Theatre Pathfinder
Library research guide from the Meyer Library Reference & Government Information Department

Find Articles and Basic Reference Information
Magazine and journal indexes and other reference databases.

Online Indexes to Articles
Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier, designed specifically for academic institutions, is the world's largest scholarly, multi-disciplinary full text database containing full text for more than 4,650 publications, including more than 3,600 peer-reviewed publications. In addition to the full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for all 8,183 journals in the collection. This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more. Academic Search Premier is an enormous collection of the most valuable peer-reviewed full text journals, offering critical information from many sources unique to this database. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. The majority of full text titles are available in native (searchable) PDF, or scanned-in-color.

Art Full Text
Art Full Text indexes and abstracts 425 periodicals dating back to 1984, with full text for 125 periodicals beginning in 1997. In addition to standard areas such as art history, folk art, graphic arts, painting, sculpture, architecture, and pottery, there is also detailed coverage in advertising art, archaeology, costume, film, and textiles. Coverage includes Latin American, Canadian, Asian and other non-Western art, new artists, contemporary art, exhibition reviews, and feminist criticism.

ArticleFirst (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
This database is produced by the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC) and is located on FirstSearch. It gives citations to articles from the contents pages of journals. Coverage is from 1990 to present and includes articles from over 16, 000 general topic sources, including business, humanities, medicine, popular culture, science, social science, and technology. Each record describes the source for one article from a journal or magazine and provides a list of libraries that have the journal title.

Arts and Humanities Search (AHSearch) (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
Indexes the world's leading arts and humanities journals. Indexes selected articles from social science and science journals; indexes articles, bibliographies, editorials, letters, reviews, and more.

Business Source Premier
Business Source Premier, designed specifically for business schools and libraries, provides indexing for more than 8,800 scholarly business journals and other sources, including full text for more than 1,100 peer-reviewed business publications. This database offers information in nearly every area of business including management, economics, finance, accounting, international business, and more. Business Source Premier contains full text from the world's top management and marketing journals. Business Source Premier provides full text (PDF) for more than 350 of the top scholarly journals dating as far back as 1922 and contains PDF images for the great majority of journals; many of these PDF's are native (searchable) or scanned-in-color. Additional full text, non-journal content includes market research reports, industry reports, country reports, company profiles and SWOT analyses. This database is updated daily.

ECO - Electronic Collections Online (Available at the Meyer Library reference desk).
The OCLC Electronic Collections Online (ECO) database is a collection of scholarly journals, with over 5,400 sources. It includes bibliographic information for all journals, and lets you view abstracts and full-text articles from journals to which Missouri State subscribes. ECO is multi-disciplinary in its subject areas, and coverage extends from 1995 to present.

Education Full Text
Education Full Text, produced by The H.W. Wilson Company, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts nearly 750 periodicals as far back as 1983, over 450 of which are peer-reviewed. Full-text coverage of articles from over 350 journals ranges as far back as 1996. English-language books relating to education published in 1995 or later are also indexed. Abstracting coverage begins with January 1994. Abstracts range from 50 to 300 words and describe the content and scope of the source documents. Subject areas indexed include: Adult Education, Arts, Athletics, Comparative Education, Competency-based Education, Computers in Education, Continuing Education, Educational Technology, Elementary Education, Government Funding, Higher Education, Instructional Media, Language Arts, Library Science, Literacy Standards, Multicultural/Ethnic Education, Parent-Teacher Relations, Prayer in Public Schools, Preschool Education, Religious Education, School Administration, Science and Mathematics, Secondary Education, Special Education, Student Counseling, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluation, Teaching Methods, and Vocational Education. The paper version of this index covers the field back to 1929, much further than any of the current on-line educational indexes.

ERIC
ERIC is the research database and information system for the field of education. It is produced by the Educational Resources Information Center. Established in 1966, ERIC is supported by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement and is administered by the National Library of Education (NLE). The database contains annotated references to educational materials and reports, called ERIC Documents, and to articles published in professional magazines and research journals. Subject areas indexed include: adult, career, and vocational education; assessment and evaluation; disabilities and gifted education; educational management; elementary and early childhood education; higher education and community colleges; information and technology; language and linguistics; reading and communication; teacher and teacher education; and urban education.

JSTOR
Our JSTOR database offers two multidisciplinary collections: 1) Arts & Sciences I-IV is an umbrella journal collection containing four sub-units, but which is searched as one collection. Its contents are: 119 core journals in economics, history, political science, and sociology, mathematics, and statistics; 124 journals in archaeology, classics, and Latin American, African, Slavic, and Middle Eastern Studies; 150 journals in language, literature, theatre, music, art, and architecture; and, 112 journals in education, management, marketing, political science, and public administration; 2) Biological Sciences, which is a collection of 98 journals in science fields such as conservation, plant sciences, cell biology and zoology. One of the distinct characteristics of JSTOR is that its coverage is "rolling", i.e., all of the journals provide full text of articles beginning with volume 1 of each title up to about the past three to five years. The Libraries have individual subscriptions to about 80% of these titles to provide coverage of current issues of most of the journals.

