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Research Guides

Drama Criticism: Find Books

This is a guide to selected sources of information related to drama criticism at the Geisel Library.

New Books

Select Books in the General Collection

History
Fraden, Rena. Blueprints for a Black Federal Theatre, 1935–1939.
     PN2270.F43 F73

Limon, Jerzy. The Masque of Stuart Culture.
     PR678.M3 L56

Renaissance Drama.
     PN2171 .R4 new ser 33

Shepherd-Barr, Kirsten. Ibsen and Early Modernist Theatre, 1890–1900.
     PT8900.G7 S54

Biography
Rayfield, Donald. Anton Chekhov: A Life.
     PG3458 .R35

Partnow, Elaine. The Female Dramatist: Profiles of Women Playwrights from the Middle Ages to Contemporary Times.
     PN471 .P37

Criticism
Bottoms, Stephen J. Playing Underground: A Critical History of the 1960s Off-Off-Broadway Movement.
     PN2277.N5 B47

Carlson, Marvin A. Theories of the Theatre:  A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present.
     PN2039 .C26

Szondi, Peter. Theory of the Modern Drama:  A Critical Edition.
     PN1851.S9513

Reviews
Goldman, William. The Season:  A Candid Look at Broadway.
     PN2277.N5G6

Sampson, Henry T. The Ghost Walks:  A Chronological History of Blacks in Show Business, 1865–1910.
     PN2270.A35S25

Shakespeare in the Theatre:  An Anthology of Criticism.
     PR3091 .S365

Other
Homan, Sidney. Staging Modern Playwrights:  From Director's Concept to Performance.
     PN2053 .H63

Melzer, Annabelle. Latest Rage the Big Drum:  Dada and Surrealist Performance.
     PN2189.M37

Rozik, Eli. The Roots of Theatre:  Rethinking Ritual and Other Theories of Origin.
     PN2125 .R69

Senelick, Laurence. The Chekhov Theatre:  A Century of the Plays in Performance.
     PG3458.Z9 S877

Search Library Catalog

Library Catalog

Use this box to search the Geisel Library catalog for books and other materials in the library collection.

Other Places to Find Books

Finding Books in the Library

Many works on drama that will be relevant to theatre research are classified within the PN–PT range of call numbers and are located on the Upper Level of the Geisel Library.

Call Number Range: Books About:
PN1600-3307 Drama (General)
PN2000-3307 The Theater
PQ500-591 French Drama
PR621-744 British Drama
PS330-353 American Drama

 

Search by Subject

Examples of subject headings to search in the Catalog:

Try searching some of the phrases below as Subject Headings in the catalog. This method often finds a higher percentage of books that are directly relevant to a particular topic. If you are researching a particular author or work, try searching the author's name as a Subject to locate biographies and literary criticism.

  • Greek tragedy
  • Shakespeare
  • Musical theater
  • Theater architecture
  • Theater and state
  • European drama (Tragedy)
  • European drama (Comedy) - History and criticism

Examples of keyword searches to use in the Catalog:

  • moderni* and theater and criticism
  • music* and theater and drama and not videorecording
  • critic* and drama and european drama and not renaissance

Use the * (asterisk) as a truncation symbol to retrieve variant forms of a word root; for example, moderni* will catch books with the words "modernity" or "modernism" in the catalog record. Use the Boolean AND to combine together multiple concepts, and use the Boolean OR to expand your search with synonyms and related terms. Use AND NOT to eliminate any instances of a term or phrase. AND NOT is particularly useful if you notice in search results multiple instances of terms appearing in titles or entries that are not relevant to your topic.