Guides: Theatre and Dance: Getting Started

Finding plays, scripts, and monologues

Library catalog search tips:

Plays may be published individually or in anthologies or collected works.

Don't have a specific play in mind? Try these advanced library search options:

Search Drama as a subject. This retrieves books about drama, but also examples of drama, individual plays and collections.
You can also do a subject search for plays dealing with a specific topic or set in a specific place:

Missouri-- drama

Immigrants- drama

Monologues are often published in collections.
- To find these at JCKL search for "monologues" as a subject in the advanced search option.
- Use the quotation marks so the results don't include titles on the rhetorical concept of monologue.
- If you are getting a lot of non-relevant music results, add NOT music to your advanced search.
To limit your search to online materials, run a search, then look in the left sidebar for Filter by Availability and click "Available online".

Play databases and indexes

New Play Exchange This link opens in a new window
The New Play Exchange ® (NPX) is the world's largest digital library of scripts by living writers.

doollee.com An online index (information about, but not the full-text) to information about 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 55,018 Playwrights and 185,532 of their Plays.

Theatre and dance databases

The following databases are grouped to help you find the resource that best fits your needs. Please keep in mind that many of the databases could belong to more than one category.

Theatre and Performance Resources

Digital Theatre+ This link opens in a new window
Digital Theatre + accesses over 600 theatre productions, 800 video resources, and 21,000 pages of resources. Digital Theatre+ collaborates with over 50 leading theatre companies, educational organizations, art collectives, and other providers to provide timely and relevant resources.
Music and Performing Arts Collection This link opens in a new window
The collection features scholarly and trade journals, magazines, books, newspapers, and reference works, covering a wide range of disciplines including dance, ballet, circus performance, popular music, puppetry, radio, stagecraft, theatre, classical music, and opera. It provides full text to approximately 220 titles, and access over 100 pereiodicals, trade journals, magazines, books, and newspapers.
Musical Theater Songs This link opens in a new window
This is a musical theater repertoire database that allows your to find the right song, right now, for your next audition, performance or for study. Search over 11,000 (and counting) titles spanning 150 years of shows, custom-tailor your search using up to 20 different parameters and over 100 descriptive tags, get direct links to sheet music and recordings. Choose classic titles, rarities, or the latest work from today's top new composers
New Play Exchange This link opens in a new window
The New Play Exchange ® (NPX) is the world's largest digital library of scripts by living writers.

Scholarly Articles and Research

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present. It is a searchable online database of more than 3 million records and constantly updated by scholars in the field. International in scope, it includes citations to journal articles, books, articles in books, series, translations, scholarly editions, websites, and dissertations, with links to full text in JSTOR, Project MUSE, and other resources.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A collection of journals, e-books, and primary sources, covering content in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. New content for journals will not appear for 1-5 years after the publishing date.
ProQuest One Academic This link opens in a new window
Search academic journals, ebooks, dissertations, news, and video. Includes the following databases: Academic Complete, Academic Video Online, ProQuest Central, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.

Performances on Film

Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive, multidisciplinary video database that includes a variety of video material available with curricular relevance: documentaries, interviews, feature films, performances, news programs and newsreels, and demonstrations. Patrons will find thousands of award-winning films, including Academy®, Emmy®, and Peabody® winners.
Kanopy Streaming Video This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video platform for public and academic libraries that offers films, TV shows and documentaries.
Films On Demand This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary streaming video platform. Films can be shared with an email link or embedded into Blackboard. Featured producers include the BBC, PBS, and TedTalks.

Music Resources

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Music Onlione is an authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history and cultures of music around the globe. Contains updated entries from the The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed), New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd ed). Limit of 8 concurrent users.
Music Reference Collection This link opens in a new window
Music Reference Collection contains a variety of essential reference materials allowing users to chronicle the history of music of diverse origins and walks of life. The comprehensive collection of reference materials covers virtually every time period, genre, cultural group, and geographic region.
African American Music Reference chronicles the diverse history and culture of the African American experience through music. This full text collection also includes biographies and personal narratives from oral histories, manuscripts, song-sheets, lyrics, discography data, and other text sources cover jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrels, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression.
The Classical Music Reference Library includes the authoritative reference titles Baker's Dictionary of Music, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, and Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music. This collection provides biographical information on major composers and artists, score and lyric excerpts, plus musical and notational terms.
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music includes the full-text of the ten-volume print encyclopedia (more than 9000 pages) that allows for in-text searching.
300+ associated audio examples. This collection also includes musical illustrations, photographs, and drawings.
Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new window
Rock's Backpages is the largest archive of music journalism online, featuring almost 50,000 articles on thousands of artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top. The database works with hundreds of writers to archive their work for students and researchers.
Naxos Music Library This link opens in a new window
Online access to audio recordings of thousands of classical music as well as selections from Jazz and World/Folk music. Almost three million tracks are available, and hundreds ofalbums are added each month. Naxos provides study guides, interactive dictionaries, and over 40,000 biographies are available on artists and composers.

Costume and scene design resources

Subscription databases (you'll need your UCM SSO to access)

Vogue Archive This link opens in a new window
The Vogue Archive is both an essential primary source for the study of fashion and a unique record of American and international popular culture. The Vogue Archive offers the full run of the American Vogue, 1892 to present. Every page, cover, advertisement, image, and fold out is indexed, searchable, and viewable in high-resolution color.
WGSN Fashion, Lifestyle, and Interiors This link opens in a new window
WGSN includes access to fashion and design trend forecasting, reports, and consumer insights. Access instructions: UCM access requires personal account setup as follows: First time users should click "Create a new account." Enter name and UCM email address. A confirmation email will be sent; follow email instructions to create a password. Returning users should click LOG IN on the upper right corner of the WGSN welcome page, and then again on the WGSN Fashion page; enter login credentials to proceed with full access. Personal accounts are valid for one semester, but can be reactivated in subsequent semesters as needed.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Oxford Art Online includes over 200,000 articles that span ancient to contemporary art and architecture, as well as over 40,000 links to images of works of art, structures, and plans. In addition, There are links to timelines of world art, and MoMA lesson plans. The database also includes access to the full text of the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, and the Oxford Companion to Western Art. Limit of 5 concurrent users.
Art Full Text This link opens in a new window
Art Full Text accesses over 250 full text journals and abstracts for over 600 art journals, and it also provides access to thousands of images, including art reproductions, photographs, and illustrations.

Freely available online

Fashion History Timeline (NY FIT)
Features objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries. Includes well-researched entries on specific artworks and garments.
The Costume Institute at the the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met)

An online collection of ver 33,000 costumes and accessories from the Met's Costume Institute. Perfect for exploring historical garments, studying fashion design from different periods, and getting inspiration for costume design.

British Museum Collection Online
Drawing and prints from the British Museum showing clothing for various countries and periods.
Example searches:

british costume 17thC

19thC hat england

Try using the Filter menu to focus your search. For example, refine your search for clothing or costume by Place:

clothing Nigeria

clothing France

NYPL Digital Collections
Thousands of images of historical costumes / clothing.
Example searches:

Costume—United States 1920s

Collars 1910s

Clothing and dress Jamaica

Guide to searching the NYPL Digital Collections
includes a list of useful subject terms to search with.

Vintage Fashion Guild
a vintage-fashion knowledge base.
- look under the Resources tab for helpful resources including a vintage fabric identification resource, a hats indeitification guide, and more.