Databases for theatre research including Cameo and other library catalogs; full-text play databases and books; streaming video, streaming music, music performance and scores online; plays, articles, dissertations, reviews, images, employment and performance archives.
Questions?
Mo Dawley
Art and Drama Librarian
md2z@andrew.cmu.edu
412-268-6625
Drama: Research: Home
Cameo: Carnegie Mellon University Libraries catalog to find books, articles, media, videos, recordings and more at CMU.
To find out if CMU has access to print or online journals do a Journal Search.
Pittcat: University of Pittsburgh Library holdings
The Catalog: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh holdings; excellent music and scores collection
Pittsburgh library catalogs of Duquesne University, Chatham University, Carlow University, Point Park University, and Robert Morris University.
WorldCat includes holdings for all of the above as well as other local, regional, national and international library holdings.
Alexander Street Drama: North American Theatre Online
A package of play collections including all the content in the following full-text play collections:
Black Drama, Twentieth Century North American Drama,
Asian American Drama, North American Women's Drama, Latino Drama.
Everything is cross-searchable with one combined search result.
Twentieth Century North American Drama is a growing full-text database, currently containing 850 plays including the complete works of major playwrights as well as plays by emerging playwrights. Searchable by keyword, author, play title, characters, scenes, subjects, years, productions, theaters, and companies. Additional information on playwrights, theaters, companies, productions and performances is included along with a selection of playbills, posters and other ephemera.
Asian American Drama
Contains the full-text of 250 plays by Asian American playwrights. It is searchable by author, play title, characters, scenes, subjects, years, productions, theatres, and companies. The database also contains playwright biographies, details on productions, theatres and theatrical companies, as well as production photographs, selected playbills and other information related to the plays.
Black Drama
Contains the full-text of 1200 plays by black playwrights. It is searchable by author, play title, characters, scenes, subjects, years, productions, theatres, and companies, including related resource and biographical information.
Contemporary World Drama
New work from Alexander Street Press existing playwright partners alongside work from up-and-coming playwrights from around the world, including recently produced world premieres and previously unpublished works from every continent.
Drama Online
1550 plays: classic to contemporary; L.A. Theatre Works audio plays; Globe on Screen streaming video, more....
Early English Books Online
A searchable full text database of over 95,000 titles published between 1475 and 1700.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Scanned images from a diverse collection of 18th century printed material including books, directories, Bibles, sheet music, advertisements, sermons; collections on the French Revolution and works by woman writers; editions of the works of Shakespeare.
Explore this script discovery database brought to you by the National New Play Network, an alliance of non-profit theaters dedicated to the development, production, and continued life of new plays.' Features: Search, read and download scripts, view writer profiles, contact writers, read script recommendations from professionals throughout the field; search plays by using any number of options including cast size, play length, age level, genre, subject matter, gender or sexual identity and ethnicity; search people by writer type and demographics. Other features include an organization search, periodic “featured lists” of writers, plays and organization, and an index of large-cast shows, solo shows, shorts and 2-person scripts.
North American Indian Drama
244 plays by 48 playwrights. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, representing groups such as Cherokee,
Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others.
North American Women's Drama
over 1,500 full-text plays by women from colonial times to the present. Allows in-depth browsing and searching; includes detailed information on related productions, theaters, production companies and and more. Plays were selected by the Alexander Street Press editorial board using recognized play bibliographies and in consultation with other scholars and playwrights.
Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) is an open-access, non-profit scholarly website presenting full-text Shakespeare plays and poems, Shakespeare’s life and times, and Shakespeare in performance.
Play Indexes
Play Index Online
Indexes plays in published sources (1949-present) by subject, author, title, style, genre, cast type and more with plot summaries and musical, cast and scenery requirements. Includes one-act plays, pageants, plays in verse, radio and television plays and classic drama. Links to selected full-text plays on the web.
DEEP: Database of Early English Playbooks
Provides data regarding the publishing, printing and marketing of English Renaissance playbooks from the beginning of printing through 1660. Created by by Alan B. Farmer and Zachary Lesser.
