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Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies

Key Resources

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Modern Language Associations international article database of more than 3 million records covering all aspects of modern languages and literature including theatre, drama, dance, and performance studies. Searchable by keyword and through MLA Thesaurus subject headings.
Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
Analysis, biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism, original works of literature, and reviews on more than 160,000 writers. 50+ drama foucsed topic overviews including: 19th Century Women Playwrights, Yiddish Theatre, Commedia dell'Arte, Kabuki, Elizabethan Drama, and much more.
Drama Online This link opens in a new window
Access full-text plays, streaming performance, and theatre and acting resources. Includes playtext collections from Methuen Drama, Faber and Faber, The Arden Shakespeare, Nick Hern, Oberon, Playwrights Canada Press, TCG Books, Aurora Metro, and streaming content from the Stratford Festival, National Theatre (UK), the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe, and L.A. Theatre Works.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
Includes: Oxford Dictionary of Plays, Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance, The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, Oxford Companion to American Theatre, Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre, Oxford Companion to the American Musical, Dictionary Plus: Performing Arts, and more.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Search for journal articles, magazines, books, and newspapers covering all aspects of drama, theatre, dance, and performance studies. Indexes more than 400 publications, with 134 available in full text.

Selected Histories

Theatre Histories by Daphne P. Lei, Tobin Nellhaus, Tamara Underiner, & Patricia Ybarra
Publication Date: 2024
A critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have interacted.
The Methuen Drama Handbook of Theatre History and Historiography by Claire Cochrane & Jo Robinson
Publication Date: 2019
Covering key themes and methods that are current in theatre history research, with a particular focus on expanding the object of study to include engagement with theatre and performance practices and the development of theatre histories around the world.
A New History of Theatre in France by Christian Biet & Clare Finburgh Delijani
Publication Date: 2024
A collaborative history testifying to the central part theatre has played for over a thousand years in both French culture and world culture placing at its core the genders, ethnicities and classes previously excluded from theatres and theatre criticism.
Feminist Rehearsals by May Summer Farnsworth
Publication Date: 2023
Feminist Rehearsals documents the early stages of feminist theatre in Argentina and Mexico, revealing how various aspects of performance culture--spectator formation, playwriting, professional acting and directing, and dramatic techniques--paralleled political activism and championed the goals of the women's rights movement.

U of T Links

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