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Theatre Resources - Library and Computing Page


Theatre

Databases and Gateways | E-Journals | Web Pages
Associations & Organisations | Guides & Tools
Production & Design | Finding Plays | Australian Resources
Australian Companies | Stand in the Room | Subject Strands | Librarian


Welcome to the resources pages for the School of Creative Arts. This page looks at resources relevant to Theatre subjects (TH) and pages that may be relevant across the different subject strands, as well those relevant to Drama and Theatre teachers.

The SoCA Highlights Blog is a great way to find new resources, or explore some of the older ones. It looks at interesting resources right across the Creative Arts disciplines, covering Visual Arts, Music, Photography, Digital Media and Theatre... among other things. Make sure you visit it every week or so to see what's out there in the big wild world of web. Highlights Blog

Databases and Gateways

  • General Information
    • If you are off campus login via Remote access
  • Australian Public Affairs Indexing Service (APAIS) - a broad multidisciplinary resource focusing on Australia. It provides full text of articles where available. Available via Informit.
  • Expanded Academic ASAP - indexes articles of general academic interest. Links to the full text of many journal articles. Available via InfoTrac.
  • AustLit - AustLit is a database dedicated to Australian Literature, including plays. Coverage spans from 1780 to the present. Users can search for dramatic works, playwrights and literature specific to certain groups/localities.
  • Project Muse (Arts and Humanities) Full text coverage of hundreds of journals.
  • ERIC via CSA - Contains citations of education related articles.
  • Film and Television Literature Index - Not the best database to use if looking for full text.
  • Informit Databases - High Australasian content. You will have to check which databases you would like to use from their list
  • MLA International Bibliography - Covers language and literature.
  • OAIster - searches Flinders Academic Commons, National Library of Australia's Digital Object Repository, Picture Australia and some other sources. Not a great source of journal articles, but very good for finding pictures relevant to some Australian productions.
  • Intute: Arts and Humanities Gateway providing free online access to a variety of webpages for education and research. Over 115,000 high quality educational web resources selected and annotated by subject specialists at several UK universities
  • BUBL Link Catalogue of Internet Resources. Browsable by Dewey Decimal numbers.
  • Internet Movie Database One of the most commonly consulted databases concerning movies and television programmes.
  • Web of Science- Includes Arts and Humanities Citation Index. One of the better databases for Arts subjects offered by JCU at present


  • Brief Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Performance Studies - Comprehensive and up-to-date resource for a wide variety of Internet resources on theatre and performance maintained by Ken McCoy, Associate Professor, Communication Studies and Theatre Arts, Stetson University USA.
  • Costume Page : Theatrical Costuming Resources Online - Comprehensive site on costume. The resources are linked into categories of Reference, Museums, History, Topics, Ethnic, Theatrical Organizations, Events, Schools, Instructions and more.
  • Theatre History on the Web - Rich resource for theatre historians and students of theatre history. Arrangement is by period of history i.e.. Classical, Medieval & Renaissance, Elizabethan, 20th Century; Research Centers, Museums & Libraries, Theatre Resources, Costumes , Design and CADD, Lighting, Technical Practice, and General History Resources.


  • Ask Search Engine - An alternative to Google and Yahoo. Uses a different search algorithm
  • Vivisimo Search Engine - An alternative to Google and Yahoo. Uses a different search algorithm


E-Journals (JCU Subscriptions)

A selection of media, culture and creative arts journals available online (Some are browsable online, others require access via JCU'sE-Journal's page. For paper holdings and other other sources, check Tropicat.)
  • M/C Journal A journal of media and culture.
  • Continuum Journal of media and cultural studies affiliated with the Cultural Studies Association of Australia.
  • Cultural Critique "A forum for international and interdisciplinary explorations of intellectual controversies, trends, and issues in culture, theory, and politics".
  • International Journal of Arts Management.
  • Didaskalia Journal - Didaskalia is published in association with the Open University. It is dedicated to the study of ancient Greek and Roman drama in performance. Follow the link to using Didaskalia to find links to the journal, study resources, listings and reviews of past and forthcoming events, and an interactive discussion area, the Agora.
  • Playbill On-line - This is the online version of the well known theater magazine Playbill. Updated constantly, it's a good source of news related to live theater and the performing arts. It's focus is Broadway, but it also provides news from London's West End and Canadian theatre. Apart from news about what's playing, they also provides a Who's Who of the industry, feature articles, job listings (predominantly in New York city), seating charts, an awards database, theater-related travel information, books, discussion and links to more theatre sites.


