Clark Family Library: English 255: August Wilson’s Pittsburgh (Prof. Harding) Fall 2024 : Finding Secondary Sources

Why should I use secondary sources?

Secondary sources are important for helping to give context to primary sources. They allow a researcher to look back and reflect to identify trends, provide prospective, and make connections between events that may have seemed unrelated when they happened.

When researching theatre, secondary sources will help understand how certain directors are influenced by each other, how the same play is interpreted and staged differently over time, and learn more about the backstage activities of set design, costuming, and lighting.

Secondary sources can also be very helpful when you are trying to research the issues that you want to make your piece of theatre about. You may find inspiration in reading about historical events or the challenges that underrepresented groups face in the world.

Below are some suggestions for where you can find secondary information about theatre but please don't hesitate to make an appointment with a librarian for help searching your specific idea.

Sources for Research in Theatre

Art & Architecture Source This link opens in a new window
Covers fine and commercial art, sculpture, and additional emphasis on architecture. Offers over 63,000 art images, 600 full-text journals dating back to 1990 and more than 220 full-text books.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Full- text of back issues of peer-reviewed journals as far back as the 1800s in the arts, sciences, ecology, botany, language, literature, and music. Multidisciplinary.

London Stage Database
A digitized, searchable version of The London Stage: 1660-1800, a core reference for 8th-century London theater compiled from newspapers, playbills, and contemporaneous theatrical diaries

New Play Exchange This link opens in a new window
Search the world's largest digital library of scripts by living authors. Read and download scripts, see writer profiles, and read professional recommendations.
NOTE: This database is only accessible from on the campus network.

W&J Newspaper Databases
Newspapers provide current as well as historical information about theater, including news about productions; profiles of actors, directors, and designers; reviews; and theater listings.

Photo of a unit of shelves filled with play scripts in the library labeled with a sign stating PLAYS. Looking for books and play scripts in the library?

We have a collection of Play scripts on the main level of the library in the back left corner, near the classroom.

Downstairs in our stacks, most of the books on theatre will be found in PN 1530-PN 3299. This section covers drama in all forms including theatre, radio, TV, and film.

Analysis of plays and playwrights will also be shelved in P in the subsection that corresponds to the county they are from.

Library staff are always happy to help you understand the Library of Congress classification system and find items on our shelves. Just ask!

Applied Theatre: Economies
Economies addresses a notoriously problematic area: applied theatre's relationship to the economy and the ways in which socially committed theatre makers fund, finance or otherwise resource their work.
Artistic citizenship: artisty, social responsibility, and ethical praxis
This compendium unites perspectives from artists, scholars, arts educators, policymakers, and activists to investigate the complex system of values surrounding artistic-educational endeavors. Addressing a range of artistic domains-including music, dance, theater, visual arts, film, and poetry-contributors explore and critique the conventions that govern our interactions with these practices.
Ethnotheatre: Research From Page to Stage
This book transforms research about human experiences into a dramatic presentation for an audience.
Full Moon Stages: Personal Notes From 50 Years of The Living Theatre
As cofounder of the internationally-known, highly-controversial radical political troupe, The Living Theater, author Judith Malina is one of the leading female countercultural figures of the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. in this book, she creates an intimate memoir in a unique format with a collection of personal notes written on every full moon for 50 years from 1964 to 2014.
The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre As Cultural Intervention
The Politics of Performance addresses fundamental questions about the social and political purposes of performance through an investigation into post-war alternative and community theatre.
Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s
Drawing on underexplored and only recently available archives, author Chrystyna Dail examines the influence of Stage for Action, a theatre group founded in 1943, on social activist theatre in the 1940s, early 1950s, and beyond. The group embraced subjects not taken up by earlier activist theatre companies—advocating for the rights of Puerto Ricans, calling attention to the lack of child care for working mothers, and demanding the cessation of all nuclear warfare.
Staging Social Justice: Collaborating to Create Activist Theatre
Staging Social Justice is a groundbreaking collection of essays about Fringe Benefits', a theatre company, script-devising methodology and their collaborations in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The anthology also vividly describes the transformative impact of these creative initiatives on participants and audiences.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text archive covering Aug 2, 1927 - Dec 31, 2003 (Vol. 77, no. 153), with the following exceptions: Jan 1, 1961 - Dec 31, 1964; Jan 1, 1966 - Dec 31, 1976
Pittsburgh Courier This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text archive covering 1911-2002.
Chicago Defender This link opens in a new window
Searchable full-text archive covering 1910-1975.
Ebony Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 800 issues providing a broad view of African-American culture from its first issue in 1945 through 2014

American Theatre
Articles, commentary, review articles, theatre reviews on all aspects of national theatre.
Internet Off-Broadway Database
The Internet Off-Broadway Database, also known as the IOBDB, provides a catalogue of all shows ever produced Off-Broadway.
Internet Broadway Database
IBDB provides a comprehensive database of shows produced on Broadway, including all "title page" information about each production. IBDB also offers historical information about theatres and various statistics and fun facts related to Broadway.
New York Times Theatre Section
New York is a center for theatre in the United States and the New York Times has been covering theatre for as long as the publication has been in business. Use the website to find current and historical coverage of theatre.
Follow the instructions on our FAQ page to create your New York Times account.
Performing Arts Alliance
The Performing Arts Alliance is the national policy advocate, leadership forum, and learning network for America’s nonprofit performing arts organizations, artists, and allies.

TDR/The Drama Review is a quarterly academic journal, devoted to deep investigations of experimental, avant-garde, intercultural, and interdisciplinary performance and its political and social context.

1967-1968 can be found here: https://www.jstor.org/journal/tdr19671968
1968-1987 can be found here: https://www.jstor.org/journal/dramareviewtdr
1988-2017 can be found here: https://www.jstor.org/journal/tdr1988
1999-present can be found here: https://muse-jhu-edu.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/journal/193