LEO: Theatre Arts: Articles

Finding Academic Articles

For some assignments, you may be asked to use journal articles or other peer-reviewed material. These articles are written by scholars, and each is reviewed by other scholars before it is published to ensure it meets academic standards for the field. Many journals are published online, and most of Nash Library's journal collections are online only. You may find articles by browsing through specific journal titles or by searching through many journals at once using a database.

If you are connected to the internet on-campus, you are already logged in to all of Nash Library's online databases and journals. If you are off-campus, you will have to log in using your USAO credentials.

Databases

Databases allow you to search within a vast number of publications to find journal articles and other sources, including books, book chapters, conference proceedings, and dissertations. Because these databases are only accessible via subscription, you will find articles and other materials that you could not find using a simple Google search. To see a list of all databases, click on Databases in the light green ribbon at the top of the screen.

The following are databases particularly relevant to theatre studies. We especially recommend International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance because it is our one database that focuses exclusively on performing arts, but you will also find theatre articles in the other databases listed.

Academic Search Complete
A multi-disciplinary database covering many areas of academic study, with more than 7,000 full-text periodicals, including nearly 6,000 peer-reviewed journals. In addition to full text, this database offers indexing and abstracts for more than 11,000 journals and a total of more than 11,600 publications including monographs, reports, conference proceedings, etc.
JSTOR
Offers archives of leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
Please note that USAO only subscribes to JSTOR I, II, III, and VII.
Literature Resource Center
Includes more than 850,000 full-text articles, critical essays and reviews from more than 360 scholarly journals and literary magazines, 7,000 overviews of frequently studied works, 30,000 full-text poems, short stories and plays, 8,000 interviews, and 2,800 author portraits. Also includes 145,000 entries for in-depth biographical, bibliographical & contextual information on authors’ lives and works in addition to more than 70,000 selected full-text critical essays and reviews.
MLA International Bibliography
Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), this bibliography contains over 2.2 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series, and 1,000 book publishers. Coverage is international and includes almost 60 titles from J-STOR's language and literature collection as well as links to full text. Subjects consist of literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.
Project Muse
Offers a selection of complete, full-text versions of journals in the humanities and social sciences from many of the world's leading university presses and scholarly societies. The complete content of each and every issue is online—including all charts, graphic images—with articles available in HTML, PDF, or both formats.

Academic Journals

Because the liberal arts are interdisciplinary, there are many different journals on different subjects that could contain articles relevant to your research topic. This is a short list of some journals that focus on aspects of drama. Remember that you may also find useful articles in literature journals, and if you are interested in musical theatre, you may also find articles in music journals.

To find more journals on a subject, click Journals at the top of this page; then, in the "Browse by Discipline" box, click the subject you want to study.

American Theatre
Asian Theatre Journal
Comparative Drama
Early Theatre: A Journal Associated with the Records of Early Drama
Modern Drama
Educational Theatre Journal
The journal operated under this title from 1949-1978. In 1979, the name was changed to Theatre Journal.
Theatre Journal
The journal was known as Educational Theatre Journal from 1949-1978.

Interlibrary Loan

Databases include records for thousands of articles, including ones to which Nash Library does not have access. However, you can get these articles through interlibrary loan.

When you find an article you like, look for an interlibrary loan link. It will take you to the Nash Library Interlibrary Loan Form, which you can then fill out and submit. Nash Library will contact a library which has access to the journal, and that library will send Nash a copy.