Visual Resources Collection for excellent high resolution image databases and selected interdisciplinary open-web links.
GloPad: Global Performing Arts Database
Records in the database include authoritative, detailed, multilingual descriptions of digital images, texts, video clips, sound recordings, and complex media objects related to the performing arts around the world, plus information about related pieces, productions, performers, and creators.
Developed with the support of: Cornell University and the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Vogue Archive (1892-current) The full contents of Vogue magazine (US edition) from the first issue in 1892 to the present, with monthly updates for new issues.
Vogue Italia Archive (1964 - current)
The complete run of Vogue Italia – one of the most influential and renowned international editions of Vogue.
Life Magazine Archive. Cover to cover from 1926-2000.
Time Magazine Archive
Complete digital version of more than 77 years of the prominent weekly news magazine, dating back to its first issue in March 1923 through December 2000 in a comprehensive cover-to-cover format in PDF.
Artsearch (Theatre Communications Group)
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection
More than three hundred important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation’s premiere radio theatre company. The L.A. Theatre Works Collection is also available online via our Drama Online database.
Digital Theatre Plus
British theatre productions streamed in high definition and more; additional educational content.
Drama Online Globe on Screen
World-class performance at the Globe on streaming video. (Scroll down in the "Collections" section)
The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral history Project
Interviews with visionaries who created New York's Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatre
after World War II. Almost one-hundred interviews are recorded as of March 5, 2017 with continual additions to come.
Kanopy Streaming Service. Provides remote access to over 25,000 documentary and feature films on many subjects: arts, business, global studies, health, sciences, technical training, etc.
Medici.tv
Offers filmed concerts performed by today’s greatest names in classical music, archive movies, inspiring documentaries on performers and composers, educational programs, and master classes.
Met Opera on Demand
Provides unlimited access to more than 450 extraordinary Met performances.
Ontheboards.tv
High-quality films of full-length performances by current provocative artists working in dance, theater, music and other forms.
Dance Online: Dance in Video
...productions and documentaries in streaming video with influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Includes ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, improvisational dance, and forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance;
search, browse, cite or bookmark videos to the moment; make custom clips, annotate and share them.
Music Online: Opera in Video
...important opera performances, captured on video through staged productions, interviews and documentaries; selections are based on a work’s importance to the operatic canon.
Theatre in Video
...definitive performances and documentaries in streaming video with leading actors, playwrights and directors covering a wide range of 20th century theatre history. Includes contemporary revivals of classic works, television broadcasts of New York productions, experimental performances and more;
search, browse and bookmark scenes, monologues, and staging examples to a link that can be shared.
American Newsreels in Video
News footage covering the years leading
up to and during the Second World War.
Ethnographic Sound Archives Online
Over 2,000 hours of previously unpublished historic field recordings fromaround the world,alongside their
supporting field notes and ethnographers’ metadata,for the study of music in its cultural context.
Sixties Video
Fifty hours of primary footage and secondary documentaries that explore the key events of the sixties and early seventies
featuring interviews with major players and revolutionaries of the decade.
World Newsreels Online
Captures full runs of many of the key international newsreels produced during the early twentieth century. Newsreels are in English, French and Japanese.
16,000 downloadable sound effects now available in WAV.
Open access with some copyright restrictions.
Music Online : American Music
Streaming songs from Americans of diverse origins and all walks of life, from America’s past and present.
Music Online: Classical Music in Video
Streaming video of classical music performances by leading orchestras, chamber music, oratorio, and solo performances, along with masterclasses and interviews with master teachers from around the world.
Music Online: Classical Music Library
Streaming audio with a supplementary reference database, enabling patrons to listen while simultaneously searching and browsing the Classical reference database. Send-to-mobile functionality.
Classical Scores Library (Volumes I-IV)
Encompasses more than one million pages of classical scores for teaching and study. Includes a mix of public domain, previously unpublished, and in-copyright works from all major classical music genres and time periods.
