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Theatre: Websites on Theatre

This guide covers resources for the study of drama and theatre at OSU, including how to find plays and reviews

Websites on Theatre/Theatre History

  • American Variety Stage -- "The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920. Included are 334 English- and Yiddish-language playscripts, 146 theater playbills and programs, 61 motion pictures, 10 sound recordings and 143 photographs and 29 memorabilia items documenting the life and career of Harry Houdini. Groups of theater posters and additional sound recordings will be added to this anthology in the future."
  • Doollee.com -- is a the free online guide to modern playwrights and theatre plays which have been written, adapted or translated, into English since the production of Look Back in Anger in 1956. doollee.com contains information on 44,191 Playwrights and 149,329 of their plays.
  • GloPAC - Global Performing Arts Consortium -- an international organization of institutions and individuals that use innovative digital technologies to create multimedia, and multilingual information resources for the study and preservation of the performing arts.
  • Internet Broadway Database -- Produced by the League of American Theatres and Producers, the IBDB "archive is the official database for Broadway theatre information. IBDB provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today. Details include pertinent people involved as well as interesting facts and production statistics. Get a list of every production of Hamlet on Broadway or a list of your favorite actor's credits. Find out what played at a particular theatre or what shows opened in a specified Broadway season.
  • Inter-Play -- A free version of the Play Index from the Portlans State University Library (Note: ignore their local call numbers.)
  • Milieux: The Costume Site -- Topics covered include the history of various arms and armory, instructions on making period costumes and links to suppliers, resources for costume materials, and organizations. There is also a section that has drawings of costumes used in various plays or theater productions.
  • Musicals101.com -- "Authored and maintained by John Kenrick, an expert on musical theater history (and a personal assistant to six Tony-winning producers), the site contains close to 900 Web pages of information about the history, development, and current traditions of musical theater. Each historical section is divided into smaller sub-sections, so users can move to each section quickly. Finally, Mr. Kenrick also offers brief "courses" online dealing with some of the great names of musical theater, such as George M. Cohan and Ethel Merman."
  • National Alliance for Musical Theatre -- "The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), founded in 1985, is the only national service organization dedicated to musical theatre. Its membership includes theatre institutions, universities, and independent producers. Located throughout 33 states and 6 countries, member companies vary substantially in size and structure; yet all share a commitment to preserve and enhance this uniquely American art form. Last season, NAMT Members cumulatively staged over 23,000 performances attended by over 17 million people and reached revenues of over $510 million."
  • OnTheBoards.tv has performance films on demand.  It allows you to watch high-quality films of full-length performances by some of today’s most provocative artists working in dance, theater, music and other forms that defy categorization.
  • Playbill.com -- Portal site with detailed news and other information on Broadway, including an awards database, obituaries, tickets and touring information, and other features.
  • Stagecraft / Technical Theatre -- From the Internet Public Library: "This pathfinder is for people who are interested in the backstage aspects of theatre, whether it be building sets, designing scenery, lighting a show, doing make-up, building costumes, or affecting the mood of a scene through music. This guide is divided into online sources (websites, mailing lists, newsgroups) and print sources.
  • Theater History on the Web -- The subtitle of this site is "A Resource for Theatre Historians and Students of the Theatre's History." It's maintained by Jack Wolcott (retired, School of Drama, Univ. of Washington). This metasite contains directories of scholarly sites, categorized by era and type, and helpful tutorials on searching the Internet and site creation, as well as the unique "Theatre History and Computing" section.
  • V&A's Theatre Collections --  British national collection of material about live performance in the UK since Shakespeare's day, covering drama, dance, musical theatre, circus, music hall, rock and pop, and other forms of live entertainment.