LibGuides: Theatre: Articles

Databases for Theatre Research

These are the best databases we have for research in Theatre. There are more options, especially for cross-disciplinary research on the Secondary Databases tab. You can see all our databases in our Databases A to Z list.

Performing Arts Database This link opens in a new window
Indexes more than 395 international periodicals plus full text for more than 160 of the indexed journals. Topics include music, dance, drama, theatre, stagecraft, musical theatre, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television, and more. Coverage from 1864 to present.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Includes more than 1,700 leading academic journals and 45,000 Ebooks in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as other materials valuable for academic work.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Artstor is now on JSTOR. The Artstor website was retired on August 1, 2024. This link will now redirect to Artstor on JSTOR.

Provides access to more than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences. Search for images by keyword, title, creator, geography, classification, collection, and date.
EBSCO MegaFILE This link opens in a new window
Combined search of Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier and Regional Business News databases. Include magazine and journal articles, biographies, primary source documents, company profiles, photos, and maps. Some content back to 1800s.
This database is provided by the South Dakota State Library and the Institute of Museum Library Services.
ProQuest This link opens in a new window
Provides access to eight bibliographic and full-text databases including the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, Dissertations & Thesis at SDSU, EconLit, Physical Education Index, ProQuest Discovery, ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis and ProQuest Research Library. Coverage includes diverse subjects from popular and scholarly literature. The databases can be search all together or individually.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text/image access to articles from more than 150 scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics from many of the world’s leading university presses and scholarly societies.
Communication Source This link opens in a new window
Covers more than 670 full-text journals in communication and mass media. Over 1,000 core titles are indexed with over 600 of those being active periodicals. Coverage goes back to 1900. More than 240 full-text journals not available in Communication & Mass Media Complete.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index This link opens in a new window
Indexes many biographies from reference works such as Who's Who and Current Biography. Great for looking for information on Playwrights and actors.

Lost Plays Database
Pieces of evidence of plays that have been lost since the Early Modern era. Items like receipts, diaries, and fragments of plays are included.

These databases are divided into general databases and related subject databases.

General databases are good for doing fairly basic cross-disciplinary research.
Subject databases are good for finding research on your topic from fields other than yours.

General Databases

New York Times Online: Home This link opens in a new window

All students, faculty, and staff can now read unlimited articles from The New York Times directly on nytimes.com from anywhere in the world. Access includes all articles published on the website since 1996 as well as scanned issues going back to 1851.
Activate your Account
If you have never logged into the the New York Times, follow these steps to set up your access:

1. Go to accessnyt.com
2. Select South Dakota State University from the school search box
3. Follow the on-screen instructions to create an account using your SD State email address
4. Reactivate access after 365 days by following these same steps.

Note: If you already have a personal NY Times subscription connected to your SD State email and would like to activate this library-provided one, you will need to first contact NY Times customer service at 1-800-698-4637 to cancel your individual subscription.

Returning Users
Once you've made your account, follow these steps to get those unlimited articles:

1. Go to nytimes.com
2. Click on "Log In" in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen
3. Enter your SD State email address and chosen password
Internet Archive This link opens in a new window
A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more - all in the public domain.
SciELO Citation Index - Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Access to scholarly literature in sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities published in leading open access journals from Latin American, Portugal, Spain and South Africa. Coverage from 1997 to present.

Subject Databases

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) via EbscoHost This link opens in a new window
The largest education database in the world, containing over 1.6 million records. Includes journal articles, books, conference papers, reports, policy papers, and other education related-materials. Coverage from 1966 to the present. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES).
French 17 This link opens in a new window
Provides an annual survey of research in seventeenth-century French studies, including literary history and criticism, bibliography, linguistics and language, politics, society, philosophy, science, religion and the arts. Includes summaries of articles, books, and book reviews. Online access: 1993 (number 41) to 2015 (number 63). Briggs Library has numbers 32-62 in print. (Upper Level PQ241.A11 F74)

Journals from our "Find a Journal" system:

Drama Journals

You can also search for a specific journal by title in the search below:

Think about where you are searching for articles. Use library databases first, Google Scholar after library databases and end with a basic Google search. Here is an explanation of why.
Think about what type of information you need. Papers and speeches need more academic, research based information and a general interest. For instance, if you see a movie and are curious about a phenomenon or a person, looking it/them up in Wikipedia or on Google might be fine but when writing a paper about the phenomenon or person, you will want reliable, scholarly, in-depth information that you can verify. Here is more information on quality of information.
There are many strategies you can use to narrow, broaden, or refine your search. Check out the Research 101: Search Strategies pages for more information (click the down arrow on the right of the Search Strategies tab to see more information) such as:
- Generating keywords
- Boolean operators (searching with AND, OR, and NOT)
- Subject terms
- Citation searching
- Mining reference lists

Search Alerts

Search alerts allow you to save searches and have them run automatically with the results being sent to you periodically. Check who provides the database you use most often and follow the instructions below.

Ebsco database search alert instructions.

ProQuest database search alert instructions.

Web of Science (Clarivate) database search alert instructions.

If your database is not from Ebsco, ProQuest, or Web of Science, contact your subject librarian for help.

Terminology: Journal/Magazine

Are you confused about the difference between journals and magazines? No problem, here is what to look for to determine which you have.

Journals: Content is written to inform the reader.

Author(s) named and credentials given
Sources cited in the article
Bibliography at the end (often it is long)
Articles report on research or review the current state of a topic
Articles tend to be long
Illustrations are usually graphs and charts and are necessary to understand the text
Few if any advertisements in the journal

Magazines: Content is written to entertain the reader.

Author is often not named
If sources are given, they are not cited entirely
No bibliography
Articles report on events and people, if research is reported, it is not in detail
Articles are short
Illustrations are often in color and are intended to entertain
Lots of advertisements for a wide variety of products

Interlibrary Loan

Although Briggs Library has an extensive collection, you may need items that are not available at the Library. No worries! You can request those articles, books, and other materials through Interlibrary Loan.

Interlibrary Loan

Keep in mind that the process may take from a week to ten days. Start your research early!

Many of our databases have an Interlibrary Loan Request button for articles not available in that particular database. Before submitting the loan request, be sure to check our Journals List for the title of the source or periodical (i.e. New York Times).