Library Music Source
This is the online version of the CD Sheet Music and Orchestra Musician’s CD-ROM Library CD-ROMs. The music is selected from out-of-copyright standard editions from publishers such as Breitkopf and Hartel, C.F. Peters, G. Schirmer, Carl Fischer, G. Ricordi, Durand and many others. The editorial staff for CD Sheet Music has chosen the best edition available for each work.
Medici.tv
Offers filmed concerts performed by today’s greatest names in classical music, archive movies, inspiring documentaries on performers and composers, educational programs, and master classes.
Met Opera on Demand
Provides unlimited access to more than 450 extraordinary Met performances.
Music and Performing Arts
Combines audio and video that spans all time periods, hundreds of thousands of seminal artists, composers, choreographers, and ensembles to provide an unparalleled learning environment for the teaching of music.
Naxos Music Library
Streaming recordings for genres such as Classical, Jazz, Blues, Nostalgia, World, Contemporary Instrumental, Chinese, Pop and Rock, Gospel, Spoken Word, and Relaxation. iPhone and Android apps available.
Naxos Music Library Jazz
Streaming music from the artists and collections of Fantasy Records.
Performance Archives
Dance Online: Dance Studies Collection
Primary and secondary full-text materials to support informed performance, pedagogy, and scholarship in 20th and 21st century dance through photographs, correspondence, magazines, dance notation, and reference material.
The Primary Stages Off-Broadway Oral history Project
Interviews with visionaries who created New York's Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatre
after World War II. Almost one-hundred interviews are recorded as of March 5, 2017 with continual additions to come.
"The La MaMa Archives Digital Collections site is both a catalog and a digital archive, and it was designed to serve both researchers and general users. Site users can conduct targeted searches or browse at will, using the images and text available on this site as a guide. In the near future, we hope also to be able to offer curated digital exhibits."
AHDS Performing Arts (Arts and Humantities Data Service)
Decomissioned in 2017, the archives mission was to collect, document, preserve and promote the use of digital resources to support research and teaching across the broad field of the performing arts: music, film, broadcast arts, theatre, dance. Project content and data have been stored as a fully backed-up Virtual Machine and can be made available on request depending on agreements with the Principal Investigator for a period of at least 2 years from the cease date.
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Theatre-dedicated article databases and online archives you need to know about up front:
International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance with Full-Text
Scholarly research database for theatre and dance studies.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database (formerly International Index to the Performing Arts)
Articles covering the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television and more.
Coverage: 1864-current
Performance Design Archive Online
A collection that covers all aspects of theater production design, from the 17th century through to the present day, including scenic and set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design, and makeup.
Dance Online: Dance Studies Collection
Primary and secondary full-text materials to support informed performance, pedagogy, and scholarship in 20th and 21st century dance through photographs, correspondence, magazines, dance notation and reference material.
Berg Fashion Library
Articles covering all aspects of world dress and fashion throughout history.
These article databases have a wider scope but are staples for theatre research:
ProQuest
Mega-database that searches many interdisciplinary databases together - journals, newspapers, magazines; also industry reports. Start here to find reviews of plays and musicals.
Google Scholar
Open access to full-text scholarly literature.
JSTOR
Full-text access to important academic journals in all disciplines
LexisNexis Academic (now Nexis Uni)
International database: news, business and legal sources including newspapers, journals, wire services, newsletters, reports, blogs, case law, government documents, broadcasts, U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790 and more.
MLA:International Bibliography (Distributed in FirstSearch)
A reference database for the critical study of language, literature, and folkore. Provides citations to books, book chapters, periodical articles, and dissertations in all languages for all periods beginning with the Middle Ages.
Current humanities and social science journals from a variety of university presses.
To find scholarly journals and articles across disciplines that are "open access" in one place, the best site to start with is the quality-controlled Directory of Open Access Journals. You can browse by topic or search by keyword.
Also try:
Google Scholar
Open access to full-text scholarly literature.
The following databases are recommended first for finding performing arts reviews. Ask about more possibilities for finding historic reviews!
