We have numerous books on the shelves and online, which provide an overview or introduction to a topic. You will find the majority of the Drama and Performing Arts book collection at classmark 790-800 (on the 3rd floor at Augustine House). Don’t forget, our library houses lots of resources covering a variety of subjects which are also here for you to access, check LibrarySearch to see if there are other areas that could be useful, e.g. education.

• 790- Recreational and performing arts
• 791- Public performances
• 792- Stage presentations
• 800-900- American, English German, French, Italian, Greek and Latin drama and poetry

To find a book, use LibrarySearch either by typing in words from a title or a topic. Once you have found a book, remember to check if it is available and if it is a 7-day loan or 4-week loan. This is important as the shorter loan books are on the open shelves in the middle of each floor and the 4 week loans are in the moving shelves.

CDs are shelved in a separate sequence after the 780s and are filed alphabetically by composer. Musical scores follow these and again are filed alphabetically by composer.

Musical Theatre scores

We have a growing collection of Musical Theatre scores including libretti which you can find on LibrarySearch. Here are some examples:

• Boublil & Schönberg's Miss Saigon – Classmark: 782.14 BOU
• Company – Classmark: 782.140268 SON
• Dear Evan Hansen – Classmark: 782.14 LEV
• Everybody's Talking About Jamie – Classmark: 822.92 MAC
• Evita – e-book (find through LibrarySearch)
• Gypsy (vocal score) – Classmark: 782 SON
• Gypsy: a musical: suggested by the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee (libretto) – Classmark: 812.54 SON
• Into the woods (libretto) – Classmark: 782.140268 SON
• Into the woods: a new musical (vocal score) – Classmark: 782.14 SON
• Kiss me, Kate (vocal score) – Classmark: 782.140 POR
• Oklahoma! the complete book and lyrics of the Broadway musical – Classmark: 782.140268 ROD
• Rent – Classmark: 782.140268 LAR
• Six: all the songs from the hit musical arranged for voice and piano – Classmark: 782.14 MAR
• Sunset Boulevard: vocal selections – Classmark: 782.14 LLO
• Sweeney Todd: the demon barber of Fleet Street – Classmark 782.140268 SON
• The sound of music: vocal selections – Classmark: 782.8 ROD

Journals are regular publications and include articles written by different authors on their specific research. These can be challenging to read; however, they are great for finding up-to-date information for your literature reviews and for learning about current developments in your field.

You can browse printed copies of journals on the 2nd floor of Augustine House in the silent zone (west wing).

You can see what online journals are available by using LibrarySearch. Try entering the title in to the search box or using the Find e-journals link.

Examples of Drama and Performing Arts journals:

• Modern drama
• Performing Arts Journal
• Psychoanalysis and Performance
• TDR: The Drama Review

Run a quick search in LibrarySearch to find full-text journal articles to read online. Try searching for a key word or phrase connected with your research topic i.e. “performing arts” or “West-end theatre” or “acting and singing”. See our LibrarySearch quick guide for more information.

Open access journals

The Directory of Open Access Journals includes journals such as Performance Philosophy. Open access journals are often scholarly, but the difference is, they believe in making their research accessible to anyone with an internet connection. This means that you (or your institution) don’t have to have a subscription to the journal to be able to read the articles they publish..

We have databases that are collections of academic resources organised by subject. These are great for more detailed searches for your research. You can access these via the ‘Find databases’ link in LibrarySearch. The following are databases which relate to Drama and Performing Arts:

• Drama Online: A wide range of drama texts ranging from Aeschylus to the present day. It includes titles from theatre lists from the V&A Museum Performance Archive, the American Shakespeare Centre and many more.
• Digital Theatre +: A collection of some of the best performances from over 50 leading arts organisations across the world. Includes productions, interviews and essays, documentations and study guides covering theatre history, context, language analysis and practical techniques.
• International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance International (IBTD): with Full Text covers theatre, drama, acting training, ballet, modern dance, choreographers, music, opera, popular music, film and visual arts.
• JSTOR: A full-text archive of core scholarly journals, dating from the first issue up until two to five years ago. Subject coverage includes performing arts and other many other topics.
• Web of Science: We hold the arts and humanities section within web of science. Check out our database guide to see how to search the collection.

If you need a journal article that the university doesn’t subscribe to, try document delivery. It costs £2 per request, but it’s a great service for that end of year assignment.

Leeds Playbills – all the playbills in the Local Studies Library collection from a wide range of Leeds Theatres such as The City Varieties, The Grand, The Princess and the Theatre Royal. It provides a unique insight into theatre life in Leeds between 1781 and the 1990’s.

Mutopia – a searchable online database of public domain music scores that can be downloaded, printed out and performed. You can also browse the database by composer, instrument, or musical style.

National Drama: UK’s leading subject association for Drama teachers and theatre educators.

Theatre company websites:

The National Theatre

Royal Shakespeare Company

The Stage: Stage Media Company Limited provides news and services for the UK entertainment and performing arts industry.

Theatre & performance V&A: Areas of live performing arts are represented in the V&A theatre and performance collections, documenting both current practice and the history of the performing arts in the UK

Theatre Archive Project: collaboration between the British Library and De Montfort University. Project aims to re-investigate British theatre history 1945-1968 from the perspectives of both the theatregoer and the practitioner

Theatrecrafts – Glossary of Technical Theatre Terms.

TheatreVOICE: leading site for audio content about British Theatre, and features journalists from across the UK press and practitioners from across the theatre industry

Kanopy is a great video-streaming service which includes a number of documentaries such as Edward Said On Orientalism. Plus, we have access to Box of Broadcasts (BoB) which archives British TV and radio broadcasts.  You can search for a topic and find BBC, Channel 4 and Sky documentaries. Another great feature is that you can take clips of programmes and put them in your presentations or analyse the transcripts. Visit the Learning on Screen How to Videos or look at the CCCU Box of Broadcasts guide.