Theatre & Dance Resources: Web
Theater History on the Web: A comprehensive gateway to Web resources, covering theatre of all periods from classical to contemporary, as well as costume, lighting, design, and stagecraft.
Brief Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Performance Studies: This not-so-brief guide is quite comprehensive--just be sure to scroll down to the actual contents (you might want to skip the "Introduction"). Categories include "Actors and Acting," Stagecraft and Technical Theatre," "Plays and Playwrights," "Arts Management and Non-Profit," and "Of Regional Interest"--this last being an excellent collection of links to regional theatre from around the world.
Theatre History Sites on the WWW: This hasn't been updated in a few years, but as a gateway it still provides links to many excellent resources. The organization is by period: Classical, Medieval, Elizabethan, and Later English, along with Illusionist and American. Also see the Theatre portal by the same author.
New York Public Library: Performing Arts: An outstanding portal to "Dance" resources on the Web, as well a good gateway to "Arts Administration" and "Theatre" sites. Under "Theatre" see especially "History," "Design & Stagecraft," and "International Theatre."
IPL2: Performing Arts: Note links for Dance and Drama (Theater & Stagecraft) on the left.
Drama, Theatre, & Performing Art Studies: From Voice of the Shuttle, a gateway to online resources.
American Theatre Wing: Besides the glitz of the Tony awards, this organization also supports theatre education. Of particular interest here are the hour-long video interviews with a wide range of contemporary Theatre professionals accessible under "Working in the Theatre" and "Career Guides" on the left of the home page.
Internet Broadway Database (IBDB): This site covers New York theater from its beginnings to what's currently running. The home page presents links for current shows front and center, but use the search slot at the upper left to access information on shows from any period. You can search by "Show," "People," "Theater," or "Season" (for Season just enter a one-year range: for example, 1915-1916). Every season is covered back to the 18th century.
The Broadway League: As the national trade association for Broadway, the League focuses on promotion and education, but there are some very good resources under "Research & Information," including statistics of weekly and seasonal grosses for individual plays and touring productions back to 1984.
Playbill: The focus is the current theatre scene in New York and London, but there is also coverage of touring and regional as well as international theatre. The "Broadway Grosses" information provides week-by-week comparisons for each play. And there are limited archival features on past shows. Playbill also maintains a gateway to threatre resources on the web called Theatre Central--where you should scroll down to the "Categories."
AmericanTheaterWeb.com : A clearinghouse of theater news from across the United States and around the world.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG): TCG is a national organization that serves--and collects data from--almost 500 non-profit theatres across the country.
- Under "Grants" both "Grants at a Glance" and "Grants for Organizations" are helpful.
- Under "Tools & Research" note the database of "Theatre Profiles" and "Theatre Facts." Theatre Facts is an annual publication on not-for-profit theatre in America, for which TCG collects its own extensive data.
- Under “Other Tools and Research” pay particular attention to “Centerpiece,” which collects case studies of management issues for small theatres.
Actors' Equity Association: Approaching a century old now, Actor's Equity offers some interesting online resources. Look over the "Document Library" and the "FAQ" sections, and especially note the Annual Study under "News & Media." At the end of each theatrical season Equity collects and collates data about employment and publishes it here as an "AEA Annual Season Study."
- Speech Accent Archive: From George Mason University, The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. This website allows users to compare the demographic and linguistic backgrounds of the speakers in order to determine which variables are key predictors of each accent.
- International Dialects of English Archive: In addition to the "international" range of accents in English speakers, note the state-by-state Dialects of American English.
- Costume Page: A gateway to costume design resources on the Web.
- Stage Lighting for Students: Introduction and overview.
- Theatre Sound Design Directory: by country.
- Obtaining Rights to Produce a Play or Musical or use Music in Live Performances
Costume Institute Database: From the Metropolitan Museum, 30,000 costumes and accessories spanning five continents and as many centuries.
Costume: from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, this page features features links to pictures and commentary on designing, caring for, and wearing stage costumes..
Society of Dance History Scholars: Resources: Subject categories include time periods--medieval, baroque, nineteenth-century--and dance styles--folk, ballroom, tango, Asian.
Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive: An archive of video clips (most run about 2 minutes) spanning performances at Jacob's Pillow from 1937 to the present. Search by artist, genre, or era.
American Ballet Theatre: Ballet Dictionary: An online dictionary of ballet terms, with video clips to illustrate positions and movements (uses Quicktime).
National Endowment for the Arts: The NEA is the United States' largest annual funder of the arts. Under "Research" see both "Research Notes" and "Research Reports" for recent statistical information on topics such as consumer spending on the Performing Arts. Under "Publications" see the "Annual Report" (click on the free pdf version to the right) for a financial summary of the fiscal year and profiles of some of the grants awarded. Just below the link to the annual report note that you can click on Dance, Musical Theater, and Theater for federal grant information. Under "Resources--Funding" see "State Arts Agencies & Regional Arts Organizations" for state and local funding.
- Arts Activities: Selected data, including attendance and ticket sales for legitimate theater, touring companies, and non-profit theater.
- Economic Census for Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation--by state.
- Economic Census for Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation--national summary.
Noodlebib guides you through the required data entry for citation in the MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles. It takes care of punctuation, alphabetization and formatting, producing a polished source list for import into Word.
MLA is the citation style used by most disciplines in the Humanities. The guides below use the latest 2008/9 standards.
