Theatre: A Research Guide: Theatre Web Sites

Websites selected by New York Public Library staff. Exhaustive and exceptional lisitng of the best the Internet has to offer. Highly subject specialized.

This Guide is maintained by Ken McCoy, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair Communication Studies and Theatre Arts, Stetson University.It is an exceptional online scholarly guide to online resources for theatre research. Be sure to read the introduction first.

Part of the American Memory Project at the Library of Congress, this web site covers Vaudeville and popular entertainment from 1870-1920. Included are playscripts, theatre playbill and programs, motion pictures, sound recordings, photographs, and Houdini memorabilia.

Playbill is the single best web site for connecting to information about Broadway and Off-Broadway. Many items of information are provided such as headline news, casting information, and financial information about the ticket sales for the previous two weeks. Many links are provided to individual theaters for viewing the seating chart, reading a summary of the play currently in production , buying tickets, etc.

This publisher's catalog website allows searching of plays by cast (sex and number) and by type of play (full length, short, or musicals), as well as by title and author. Search results produce a list of plays meeting the searcher's specified criteria and display a brief summary of the play. Check the High Library catalog for plays that are owned.

Similar to the Internet Movie Database, IBDB (Internet Broadway Database) archive is the official database for Broadway theatre information. IBDB provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today. OFfers information on the shows, people, theatres, characters, awards, songs and more.