Web Pages

  • Absolute Shakespeare - Everything you wanted to know about William Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, poems, quotes, biography and the Globe Theatre. Study guides to the major plays are available plus essays on the authorship debate


Associations & Organisations 

  • Interplay - Interplay is an international organisation for the furtherance of young playwrights, based at James Cook University. Every two years Interplay organises the largest festival of young playwrights in the world. Its aim is 'to celebrate the creative richness of young playwrights, to provide an international meeting place where their work can be discussed, workshopped and performed, to provide an international forum for the ideas of young playwrights and to offer the general public access to the works of young writers'.
  • NIDA: National Institute of Dramatic Art - NIDA is the national training centre for the arts entertainment industry, and Australia's national theatre school. Site includes information on courses, play seasons, news, and projects
  • Drama Australia - National peak organisation of state and territory drama education associations in Australia. The site provides information on conferences, special projects, a link to the Drama Australia Newsletter, and details about their email discussion group.
  • Drama Queensland - Provides professional support to Queensland drama teachers and educators through publications, professional development, curriculum support, networking and advocacy. This site provides access to their Annual Report and information on their publications.
  • Queensland Arts Council - The QAC is a regional Arts network and not-for-profit community-based arts organisation. Their aim is to promote the value of the Arts in regional communities and support a large volunteer network. The What's On section includes information about performances around the state.
  • Theatre Arts Network Queensland (TANQ) - TANQ is a membership based organisation that seeks to nurture and advocate for the development of theatre practice and practitioners.


Guides & Tools


Production and Design

  • Fashion and Costume Resources on the Internet - Collection of annotated internet links about fashion and costume provided by the American Library Association
  • International Theatre Design Archive - Produced by the US Institute for Theatre Technology, the archive directs users to scenic, costume, and lighting design information archived on the web. Each category can be browsed by title, playwright, designer or producer. Navigate through the folders, as there isn't a web-page as such.
  • Fashion Era - Contains pictures (mostly from magazines and catalogues of the times) and drawings depicting fashion trends from the Regency Period until the 1980s. Includes some information on hairstyles, but focuses mainly on the clothes, hats and accessories of various eras. Women's fashions only, although men sometimes appear in the pictures
  • Costumer's Manifesto: Timeline of Costume History - A look at costumes from Ancient Egypt through to the 1980s. Some pages are more useful than others. Contains men's fashions as well as women's.
  • The Shape of Fashion and it's Underpinnings (1870-1960) - A brilliant resource for costume designers, it shows how underwear affected the shape of clothing throughout various periods in fashion.


Finding Plays

  • Samuel French Theatre & Film Bookshops Samuel French is a major provider of published scripts of plays and musicals. Their catalogue can be searched by author or title, or browsed online. They are also a good source for books and videos about acting, directing, production, set design and other theater-related topics. The catalogue is arranged by numbers of characters, Musicals and Operettas, short plays, Religious Plays, Christmas plays, Shakespeare's plays and special plays i.e. Pulitzer prize winners, Nobel prize winners, etc.
  • EServer Drama Collection - Collection of full-text plays by Sophocles, Aristophanes, George Bernard Shaw, John Gay, Moliere, Goethe, Ben Jonson, Henrik Ibsen, Shakespeare and others. The site also includes screenplays, criticism, concordances to plays and links to other sites concerned with theatre.
  • Dramatists Play Service - The DPS is a dramatic publishing service. Use it to find plays by title or author. Each entry gives a potted summary of plot and characters. The site includes links to various theater awards, costumes, other theater sites, music rights, and more as well as a FAQ regarding licensing, copyright, and fair use.
  • The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Full text for the Shakespeare works, arranged by Act number. From MIT.
  • Project Gutenberg - Original site on the web for free electronic books, including plays. Search by playwright or title.
  • EServer Plays - Collection of original plays and screenplays, both classic and contemporary, including the plays of Jonson, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Sophocles, as well as John Gay, Moliere, Goethe, Thomas Middleton and Ibsen. Also includes links to criticism, play concordances and other theatre-related web sites.
  • eOneill eText Archive - Complete, selected texts of Eugene O'Neill
  • Lazy Bee Scripts - An online store for purchasing scripts for pantomimes, one act plays and children's theatre


