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Theater & Performing Arts Research Guide

Background Research

Background research can help you:

  • narrow down a broad theme into a smaller topic
  • learn the basics of your topic
  • develop a list of keywords to use when searching for more sources
  • develop a research question and/or thesis statement

Starter Databases

Starter databases:

  • simple, browseable databases meant to help students with background research
  • often contain credible reference articles, but can also have viewpoint essays
  • a good alternative or supplement to Wikipedia

Best starter databases for performing arts: This link opens in a new window

A database of encyclopedias, almanacs and specialized reference sources.

Contains over 5,000 art images, maps, and line drawings from major collections and also contains links to over 40,000 images at museum websites.

Contains over 50,000 subject articles and biographies written by more than 6000 contributors. Grove Music Online also includes the full text of the The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

Contains biographies on more than 335,000 people from around the world and throughout history.

Gale eBooks tutorial

Gale eBooks Tutorial

  • This database has subject-specific encyclopedia articles which provide simple topic overviews.
  • A perfect way to get to know your topic before diving deeper into scholarly research.
  • Watch the video below to learn more:

Reference Books (In-Library Use Only)

Julie Taymor : playing with fire : theater, opera, film
The Oxford encyclopedia of theatre & performance
The Oxford dictionary of plays
Paul Klee : theater everywhere
Nahuatl theater
The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare
The Cambridge history of American theatre
The Cambridge guide to American theatre
The Grove book of operas
The Oxford companion to American theatre
Tapworks : a tap dictionary and reference manual
The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama
Encyclopedia of Latin American theater

E-Books

Latinx Shakespeares : staging U.S. intracultural theater
Readying the revolution : African American theater and performance culture from post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement
Performing, teaching and writing theatre : exploring play
Theatre on the American Frontier
Here for the hearing : analyzing the music in musical theater
Enveloping worlds : toward a discourse of immersive performance
Real-ish : audiences, feeling, and the production of realness in contemporary performance
Contemporary opera in flux
Fifty Key Figures in LatinX and Latin American Theatre.
Troubling traditions : canonicity, theatre, and performance in the US
Holy ground : the National Black Theatre Festival anthology
Racing the Great White Way : Black performance, Eugene O'Neill, and the transformation of Broadway
Theatre and the macabre
Race and role : the mixed-race Asian experience in American drama
The musical : a concise history
Elizabethan costume : design and construction

Books to Borrow

Theatre of the sphere : the vibrant being
Dance and activism : a century of radical dance across the world
Drag : a British history
Acting naturally : the magic in great performances
Live music in America : a history from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé
Respect for acting
Speaking Shakespeare
Transforming space over time : set design and visual storytelling with Broadway's legendary directors
Dance anatomy
Standby : an approach to theatrical design
The stage actor's handbook : traditions, protocols, and etiquette for the working and aspiring professional
The proof stage : how theater reveals the human truth of mathematics
Uncommon measure : a journey through music, performance, and the science of time
So you want to sing musical theatre : a guide for performers
Choreographing Mexico : festive performances and dancing histories of a nation
Performance studies : the basics
A sense of shifting : queer artists reshaping dance