Theatre Arts Research Guide

"Actorama.com is a social and business network that offers useful resources not only to actors, but also directors, producers, casting directors, agents and managers. The website offers blogs, casting calls and a database of monologues and scenes from films, television, plays and books."

"IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content."

"Improv Encyclopedia is the largest collection or resources for improvization theater on the web. Here you will find tons of stuff related to improvization theatre, also known as 'improv' or 'impro'."

"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."

A site with monologues browsable by category (gender, style, etc.) or searchable.

"The Performing Arts Databases page contains database and catalog resources that are intended to help users with research in the performing arts areas."

"News, features, performance listings for Broadway, Off-Broadway, London and Regional theatre."

"A complete database of Shakespeare's Monologues. All of them. The monologues are organized by play, then categorized by comedy, history and tragedy. You can browse and/or search."

"The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds."

"A unique interactive resource designed to bring dance to the Web and make it accessible to everyone. Dover Publications has graciously allowed the use of 170 terms from the Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet, which are then demonstrated by ABT Company dancers. "

Dance instruction manuals circa 1490-1920. "Library of Congress staff selected this set of materials relating to ballroom (also called social) dance from various divisions and collections in the Library."

"The Dance Notation Bureau’s (DNB) mission is to advance the art of dance through the use of a system of notation."

"The performing arts anthology series brings best from the worlds of music and dance into viewers' living rooms. From classical music and opera to ballet and musical theater, cameras capture the stage performances of some of the best artists in the world."

"The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library is the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance. Chronicling the art of dance in all its manifestations—ballet, ethnic, modern, social, and folk—the division is much more than a library in the usual sense of the word."

"If you want to write movie screenplays, you need to read movie screenplays – it’s just as essential as batting practice for professional baseball players. ... Here, then, are ten websites that allow you to download professional movie scripts."

"The advice and rantings of a Hollywood script reader tired of seeing screenwriters make the same mistakes, saving the world from bad writing one screenplay at a time. Learn what it takes to get your script past one of these mythical Gatekeepers."

"In 2005 Franklin Leonard surveyed almost 100 film industry development executives about their favorite scripts from that year that had not been made as feature films. Since then the voter pool has grown to 500 film executives, 60% of whom typically respond."

"Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York City theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway compete against each other in the same category."

"An electronic Eugene O'Neill archive"

"If you enjoy movies you've come to the right place, we have the biggest collection of movie scripts available anywhere on the web. Our site lets you read or download movie scripts for free."

"The Native American Women Playwrights Archive is a collection of original materials by Native women playwrights of the Americas. NAWPA hopes to identify playwrights, collect and preserve their work, try to make it widely known, and encourage performances and continued creativity."

"A database of hundreds of downloadable scripts, movie scripts, screenplays, and transcripts of current, classic and maybe a few soon-to-be-released movies, television, anime, unproduced and radio shows."

A searchable and browsable glossary of technical theatre terms.

"IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content."

"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."

"News, features, performance listings for Broadway, Off-Broadway, London and Regional theatre."

"Discusses glossary terms, functions and qualities of light, basic formulas, and other essential stage lighting information, with an emphasis on lighting design as an art form, with chapters on the design process, the principles of composition, and other subjects."

"Theatrecrafts.com has been online since 1997 and is a developing resource for students, theatre technicians, designers and practitioners."

Basic information about the people involved in theatrical productions, including costume designer, lighting designer, set designer, sound designer, stage manager, technical director, and more.

"The American Alliance for Theatre & Education serves and inspires a growing collective of theatre artists, educators, and scholars committed to transforming young people and communities through the theatre arts."

"An advocate for the field of theatre and performance in higher education, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) serves as an intellectual and artistic center for producing new knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, cultivating vital alliances with other scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity."

"Actors' Equity Association (“Equity"), founded in 1913, is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 50,000 Actors and Stage Managers. Equity seeks to foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of society and advances the careers of its members by negotiating wages, working conditions and providing a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans."

"The American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) is a U.S.-based professional organization that fosters scholarship on worldwide theatre and performance, both historical and contemporary."

"SAG-AFTRA represents approximately 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals."

"The Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides opportunities for dance professionals from a broad range of specialties to exchange ideas, resources, and methodologies through publication, international and regional conferences, and workshops."

"DHC is a national alliance of institutions holding significant collections of materials documenting the history of dance. Its mission is to preserve, make accessible, enhance and augment the materials that document the artistic accomplishments in dance of the past, present, and future."

"The Dramatists Guild of America was established for the purpose of aiding dramatists in protecting both the artistic and economic integrity of their work."

"The Organization of Black Screenwriters assists writers in creating screenplays/scripts for film & television helping them present their work to the industry."

"The Writers Guild of America, East, (WGAE) is a labor union of thousands of professionals who are the primary creators of what is seen or heard on television and film in the U.S., as well as the writers of a growing portion of original digital media content."

"We are the Writers Guild of America West (WGAW), a labor union composed of the thousands of writers who write the content for television shows, movies, news programs, documentaries, animation, and Internet and mobile phones (new media) that keep audiences constantly entertained and informed."

"The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, Its Territories and Canada was founded in 1893 when representatives of stagehands working in eleven cities met in New York and pledged to support each others’ efforts to establish fair wages and working conditions for their members. Our union has evolved to embrace the development of new entertainment mediums, craft expansion, technological innovation and geographic growth."

"SDC is the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional Stage Directors and Choreographers throughout the United States. Our mission is to foster a national community of professional stage Directors and Choreographers by protecting the rights, health and livelihoods of all our Members; to facilitate the exchange of ideas, information and opportunities, while educating the current and future generations about the role of Directors and Choreographers; and to provide effective administrative, negotiating and contractual support."

"United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829, is a labor union and professional association of Designers, Artists and Craftspeople, many who are world famous, organized to protect craft standards, working conditions and wages for the entertainment and decorative arts industries. The members of Local USA 829 are Artists and Designers working in film, theatre, opera, ballet, television, industrial shows, commercials and exhibitions."

"USITT was founded in 1960 as an organization to promote dialogue, research, and learning among practitioners of theatre design and technology."

"Presented by the Library of Congress, Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information."

"GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys) provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government."

Image search from Google - either text-based or reverse image.

A news aggregator

Reverse image search - upload an image or provide a URL to an image's online location.

"USA.gov is an interagency product administered by USAGov (formerly the Federal Citizen Information Center), a division of the U.S. General Services Administration's Technology Transformation Service. Our mission is to create and organize timely, needed government information and services and make them accessible anytime, anywhere, via your channel of choice."