Article Databases
Proquest
U.S. newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, dissertations and reports in all subjects
International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance
Selected full-text or PDF articles
International Index to the Performing Arts
Citations to articles and a few full-text
Literature Resource Center
includes criticism and reviews
Academic OneFile
Articles on all subjects
ArticleFirst
Scholarly citations in all disciplines
Full-text print reviews from 1870-1996 in Hunt Library
Find these print resources on the Arts Reference shelves located directly behind the Arts Reference Desk.
Critics' Theatre Reviews. New York, N.Y. : Critics Theatre Reviews.
FA-REF-4 PN2000 .N76 (1940-1942)
Full-text weekly reviews as they originally appeared in appeared the New York Sun, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, New York Newspaper "PM," New York Times, New York Daily News, New York World-Telegram and New York Journal American.
New York Theatre Critics' Reviews. New York, N.Y. : Critics' Theatre Reviews, Inc.
FA-REF-4 PN2000 .N76, 1943-1996.
Continuing Critics' Theatre Reviews.
Full-text reviews from prominent New York publications and other sources.
The New York Times Theater Reviews. New York: New York Times.
FA-REF-4 PN2266 .N48, 1870-1982, 1985-1990, 1993-2000
Reviews: Open Access Web Resources
Aisle Say (TheatreNet Enterprises)
"An internet magazine of reviews and opinions." Updated bi-weekly.
CurtainUp
An internet magazine of theater reviews and features.
IBdB Internet Broadway Database
Broadway theatre archive
The New York Times - Current day
Full text, recent theater, film, video, TV, dance and music reviews. Currently free, but registration is required.
For back issues ofthe NY Times online Carnegie Mellon users can log into the Proquest databse.
Playbill OnLine-Current day
Includes reviews.
General OneFile
Articles on all subjects
LexisNexis Academic (now Nexis Uni)
International database: newspapers, journals, wire services, newsletters, reports, blogs, case law, government documents, broadcasts, and more.
Some recommended specific focus databases:
African American Studies Center
Combines Oxford University Press scholarly reference works in one online resource focusing on the lives and events shaping African American and African history and culture.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
(1880 - 2000)
Sources for studying the history of the film and entertainment industries, from the era of vaudeville and silent movies through to 2000. The core US and UK trade magazines covering film, music, broadcasting and theater are included, together with film fan magazines and music press titles. Magazines have been scanned cover-to-cover in high-resolution color, with granular indexing of all articles, covers, ads and reviews.
LGBT Thought and Culture
Books, periodicals, and archival materialsdocumenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements
throughout the 20th century to the present day.
Music Index Online
1979-1999
Index to music-related scholarly and popular periodicals. Citations from over 640 international music periodicals cover a broad range of topics, including performance and recording reviews, obituaries, and first performances.
Music Online
Allows cross-searching of audio, video, scores and full text reference content from all Alexander Street Press Music databases to which Carnegie Mellon subscribes.
Music Online: Music Periodicals of the 19th Century
A collection of full-text periodicals depicting American musical life from 1838 to the early 1900s through local and international news, reviews, editorials, sheet music, and advertisements.
Music Online: Reference
Brings together a variety of essential music reference materials, spanning the entire history of Western classical music, in a unified online database. Included are the authoritative reference titles The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Baker’s Dictionary of Music, Baker’s Bibliographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker’s Student Encyclopedia of Music.
RILM Abstract of Music Literature
Database of international music sources. All scholarly works are included: articles, books, bibliographies, catalogues, dissertations, Festschriften, films and videos, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, ethnographic recordings, conference proceedings, reviews, etc.. (formerly known as RILM, The Repertoire International de Litterature Musicale Abstracts of Music Literature.
Vogue Archive (1892-current) The full contents of Vogue magazine (US edition) from the first issue in 1892 to the present, with monthly updates for new issues.
Vogue Italia Archive (1964 - current)
The complete run of Vogue Italia – one of the most influential and renowned international editions of Vogue.
Women's Wear Daily Archive (1910-current)
WWD is a unique record of the twentieth century US and international fashion and beauty business. Key moments in the history of the industry, as well as major designers, brands, retailers and advertisers are all covered.
