Hoover Library: *Theatre Arts: THE 2227

Background Information

GVRL - Gale Virtual Reference Library
Access to many reference works to help you explore topics and better understand the historical context and influences.
Magill OnLiterature Plus
MagillOnLiterature Plus is a helpful database when you are just beginning your research or want an overview of a text or information on an author. It's an online source for editorially reviewed critical analyses, and also includes brief plot summaries of the most studied works in the history of literature.
Not only does it provide you with subject terms that can be helpful in assisting you with your search, but also provides quick reference facts about a work, as well as other information like forms and devices, themes and meanings, characters, etc. Each entry has a bibliography or further reading list that will you give you an idea of other resources you can use

IBDB - Internet Broadway Database
"The official database for Broadway theatre information. Provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today."

Do background searching: Identify the who, where, and when for your production
Reflect on why this work is interesting and/or significant/extent to which you believe the event was successful (commercially, critically, and as an interpretation of the play text).
Use this information to create keywords
Search for online, archived copies of theatre magazines from the time (google to find relevant ones to you)

Research Starter
Search for books, articles, images, and more!
Historical New York Times
See entry for the New York Times for issues from 1851 to present
Washington Post
Access to archived editions of the Washington Post. Coverage: 1877 - 2005

Chronicling America
"Chronicling America (ISSN 2475-2703) is a Website providing access to information about historic newspapers and select digitized newspaper pages, and is produced by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). NDNP, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers with descriptive information and select digitization of historic pages."

MLA International Bibliography
A detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920s and contains over 1.8 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series and 1,000 book publishers.
JSTOR
A full text archival database covering a variety of subjects ranging from music, art, history, political science to economics and philosophy.

Conduct background searching and brainstorm: what are the themes or topics you want to focus on?
Use this information to create keywords
Look at the reference lists of articles that are relevant to your topic to identify potential new sources
Take note of patterns of themes or analyses by scholars, how does this build toward your argument about your text?

Research Starter
Search for books, articles, images, and more!
MLA International Bibliography
A detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to the 1920s and contains over 1.8 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series and 1,000 book publishers.
Literature Criticism Online
The largest, most extensive compilation of literary commentary available
JSTOR
A full text archival database covering a variety of subjects ranging from music, art, history, political science to economics and philosophy.
Project Muse
Provides full-text online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.