LexisNexis Academic
LexisNexis Academic is an interdisciplinary, full-text database of several thousand news, business, legal, and biographical sources. The "news" section includes over 350 newspapers, 300 magazines and journals, 600 newsletters, wire services, transcripts of broadcasts, and nearly 300 college/university papers. "Business" sources include business and financial news, U.S. and international company financial information from government or private sources, market research, industry reports, and actual SEC filings. "Legal" includes primary source materials such as case law, statutes, and regulations, including Shepard's citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789, as well as all federal and state courts. It also includes law review articles from over 500 publications, and patents from 1971 forward. "People" includes biographical information for persons, both alive and deceased. In addition to news, business, legal and biographical information, LexisNexis Academic provides access to medical information, including medical news and medical & health journals. Abstracts from medical journals dating to 1966 are provided in the National Library of Medicine's Medline database. Country information on over 190 countries, with business and political risk analysis, as well as the World Almanac are other selected resources found in this database.

MasterFILE Premier
"Designed specifically for public libraries, MasterFILE Premier provides full text for more than 1,750 general periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more. In addition to the full text, this database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,400 titles. This database features: 5,000 full text Magill Book Reviews, nearly 500 full text reference books including the World Almanac & Book of Facts; full text from 86,019 biographies, 105,787 full text primary source documents, American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition and an Image Collection of 293,480 photos, maps and flags."

MLA International Bibliography
The MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association, consists of citations and bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. The MLA International Bibliography provides access to scholarly research in more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers. It also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and other formats. The MLA Bibliography includes coverage from 1926 to the present.

Project Muse
Project Muse provides access to 383 searchable full text journals in a broad range of disciplines, particularly in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, and has significant strengths in literature, history, political science and sociology. Retrospective full text access typically ranges back to 2000.

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Online Reference Databases (e-Reference Books)
New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians
Grove Music Online, the "cornerstone" of Oxford Music Online, is an integrated music resource on the web, including the full text of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd. ed., 2001), the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992 ed.), and the New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2nd. ed., 2002), "as well as all subsequent updates and emendations, including 50,000 signed articles and 28,000 biographies contributed by over 6,000 scholars from around the world." Our subscription to Grove Music Online "also includes the Oxford Companion to Music (2002 ed.), which offers more than 8,000 articles on composers, performers, conductors, individual works, instruments and notation, forms and genres" and the Oxford Dictionary of Music (2nd. rev. ed., 2006) which "will similarly supplement Grove's more extensive coverage with content geared toward undergraduates and general users." Articles that have been updated since their appearance in print are date-stamped in the upper right corner of the screen. Grove Music Online will be updated annually to ensure it remains the most up to date music reference work on the Internet. Key features are: full-text searching (across all five titles above) with advanced capabilities; over 3000 links to related sites, including sound archives and illustrations; and annual updates by the Grove editorial advisory board.

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General/All Purpose Indexes & Full Text Databases:
The following indexes and databases do not provide the in-depth coverage for studying Theatre as the indexes above. They do cover a variety of subjects and topics across multiple disciplines and provide good general indexing of magazines, newspapers, and core academic journals. In addition they provide full text articles from many of the sources cited.

EBSCOhost. Enter EBSCOhost Web and select the appropriate database for your research.
FirstSearch. Either jump to the database you need to search, or under Databases on the menu bar to the left click “List All” and select the appropriate database for your research.
LexisNexis Academic. Full-text newspapers! Also includes business, legal research, and reference areas.
Oxford Reference Online. An e-reference book collection of over 175 of Oxford University Press’s central English and bilingual dictionaries, usage, quotations, and subject reference books.
CQ Researcher, FACTS.com, SIRS Researcher, JSTOR, Project Muse

Selected Journals in the Library
The title links will take you to TDNet which is the Libraries' tool for locating journals regardless of their format—electronic, print, or microform. Once in TDNet, click on the links to locate journals online, or click on the check box to locate journals in print and microform. This is NOT a complete list of all relevant journals in the Missouri State University Libraries’ collection for this field. If you are looking for a particular title, then use TDNet as your starting point.

Dramatics

TCI: the Business of Entertainment Technology & Design

TDR (The Drama Review)

Theater

Theatre Design & Technology (TD&T): Journal of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology

Theatre History Studies

Theatre Journal

Theatre Notebook

Theatre Record

Theatre Research International

Theatre Survey

Theatre Topics

Recent Books in the Meyer Library Collection
The title links will take you into SWAN, the Missouri State Libraries catalog, to view publishing information and complete citation. The citation record will also display the Library of Congress call number used to arrange many of the books in this subject area. You can use the call number to browse the shelf for similar materials.

