Primary Sources for Theater
The Library provides networked access to many more full-text or streaming video primary source databases than can be listed here. Others may be located through the Library Catalog and Databases, which contains an alphabetical list of online resources related to Linguistics, Language and Literature.
- Early English Books Online (EEBO)From the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War, Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475 - 1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661).
- Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare This link opens in a new window"The complete text of eleven major editions of Shakespeare’s works from the First Folio to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, twenty four separate contemporary printings of individual plays, selected apocrypha and related works and more than 100 adaptations, sequels, and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries."
- Global Performing Arts Database (GLOPAD)GloPAD is an archived multimedia, multilingual, database containing digital images, texts, video clips, sound recordings, and complex media objects (such as 3-D images) related to the performing arts around the world. All GloPAD records include authoritative, detailed descriptions of the digital objects, in addition to information about related pieces, productions, performers, and creators.
- Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project This link opens in a new windowThis archive includes the personal and professional papers of Edward Alleyn (1566-1626) and those he inherited from his father-in-law Philip Henslowe (d. 1616). As a group, these manuscripts comprise the largest and most important single extant archive of material on the professional theatre and dramatic performance in early modern England, the age of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker, Chettle, and so many of their contemporaries and colleagues.
- Shakespeare Quartos ArchiveA digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays. A cross-Atlantic collaboration has also produced an interactive interface for the detailed study of these geographically distant quartos, with full functionality for all thirty-two quarto copies of Hamlet held by participating institutions.
Streaming Video
- BBC Shakespeare PlaysProvides online streaming access to the 37 Shakespeare plays produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985.
- Digital Theatre+Provides online access to a digital streaming video collection of films of current, British theatre productions. Includes behind-the-scenes documentaries as well as teaching and learning resources. Learning resources include a detailed introduction, plot summary, character biographies, a relationship map, language analysis, scene study, performance background and historical context for each play.
- National Theatre Collection"Drawing on 10 years of National Theatre Live broadcasts as well as recordings never previously seen outside of the National Theatre's archive, the video content includes 30 video performances. As a supplement to the filmed productions, exclusive digitized archival materials such as photographs, scripts, costume designs, and more provide behind-the-scenes background and contextual information" Archive Collection url: http://proxy.library.cornell.edu/login?url=https://search.alexanderstreet.com/nath
- Theatre in VideoContains performances of the world's leading plays and film documentaries on the subject of theater in streaming video. Some plays presented in multiple productions exemplifying various interpretations of the text, and technical and cultural differences among the presentations. Stage work of directors and actors are cross-searchable and available for side-by-side comparison. Interviews with directors, designers, writers, and actors, along with excerpts of live performances, provide illustration of the development of texts and the productions.
- Met Opera on DemandMet Opera on Demand delivers instant access to past performances of the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series, as well as classic video and audio performances, including radio broadcasts dating back to 1936.
- MIT Global ShakespeareA collaborative project providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays and metadata provided by scholars and educators in the field.
- Teatro Campesino Online Collection This link opens in a new windowFrom the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) at University of California, Santa Barbara. This collection of 118 videos contains El Teatro Campesino plays, television specials, concerts, interviews, news footage, commercials, and workshops. The series includes the first known film that has a segment about the Teatro, "Huelga," narrated by Cesar Chavez. Other films range from the early actos to television specials on the movie "Zoot Suit." There are films of scenes from plays and whole plays, interviews with Luis Valdez and others, footage of the twentieth anniversary gala of El Teatro Campesino, and a documentary on the history of the Teatro made in 1981.