Theater Studies and Dance

Overview

The library’s holdings in Theater Studies and Dance serve the Yale theater community, including the undergraduate Theater Studies and Dance program, the graduate School of Drama, its professional counterpart the Yale Repertory TheatreYale Cabaret, the Yale Dramat, and various other performing groups.

Materials on Theater Studies and Dance are part of the humanities collections in Sterling Memorial Library and Bass Library. They include tens of thousands of books and journals on theater as literature and the history, theory and criticism of theater and dance, in addition to playscripts, biographies, and performance recordings on various media. Electronic resources include article databases, reference works, and collections of images, sound, and video. Archival records and unique materials are held in Arts Library Special CollectionsManuscripts and Archives, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Departments/disciplines/programs/subject areas supported

Theater Studies and Dance collections serve the undergraduate Theater Studies major and Dance Studies program, including the Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater.

Formats collected

Books, journals, e-books, electronic databases, DVDs, CDs, datasets (both vendor-supplied and created within the library)

Languages collected

Primarily English, but also major Western European languages (especially French, German, Spanish, Italian) and the original languages of plays collected.

Chronological and geographical focus

Theater Studies majors are expected to be interdisciplinary and global in their studies, so chronology and geography of the collection ranges widely, from ancient Greece to contemporary Africa.

From the program’s website: “Students are encouraged to enroll in a balanced combination of courses involving studio work and courses with literature, history, and theory content. Of the ten required term courses, four must be chosen from four periods of dramatic literature or theater history or from four cultures. A suggested scheme might be one course in each of four of the following categories: Shakespeare, African American theater, Greek drama, melodrama, British drama, modern American drama, contemporary American drama, German drama, or other courses in dramatic literature and theater history. At least one of the four courses should include dramatic literature originating in a language other than English. Students are urged to read plays in the original languages whenever possible.”

Collaborations within Yale

Within the library, materials on theater studies and dance are closely related to film, literature, and fashion materials in the humanities collections in Sterling Memorial Library, the Drama Collection in the Arts Library, the musical theater and opera collections in the Music Library, the performance recordings in the Film Study Center, and the drama-related holdings of Manuscripts and Archives and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Subject Librarian

Erin Carney
Arts Librarian Drama/Theater/Performance Studies
Arts Library, Robert B. Haas Family
203.432.2672