Angels in the American theater : patrons, patronage, and philanthropy / edited and with an Introduction by Robert A. Schanke. Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PN1590.S7 A54 2007

Arthur Miller's global theater / edited by Enoch Brater. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PS3525.I5156 Z535 2007

Basalla, Susan Elizabeth. "So what are you going to do with that?" : finding careers outside academia. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General HF5382.7 .B374 2007

Bevington, David M. This wide and universal theater : Shakespeare in performance, then and now. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PR3091 .B485 2007

Cassady, Marsh. An introduction to--the art of theatre : a comprehensive text--past, present, and future. Colorado Springs, Colo. : Meriwether Pub., c2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2037 .C28 2007

Cliff, Nigel. The Shakespeare riots : revenge, drama, and death in nineteenth-century America. New York : Random House, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2277.N5 C58 2007

Critical theory and performance / edited by Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2007.
1 copy ordered for MSU Meyer General on 05-31-2007.

Diggins, John P. Eugene O'Neill's America : desire under democracy. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PS3529.N5 Z6275 2007

Dijkhuizen, Jan Frans van. Devil theatre : demonic possession and exorcism in English Renaissance drama, 1558-1642. Woodbridge, UK ; Rochester, NY : D.S. Brewer, 2007.
1 copy being processed for MSU Meyer General.

Dixon, Steve. Digital performance : a history of new media in theater, dance, performance art, and installation. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2007.
1 copy being processed for MSU Meyer General.

Ebrahimian, Babak A. Sculpting space in the theater : conversations with the top set, light and costume designers. Burlington, MA : Focal Press, c2006.
MSU Meyer General PN2091.S8 E25 2006

Howard, Tony. Women as Hamlet : performance and interpretation in theatre, film and fiction. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PR2807 .H59 2007

Irving, Jan. Stories, time and again : a program guide for schools and libraries. Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited, c2006.
MSU Meyer General LB1027.25 .I78 2006

Keller, Max. Light fantastic : the art and design of stage lighting. Munich ; London : Prestel, c2006.
MSU Meyer General PN2091.E4 K45 2006

Leiter, Samuel L. Historical dictionary of Japanese traditional theatre. Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2006.
MSU Meyer General PN2921 .L45 2006

Londré, Felicia Hardison. The enchanted years of the stage : Kansas City at the crossroads of American theater, 1870-1930. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2277.K36 L66 2007

Miller, Scott. Strike up the band : a new history of musical theatre. Portsmouth, NH : Heinemann, c2007.
MSU Meyer Music General ML1711.5 .M55 2007

Mordden, Ethan. All that glittered : the golden age of drama on Broadway, 1919-1959. New York : St. Martin's Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2277.N5 M54 2007

Pitches, Jonathan. Science and the Stanislavsky tradition of acting. London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.
MSU Meyer General PN2062 .P58 2006

Producing & the theatre business : working in the theatre / edited by Robert Emmet Long ; foreword by Elizabeth Ireland McCann. New York : Continuum : American Theatre Wing, 2007.
1 copy being processed for MSU Meyer General.

Rebeck, Theresa. Free fire zone : a playwright's adventures on the creative battlefields of film, TV, and theater. Hanover, NH : Smith and Kraus, 2007.
1 copy ordered for MSU Meyer General on 04-24-2007.

Restaging the sixties : radical theaters and their legacies / edited by James M. Harding & Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2266.5 .R47 2007

Roach, Joseph R. It. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2039 .R63 2007

Sikes, Michael. Building parent involvement through the arts : activities and projects that enrich classrooms and schools. Thousand Oaks, CA : Corwin Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General NX303 .S55 2007

Wells, Stanley W. Shakespeare and co. : Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, and the other players in his story. New York : Pantheon Books, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PR2911 .W45 2006

Weltman, Sharon Aronofsky. Performing the Victorian : John Ruskin and identity in theater, science, and education. Columbus : Ohio State University Press, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PR5267.I35 W46 2007

Wilder, Thornton. Thornton Wilder : collected plays & writings on theater. New York : Library of America : Distributed to the trade in the United States by Penguin Putnam, c2007.
MSU Meyer General PS3545.I345 A6 2007

Women's theatrical memoirs / edited by Sharon M. Setzer and Julia Swindells. Part 1. London : Pickering & Chatto, 2007.
1 copy being processed for MSU Meyer General.

Wright, John. Why is that so funny? : a practical exploration of physical comedy. New York : Limelight Editions, 2007.
MSU Meyer General PN2071.C57 W75 2007

Reference Books at Meyer Library
The title links will take you into SWAN, the Missouri State Libraries catalog, to view publishing information and obtain the Library of Congress call number used by Meyer Library to arrange reference materials. Reference materials are non-circulating items.

