Skip to Main Content

Research Guides

Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies

Primary sources for theatre

Searching the catalogue for primary sources

The University of Toronto Libraries search tool - LibrarySearch - provides access to hundreds of thousands of primary sources. 

Use the Simple Search interface for easy access to a selection of sources.

Use the Advanced Search interface to build a more targeted search. 

To locate primary sources, start with a Simple Search.

  • Add your topic keyword and primary source keyword (eg. letters, diaries, pamphlets, newspapers, etc).
  • Select the Catalogue option from the drop-down menu.
  • And review your results.

BROAD SEARCHES: Search for one of the following subject headings:

SPECIFIC SEARCHES: Try combining a playwright's surname (or a play's title in quotation marks) with one of the following subject headings:

  • texts
  • manuscripts
  • sources 
  • correspondence
  • pamphlets
  • interviews
  • diaries
  • personal narratives

e.g. O'Neill correspondence

Primary source collections

Theatre reviews

chat loading...