Theatre Research Resources: Home

As you are working on research for your Theatre courses, please let me know if I can help in any way!  Please feel free to email me and we can discuss your questions over email, or we can set up a virtual or in-person research session over Zoom.  View my calendar to set up a time that works for you.

Below are links and research tips to using ZSR's resources remotely.  ZSR has access to thousands of ebooks and millions of online articles through our regular resources in the library catalog and databases such as Performing Arts Periodicals Database and JSTOR.  The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance will be particularly helpful right now, and see the Reference tab above for links to other online reference resources.  Additionally, we have access to full-text playscripts, as well as thousands of streaming films and online images if you need multimedia resources.  Get help finding and using these resources from the tabs above.  

And last, but not least, remember to cite your sources!  The Chicago Manual of Style (use VPN) can help you with formatting citations for the sources you find.

Stay healthy and well!
Kaeley McMahan
mcmahak@wfu.edu

Two Tech Tips:

1. Download and use VPN: If you keep VPN running in the background while you access campus resources (ebooks, databases, etc...) it makes it look like you are on campus, so many of the authentication issues you might otherwise have will go away.
2. ProQuest Ebook Central: If you get this error message, don't fear!  Just do as it says and reload the page and it will take you to your book:
   

Online Reference Resources

Use reference resources to get background information on a play, actor, playwright, theme, or terminology.  Many of these sources include bibliographies which list additional books and journal articles that would be useful for further research.

Scholarly Ebooks

You will find many scholarly ebooks on theatre and literature topics in the library catalog.  For some examples, see this search and how it was constructed.  Use an * and OR to get more search results.  In this search, theat*= theater, theaters, theatre, theatres.  To get results that contain both England and Britain/British, place an OR between the two terms.  To view only ebooks, select both "available online" and "books" from the filters on the left.

Scholarly Journal Articles

Scholarly journal articles can be located through the Performing Arts Periodicals Database, as well as through history and multi-subject databases.  If you are looking for scholarly/peer-reviewed/academic articles (as opposed to performance reviews or essays), look for these features:

• at least 8-10 pages in length
• author is an academic (professor, PhD, researcher, etc....) or in some cases a practitioner (director, actor, set designer, etc...)
• published in an academic journal (Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, Performance Research, Women & Performance, etc...)
• the bibliography is appropriate for the article length

Playscripts and Streaming Productions

Websites