Theater and Dance Research Guide   Tags: acting, arts management, dance, directing, dramaturgy, musical theater, musical theatre, musicals, performance art, playwrighting, stage design, theater, theatre  

About this Guide

Comedy mask window in Sterling Memorial Library

This website provides a guide to conducting research in theater, dance and musical theater, highlighting key resources and search strategies.  There are many special aspects to doing theater and dance research, including:

• important search terms
  
• techniques for finding videos of performance
• production histories
  
• and much more
  

Through this website, I try to give you some ways to crack open research in these subjects.  Most of the pages give examples that you can use as a model for your searches, descriptions of the main resources, and tips on how to use certain databases.

Tragedy mask window in Sterling Memorial Library (with misspelling)

It's important to know that even though the guide focuses on strategies for finding books, often the same or similar approaches will work in article databases.

Sometimes there are also pages for particular classes, and every month I provide a list of books (and sometimes videos, microfilms and other resources) on theater and dance that the Library acquired the month before.

Have questions?  Want to discuss your research needs?  Please contact me!

Marionette play window in Sterling Memorial Library

My official title is "Librarian for Performing Arts, Media and Philosophy," and I select materials (books, databases, videos, microfilms, etc) in lots of interconnected fields: theater, film, philosophy, TV and radio, graphic novels, dance, journalism, cyberculture, performance art, circus ... you get the picture!  I also acquire the DVDs for the Yale College Council collection in Bass Library.

My PhD is from the Interdisciplinary Program in Theater from Northwestern University.  I did my undergrad at the University of Michigan (Residential College, Comparative Literature), and I have both an MA (Comparative Literature, University of Iowa) and an MLS (Simmons College Graduate School of Library Science).  I've published mainly in theater history and theory, including the book Theatre, Communication, Critical Realism (Palgrave, 2010), and also in social theory and digital humanities.  I've taught theater history and theory at the Ohio State University, the University of Washington, Tufts University, and the University of Helsinki.  Plus, I've acted, directed, dramaturged, hung lights, sewn costumes, and even organized group ticket sales.

You are welcome to contact me about your research and resources that you need -- see the information in the box in the right column.