one essays provide lively and authoritative approaches to recent scholarship and criticism for readers keen to expand their knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare. The book contains stimulating chapters on traditional topics such as Shakespeare's biography and the transmission of his texts. Individual readings of the plays are given in the context of genre as well as through the cultural and historical perspectives of race, sexuality and gender, and politics and religion. Essays on performance survey the latest digital media as well as stage and film. Throughout the volume, contributors discuss Shakespeare in a global as well as a national context, a dramatist with a long and constantly mutating history of reception and performance. -
The Properties Director’s Handbook: Managing a Prop Shop for Theatre
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ISBN: 9780415663274Publication date: 2012-11-19You may be familiar with how to hang lights, build scenery, or run a high school/college/community theatre, but few are familiar with the nitty-gritty details of being a properties director or prop master. There has been an utter lack of information on this topic in the market, until now. Sandy Strawn brings together her incredible 30 years of prop making and managing in this concise guide to managing a prop shop and show built. She skillfully explains planning, pre-production, production, and post-production procedures, budgeting, collaborations with other stagehands, and planning a prop shop from the layout of the spaces to the health and safety protocols for shop planning and workplace management. With this how-to book, you'll be able to keep your prop shop in tip-top shape. -
The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy
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ISBN: 9781135122881Publication date: 2014-08-07This collection focuses on contemporary dramaturgical practice, bringing together contributions not only from academics but also from prominent working dramaturgs. The inclusion of both means a strong level of engagement with current issues in dramaturgy, from the impact of social media to the ongoing centrality of interdisciplinary and intermedial processes. The contributions survey the field through eight main lenses: world dramaturgy and global perspective dramaturgy as function, verb and skill dramaturgical leadership and season planning production dramaturgy in translation adaptation and new play development interdisciplinary dramaturgy play analysis in postdramatic and new media dramaturgy social media and audience outreach. -
The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy
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ISBN: 1000056899Publication date: 2020-07-08The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy is a volume of especially commissioned critical essays, conversations, collaborative, creative and performative writing mapping the key contexts, debates, methods, discourses and practices in this developing field. Firstly, the collection offers new insights on the fundamental question of how thinking happens: where, when, how and by whom philosophy is performed. Secondly, it provides a plurality of new accounts of performance and performativity - as the production of ideas, bodies and knowledges - in the arts and beyond. Comprising texts written by international artists, philosophers and scholars from multiple disciplines, the essays engage with questions of how performance thinks and how thought is performed in a wide range of philosophies and performances, from the ancient to the contemporary. Concepts and practices from diverse geographical regions and cultural traditions are analysed to draw conclusions about how performance operates across art, philosophy and everyday life. -
Stage Lighting Handbook
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ISBN: 9781135868147Publication date: 2013-10-18The Stage Lighting Handbook is well established as the classic practical lighting guide. The book explains the process of designing lighting for all forms of stage production and describes the equipment used. This new edition includes up-to-date information on new equipment and discusses its impact on working methods. -
Theatre in Practice: A Student's Handbook
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ISBN: 0203125428Publication date: 2012-12-07Practical, step-by-step exercises and diagrams give access to the key figures and processes central to drama, including: Stanislavski, Brecht, Lecoq and Berkoff devising theatre rehearsing and performing monologues and duologues how to approach directing a play improvising. Each chapter offers advice for both students and teachers, with notes and follow-on exercises ideal for individual study and practice. -
Twentieth-century American dramatists
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ISBN: 0787681598Publication date: 2008-07-11This award-winning multi-volume series is dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers, while satisfying the standards of librarians, teachers and scholars. Dictionary of Literary Biography provides reliable information in an easily comprehensible format, while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history. Dictionary of Literary Biography systematically presents career biographies and criticism of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types of literature and time periods.