Australian Resources

  • Australian Centre for the Moving Image - ACMI which opened in 2002, is the major new cultural agency of the State Government of Victoria and located in Federation Square, Melbourne. Their aim is to be a centre for the public exhibition, display and preservation of Australian and international screen content and to be a research platform for screen-based arts
  • Australian Script Centre - The Australian Script Centre is a non-profit organisation which collects, catalogues, promotes and distributes unpublished Australian plays. They now holds more than 500 contemporary scripts, representing the work of almost 300 Australian playwrights. Those using the services of the Centre include playwrights, theatre companies, actors, students of drama and theatre and, teachers and academics from all over the world. Playwrights should check this out.
  • Griffith University Centre for Applied Theatre Research - Research centre established to investigate the theory and application of all manifestations of drama and theatre. The web site provides access to its journal Applied Theatre Researcher described as ' the world-wide e-journal for theatre and drama in non-traditional contexts, theatre in the community, theatre in business and industry, theatre in political debate and action, theatre in lifelong education and learning'
  • Australian Television Information Archive - This site gives brief descriptions and cast lists for Australian television programmes. Focuses mainly on scripted content, rather than reality TV shows.
  • Screensound Australia: National Screen and Sound Archive - ScreenSound Australia is the treasure house of Australian audiovisual history. ScreenSound collects, preserves and shares Australia's moving images and sound recordings from the first film images of our young country to the modern classics.


    • Local Resources
  • Performing Arts Historical Society Townsville (PAHST) - This society, founded in 2004, aims to collect evidence of Townsville's contribution to the performing arts and to make this collection accessible to all
  • Townsville Civic Theatre Opened in 1978 the Townsville Civic Theatre is the city's major venue for the performing arts. Details of the annual programme, booking information, seating plan and ticket sales are available on this web site.


Australian Companies

  • Queensland Theatre Company - The QTC site has information on artists, performances, scripts, educational resources, and teachers' notes for plays. Users can buy tickets online, find out about auditions and read job vacancies. The education tab links to information about residencies, work experience and workshops.
  • Townsville Little Theatre - A local amateur theatre group. Information on this site includes the group's programme for the year, reviews of recent productions, information on auditions, newsletter and photo gallery
  • Tropic Sun Theatre - Tropic Sun Theatre Inc produces a wide range of plays in a variety of Townsville venues and also plays an important role in fostering the development of theatre workers, particularly graduates from the JCU Bachelor of Theatre course
  • Erth Visual and Physical Inc - An Australian company specialising in puppetry, mask and physical theatre
  • Zen Zen Zo - Australia's premiere physical theatre company
  • Bell Shakespeare Company - Australia's only national touring, professional Shakespearean company
  • Sydney Theatre Company
  • LaBoite Theatre - LaBoite Theatre is one of the oldest, continuously operating, theatre companies in Australia, based in Brisbane. The web site provides a list of past productions, Annual Reports from 1998, information on current productions, local news of interest to the theatre community, ticket sales and teachers' notes.
  • Melbourne Theatre Company


    • Training
  • National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) - Primarily based in Sydney, NIDA also runs short courses and workshops in various other cities around the country
  • West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) - Run under the auspices of Edith Cowan University, WAAPA vies with NIDA for the title of Australia's top theatrical training institute. Does not run programmes outside of Perth at present.
  • National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA) - Under the auspices of "Swinburne University of Technology, NICA is Australia's only professional training institution for Circus Arts. In addition to offering a Bachelor of Circus Arts, they also run a variety of short-courses and workshops


Stand in the Room


Subject Strands


Comments? Suggestions? If you know of any resources which should be on this page (or shouldn't), please contact Sharon Bryan.


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