Theatre & Dance

The online home of American Theatre magazine. It contains every article published in the magazine, with the exception of the complete play scripts. With content updated daily, AmericanTheatre.org delivers up-to-the minute news, in-depth features, stunning visuals, exclusive podcasts and videos, and artists’ commentary and opinions across technological platforms.

This online presentation includes items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured here are stage and costume designs, photographs, posters, playbills, programs, and playscripts, including productions of Macbeth and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus as staged by Orson Welles, and Power, a topical drama of the period. Selected administrative documents from the project are also available.

Excellent collection of resources on the history of theatre. Created and maintained by Dr. Jack Wolcott, retired Associate Director of the University of Washington School of Drama.

Theater Talk is a series devoted to the world of the stage. It began on New York television in 1993 and is hosted by series Executive Producer Susan Haskins-Doloff along with a revolving team of guest hosts, including: Adam Feldman, Jesse Green, Donna Hanover, Warren Leight, Michael Musto, Jan Simpson, Elisabeth Vincentelli and Jason Zinoman. The weekly episodes from 2008-2018 are available here.

A fairly comprehensive site containing information and advice for actors new to the business of the art (mostly SAG and film-focused).

Public speeches, sermons, lectures, etc. Check out their Movie Speeches section for monologues and scenes and exerpts of films. Most are audio (mp3) some on video. Most come with transcripts.

The International Dialects of English Archive was created in 1998 as the internet’s first archive of primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world. With roughly 1,500 samples from 120 countries and territories, and more than 170 hours of recordings, IDEA is now the largest archive of its kind. IDEA’s recordings are principally in English, are of native speakers, and include both English-language dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages. (Many include brief demonstrations of the speaker’s native language, too.)

Hundreds of monologues divided into comic, and dramatic, classical.

Focusing on the people who are almost never in the news but who are essential to the making of the shows we all see and love, In The Wings explores the talents and stories behind the scenes, from the costume and scenic shops to the rehearsal room to the stage itself, with designers, artisans and craftspeople explaining their unique contributions to theatrical art in their own words. These short videos shine the spotlight on disciplines you may not even realize are a part of theatrical production and celebrate the full diversity of talent that contribute to bringing a show to the stage.

Huge list of links relating to theatrical costumes. Divided into categories such as historical, science fiction, armor, etc.

The Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design is a valuable source of documentation on the history of theatre and is housed in The Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It is a rare collection of original materials on the theatre comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the United States. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric. Over 4,000 items are found in the digital collection.

Links to sources on many aspects of staging, including props, special effects, sound, wardrobe, etc. Also has extensive glossary of stage terminology. From the University of Exeter Drama Department (in Britain).

The Lighting Database is a joint project of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the NYPL Digital Experience Group, and the Lighting Archive, and is funded by the New York State Council for the Arts.
This collection contains actual plots, focus charts, cue sheets and much more from four landmark productions digitized from the collections of the New York Public Library.

Working in the Theatre is The Wing’s Emmy® Nominated documentary series produced to entertain audiences by revealing theatre’s inner-workings, profiling industry luminaries, and taking a closer look at unique stories that surround important work. Episodes from the past five seasons are available here and many more are available on YouTube (see link below).

Close to 200 episodes of the American Theatre Wing's documentary series can be found on their YouTube channel