Acting : an international encyclopedia
MSU Meyer Ref PN2035 .O84 2001

African American theater buildings
MSU Meyer Ref PN2270.A35 S58 2003

American musical theatre : a chronicle
MSU Music Ref ML1711 .B67 2001

Broadway: its history, people, and places: an encyclopedia
MSU Meyer Ref F128.65.T5 B56 2004

Contemporary authors: permanent series
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C61x

Contemporary authors: first revision
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C6

Contemporary authors: new revision series
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C612x

Contemporary literary criticism
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C62x

Contemporary North American film directors: a wallflower critical guide
MSU Meyer Ref PN1998.2 .C68 2002

Contemporary theatre, film & television
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 2285 .C58

Cyclopedia of literary places
MSU Meyer Ref PN56.S48C97 2003

Dictionary of literary biography
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 41 .D45x

Encyclopedia of early cinema
MSU Meyer Ref. PN1993.45 .E53 2005

Encyclopedia of filmmakers
MSU Meyer Ref PN1998.2 .T53 2002

Encyclopedia of stage plays into film
MSU Meyer Ref PN1997.85.T544 2001

Enser’s Fflmed books and plays: a list of books and plays from which films have been made, 1928-2001
MSU Meyer Ref PN 1997.85.E55 2003

Guide to monologues: men
MSU Meyer Ref. Desk PN 2080 .G84 1988

Guide to monologues: women
Ref. Desk PN2080 .G85 1988

McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 1625 .M3

Nineteenth-century literature criticism
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 761 .N5

Oxford encyclopedia of theatre & performance
MSU Meyer Ref PN2035.O94 2003 2volumes

Routledge guide to broadway
MSU Meyer Ref PN2277.N5 B43 2007

Twentieth-century literary criticism
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 771 .C27

Ultimate scene and monologue sourcebook
MSU Meyer Ref. Desk PN 2080 .Z1 H66 1994

VideoHound's golden movie retriever
MSU Meyer Ref PN1992.95 .V554 2003

World encyclopedia of contemporary theatre
MSU Meyer Ref. PN 1861 .W67x

Government Sources & Publications
Key government departments and agencies and publications in the Meyer Library Government Documents Department.

DocLinks - directory of national, state, local, and international government web sites from the Reference and Government Department at Missouri State University Libraries.
http://library.missouristate.edu/reference/govinfo.htm

USA.gov - the United States government's official web portal.
http://www.usa.gov

GPO Access
GPO Access disseminates official information from all three branches of the U.S. Government. It indexes government publications and offers core documents of U.S. democracy (Constitution, Bill of Rights, Gettysburg Address, etc.) along with a variety of other Federal-wide resources.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Associations
Organizations of experts, policy makers, and researchers.

General Directory
Scholarly Societies Project from the University of Waterloo Library
http://www.scholarly-societies.org/

American Alliance for Theatre and Education
http://www.aate.com

American Association of Community Theatre
http://www.aact.org

American Society for Theatre Research
http://www.astr.umd.edu/

American Theatre Arts for Youth
http://www.atafy.org

Educational Theatre Association
http://www.edta.org/

Institute of Outdoor Drama
http://www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor/

International Theatre Institute
http://iti-worldwide.org

National Theatre Institute
http://nti.conncoll.edu/

Southeastern Theatre Conference
http://www.setc.org

United States Institute for Theatre Technology
http://www.usitt.org

University/Resident Theatre Association
http://www.URTA.com

Web Sites
Selected web directories to sources and a variety of information on the Internet.

Artslynx Theatre Resources
http://artslynx.org/theatre/index.htm

Billy Rose Theatre Collection
http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/the/the.html

CurtainUp
http://curtainup.com/

Costume Site
http://www.milieux.com/costume/

Internet Broadway Database
http://www.ibdb.com/

Internet Movie Database
http://us.imdb.com

Internet Theatre Database
http://theatredb.com

Missouri State University Department of Theatre and Dance
http://www.theatreanddance.missouristate.edu/

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: Selected Internet Resources > Performing Arts: Theatre
http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/internet/lpa.cfm?Trg=1&d1=129&d3=Theatre

PLAY finding
http://www.playscripts.com/findaplay/

Playbill
http://www.playbill.com/index.php

Resources of Scholarly Societies – Theatre
http://www.scholarly-societies.org/drama_soc.html

Theater Associations Resources
http://www.business.com/directory/media_and_entertainment/theater/associations

Theatre History
http://theatrehistory.com/

Theatre Library Association
http://tla.library.unt.edu/

Web Virtual Library Theatre and Drama
http://www.vl-theatre.com/

compiled by Edward DeLong | Meyer Library
Missouri State University Libraries | Updated: July 2007