Theatre: Free Web Sources

JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. They publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of their readers.

Archives of performances of Greek and Roman Drama. database from Oxford University Classics Department

Unique sound recordings from all over the world covering the entire range of recorded sound: music, drama and literature, oral history, wildlife and environmental sounds.

Royal Central School of Speech and Drama's open access repository of research and other creative outputs. The repository represents a range of work at the School, including scholarly publications, practice-research outcomes, selected transcripts and recordings of research events, and instances of new theatre production.

Curtain Call is a network created BY Theatre Professionals FOR Theatre professionals. We connect you, the Theatre Professional, with a network that showcases EVERYONE involved in Theatre. Individuals and Companies can create and manage profiles, connect and collaborate with others.

The internet is awash in digital content documenting the global history of performance. Finding the often siloed collections can be a challenge, but these resources can help you access billions of digital objects available freely online.. From Eric Colleary, Cline Curator of Theatre & Performing Arts at the Harry Ransom Center.

includes scenes and monologues

Internet Broadway Database

Internet Movie Database

Theatrical licensing agency for musicals, renting librettos and production resources

Broadway database online

Entertainment Technology Resources from University of Exeter Drama Department

Wikisource is a Free Library of source texts which are in the public domain or legally available for free redistribution. Includes some audio recordings of plays

Routledge Theatre and Performance Studies have curated several article collections - see Key Research Collections and Open Access research

tracks the creative lives of theatre-makers and their alternative perspectives on making art, from the personal to the profound

Irish Extras Agency - lots of useful guidance on how to become an extra

News & information for Irish actors - includes actors database, actors interviews, casting, agents and training news.

The new play company

3 searchable databases: Irish Film & TV Index; Irish Film & TV Biographies; and Irish Film & TV Bibliography; & the Irish PG Film Research Seminar. Based in the School of Drama, Film & Music, TCD.

ISTR aims "to facilitate research on Irish theatre in its national and international contexts in terms of an engagement with the full spectrum of Irish theatre from page to stage. "

" ITI has pioneered networking, information & training provision & on-line research tools... also researches & promotes the Irish play repertoire through PLAYOGRAPHY Ireland..."

Online exhibition from TCD School of English 'The Journey of "The Playboy"' illustrates the development of Synge’s most famous play, which follows Christy Mahon, on the run in the west of Ireland having 'murdered' his father.

This website and database contain details of the music that was performed at the Abbey Theatre from the early years of its existence until 1965 at which point the Abbey orchestra was disbanded.

NAYD National Association for Youth Drama includes PlayShare - plays suitable for youth drama and theatre groups.

An online searchable catalogue of all new Irish writing in English and Irish since 1901

mission is to be the collective voice for the performing arts, to represent the many disparate views of the members including theatre, dance & opera production companies, venues, festivals and individual artists.

from NUI Galway Library

BL holds the archives of playwrights, actors, directors, critics, theatre companies and theatrical agents. The collection is a unique resource for the study of West End, Fringe and regional British theatre since 1900.

a database of East London theatre ephemera provided by the V & A Theatre Collections, East London theatres and UEL archives. ELTA's collection ranges from 1827 to the present day, including playbills and programmes to press cuttings and photographs. It also has themed essays to contextualise the material and maps showing theatre locations

Includes their catalogue and online exhibitions, as well as details on how to access the archive

Photographs, posters, programmes, film and sound recordings are held in the archive. The RSC Performance Database provides information about a specific past production, actor or play.

a short tale devised to obtain phonetic representation from throughout the country of all phonemes in American English.

Created in 1998 as the internet’s first archive of primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world.

Improv Encyclopedia is the largest collection or resources for improvization theater on the web. Here you will find tons of stuff related to improvization theatre, also known as 'improv' or 'impro'.

Downloadable document.These sets of words are grouped for Standard English and Standard American. This means that in Standard English and Standard American every word in the set takes the same vowel shape as the principal word.

The speech accent archive uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed. The archive is used by people who wish to compare and analyze the accents of different English speakers.

The ACCENT Kit app is a free download that includes a free accent – after than you pay a couple of euros for any accent you want to download. You can start your user experience by familiarising yourself with the essential FIVE ELEMENTS needed to learn an accent:
Free speech – a 2/3 minute story of personal interest; Foundations – the facial SETTING, the focal ZONE and the TONE of an accent; Vowels: words and sentences – the vowels sounds that give shape to your accent; Consonants – the key six consonant sounds that can make or break your accent; Practice text – the speaking reading, a set of text combining all the speech sounds of the accent for you to practice.

International database of Shakespeare on Film, Television and Radio

Open-access, peer-reviewed Shakespeare resources.

An academic blog of early modern events and research in Ireland

Folger Shakespeare Library is the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world.

Shakespeare's complete works

The Globe Theatre's channel of video content - available to buy or rent. Some content is provided free (from this link)

The Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. It is a rare collection of original materials on the theatre comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the US. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric.
Margaret & Sophia Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery designed sets and costumes from 1932 to 1976 for plays by Shakespeare and modern classics, opera, ballet, and motion pictures. Their designs were used in productions in the West End of London, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the English National Opera, and in the United States on Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

These 16,016 BBC Sound Effects are made available by the BBC in WAV format to download for use under the terms of the RemArc Licence. The Sound Effects are BBC copyright, but they may be used for personal, educational or research purposes, as detailed in the license.