Theater and Dance Research Guide 

What's Here

Use Orbis to search for materials at Yale on

• Genres and Topics
• People & Companies
• Plays

To find materials that Yale does not own, you can use these same subject headings to search in WorldCat. Request these items through Borrow Direct or Interlibrary Loan.

The Key Thing to Know

When you search Subjects (or do a Keyword search that might involve subject headings) use the spelling THEATER, not THEATRE. But in titles and names, use the actual spelling (e.g., Towards a poor theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville).

Using Subject Headings to Find Books

Subject headings strive to identify topics with consistent terminology. The basic terminology is produced by the Library of Congress. Always look at the subject headings in any catalog, database or index to make sure that you are searching with the most relevant terminology. Once you have the right terms, it's much easier to find the right books.

• If you need an introduction to searching in Orbis, look at the site for Yale's Online Catalog (Orbis) Tutorials.

Some subject headings are unintuitive. For instance, the headings for medieval theater include:

• Drama, Medieval
• Mysteries and miracle-plays
• Moralities
• and more

TIME SAVER: You can often save yourself work by looking at existing bibliographies, which often include both books and articles. Criticism never goes out of date (there are lots of Aristoteleans out there), and you can locate the most recent research by using article indexes and Orbis.

Genres and Topics

The best way to find materials on a topic is usually through its Library of Congress Subject Heading. However, since you may not know what the right heading is, you can use a Keyword search to look for genres and topics. A keyword search finds the term anywhere in the Orbis record. When you do a keyword search, look at the record for one of the books that appears relevant and check the subject headings used to describe the topic. Then also search by the correct Library of Congress Subject Heading. Also, use a keyword search if you have multiple concepts or topics to search.

There are several key subject terms:

• Theater (works as acted on the stage) (notice the spelling)
• Theaters (facilities used to stage drama) (notice the spelling)
• Drama (plays as a literary form)
• Dance
  

Other subject headings of interest include:

• Performance Art
• Performing Arts

Also, most genres and geographical areas can be searched using subject headings, such as:

• Kabuki
• Musicals
• European drama
• Theater--europe
• Ballet
• Postmodern dance
• Circus

People & Companies

Research about a person can be found in Orbis using a subject search (LastName FirstName). If you don't find anything using a subject search it may mean that your spelling or form is not the same as the Library of Congress form. When this happens, look for a message telling you to search under another entry, as in the George Bernard Shaw example below. Notice that Orbis doesn't care about capitalization or the use of commas -- include them if you like, don't if you don't.

churchill caryl
shaw george bernard	Click to get See: Shaw, Bernard,1856-1950
San Francisco Mime Troupe
Rosas (Dance company)

Plays

Studies and information about specific plays, as well as the plays themselves, can be found in Orbis. Use a Title search to find the text of the play, and an Advanced Keyword search limited to subject to find information about a play.

Why can't you simply do a subject search on a play title? If you try, you'll discover that the play doesn't seem to be a subject at all! The problem is that the play title is embedded under the author as subject. So in this example, the subject heading for books on Midsummer Night's Dream is Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Midsummer night’s dream. Intuitive, huh? Yeah, I didn't think so. That's why you do an advanced keyword search within the Subject field.

Another way to find plays is to use online and print play indexes & catalogs.  Many plays are in collections and magazines, and the indexes & catalogs can help you locate them -- including aspects like the number of male and female role.  See the Play Catalogs and Collection Indexes page for these resources.