LibGuides: Drama: Suggested Websites

Recommended Websites

Costume Gallery

Browse the extensive collection of photos, research Viking footwear and medieval dress, study a guide to textiles, and participate in bulletin board discussions here. All facets of costume and its history from textiles through hairstyles are covered at this site, with commercial links to suppliers and designers.
Costume Page

A directory of thousands of costume and costuming-related links, for the benefit of those who make and/or study costumes. It includes sites for costumers, students, historical re-enactors, science fiction fans, dancers, theatrical costumers, and those interested in fashion, textile art, and costume history.
Jokesters Stage Makeup Design 101

Two professional makeup artists provide a complete curriculum treating subjects like nose putty, crepe hair and cuts, burns and blisters for their class at Towson State University.
Librarians’ Internet Index

Librarians' Internet Index. Librarian reviewed websites are suggested for a multitude of topics in the performing arts, film, TV and related arts.
playdatabase.com

A database of over 12,000 plays, 5,000 writers, and 300 monologues "that can be searched by the parameters that count — cast size, length, synopsis." Profiles of plays feature a synopsis and details such as genre, number of characters, and royalty costs. Registration (free) required to rate plays and use forums.
Stage Lighting 101

Spots, floods, fresnels, Par64s - it's all here along with design methods, working with the rest of the design team, lighting plans and mechanics, and final section on education.
Stagehand Primer

Description of the activities of unionized theater stagehands. Includes a listing of the technical crew hierarchy, safety information, explanation of different types of theater spaces (such as proscenium and thrust stages), and discussions of types of stagehand activities in stage carpentry, scene shop, electrics, sound, video properties, and wardrobe.
Working in the Theatre Seminars

The American Theatre Wing's panel discussion series brings together performers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers and behind-the-scenes personnel from the Broadway theatre. Streaming video recordings of these seminars may be viewed here. Subjects include puppetry, performance, humor, specific productions, stage design, unions, critics and more.

Links and descriptions from Olympic College Theatre Production Techniques libguide.

Art of Ancient Greek Theater (Getty Villa Exhibitions)
This exhibition explores the many ways Greek drama was interpreted by ancient Greek artists, whose works are frequently the only surviving evidence of the performing arts in antiquity. A wide variety of objects — including sculptures, painted vases, and a rare fragmentary papyrus — brings to life the rich history of ancient Greek theater.
Blanche Payne Regional Costume Photograph and Drawing Collection :::
The Blanche Payne Regional Costume and Drawing Collection contains photographic prints, pattern drawings, watercolor paintings, and postcards that former UW faculty-member Blanche Payne collected or created on her research trips to the former Yugoslavia and various other countries during 1930 and 1936-1937.
Carnival Collection (Louisiana Research Collection) at Tulane University
Tulane University’s Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) preserves possibly the largest collection of New Orleans Carnival paper and ephemera, such as invitations, dance cards, call out cards, printed float plates and bulletins, and original float and costume designs.
Digital Collections of the Chicago History Museum
The Chicago History Museum's Costume and Textile Collection features 50,000-plus artifacts from the mid-18th century to the present. Its focus reflects its urban origins: many of its contents were worn by "former presidents and first ladies, sports stars, celebrities or everyday people." The Chicago History Museum’s outstanding and diverse collection of images, objects, books, manuscripts, and costumes tell the stories of the city’s and the nation’s history. The Museum is dedicated to making the collection accessible through exhibitions, programs, publications, and via the web.
Domestic Interiors Database
The Domestic Interiors Database is a major outcome from a broad-ranging analytical survey of the ways in which the interior has been represented since the Renaissance in Western Europe and North America. It was compiled by staff at the AHRC Centre for the Study of the Domestic Interior between September 2001 and August 2006 and is a contribution to the AHRC’s mission to “ensure that knowledge and understanding generated by arts and humanities research is widely disseminated for the economic, social and cultural benefit of the UK and beyond.” With over 3,000 entries, the database cannot claim to provide a comprehensive or exhaustive compendium of representations of the interior across six centuries.
doollee.com - the playwrights database of modern plays
Welcome to doollee.com the free online guide to modern playwrights and theatre plays which have been written, adapted or translated, into English since the production of Look Back in Anger in 1956. doollee.com contains information on 43,984 Playwrights and 148,305 of their Plays.
Folger Digital Texts
Produced by the Folger Shakespeare Library and the multi-institution collaborative Folger Institute, this digital-text component of the pedagogical Folger Editions provides a vast array of materials, all cleanly presented and intuitively linked together.
Greatest Films - The Best Movies in Cinematic History
Filmsite.org is an award-winning website for classic film buffs, students, moviegoers and anyone else interested in the great movies of the last century. Detailed plot synopses, review commentary and film reference material are just some of the features available on the site. The site also contains film analysis, original content, information on the top films and most memorable movie scenes, "best of…" articles, and the most popular film quotes in all genres of film. Its many resources include
Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection
The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection contains 13,000 textiles and related objects. These span a broad spectrum of times, places, and techniques from archeological material (primarily Peruvian and Coptic) through contemporary fiber art. Particular strengths are ethnographic textiles and costumes (especially South and Southeast Asian and Latin American material), as well as European and American home furnishing and apparel fabrics.
Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection
The Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection furthers the understanding of human beings within their material and social environments through the study of textiles of artistic, cultural, and historic significance. Our mission is to provide educational resources both within the University and beyond.
I Love Lucy: An American Legend - Exhibitions - myLOC.gov (Library of Congress)
In celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the show's debut, the Library of Congress presents I Love Lucy: An American Legend. This exhibition explores the show's history through the Ball and Arnaz family scrapbooks as well as photographs, scripts, printed and manuscript music, and other documents from the Library of Congress.
Marcel Breuer Digital Archive
The Marcel Breuer Digital Archive represents a collaborative effort headed by Syracuse University Library to digitize over 30,000 drawings, photographs, letters and other materials related to the career of Marcel Breuer, one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century. The first phase of this NEH-funded project culminates in the headquarters complex designed for UNESCO in the mid-1950s. UNESCO represents a transitional moment between the early Bauhaus-inspired designs and the monumental, sculptural concrete buildings of his later career.
Media History Digital Library - Online Access to the Histories of Cinema, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound
We are a non-profit initiative dedicated to digitizing collections of classic media periodicals that belong in the public domain for full public access. The project is supported by owners of materials who loan them for scanning, and donors who contribute funds to cover the cost of scanning. We have currently scanned over 700,000 pages, and that number is growing.
Playbill Vault - The Largest Broadway Database On The Internet
PlaybillVault.com is a comprehensive database of Broadway history from Playbill Inc.
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research
The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) aims to promote the investigation of American culture through the "original records of its creators," especially within the audiovisual media and theater fields.