Theatre: Videos & Media
This guide provides links to basic theatre research: history, design, acting, production, scripts, videos, and careers.
Videos Online
American Theatre Wing's Working in the Theatre video series features 900+ US and international performers, directors, playwrights, designers, choreographers, producers, and more.
Find Videos in Databases
- Globe on Screen Collections 1 & 230 productions of Shakespeare (plus one each from Marlowe and Webster) performed live at the Globe Theatre in London, from 2008 to 2018.
- Royal Shakespeare Company Collection17 Shakespeare productions performed live on-stage, from 2013 to 2017, by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Stratford-upon-Avon theatre.
- RSC Live Collection 29 Shakespeare productions, from 2018-2019, performed live, on-stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Stratford-upon-Avon theatre.
- Broadway HDSixteen production, staged live on a Broadway stage, are available streaming in this collection.
- National Theatre CollectionA selection of the renown Live National Theatre broadcasts, recorded in HD.
- Theatre in Video IProvides streaming videos of performances by theatre companies around the world. Also features documentaries and interviews, including "The Legacy Project," which features young playwrights, composers, and lyricists interviewing establish ones. Create a user account share playlists and link to clips.
- Theatre in Video IIContains classic and contemporary plays and documentaries, with a focus on contemporary and international productions. Users can view the works of widely studied playwrights and theatre artists from around the globe, including new performances from Stratford Shakespeare Festival, the BBC, Theatre Arts Films (including, Play it Safe and TMW Media Group.
- OnTheBoards.TVProvides streamed access to 50+ dance, music, theater, and experimental/installation art performances, captured on multiple HD cameras by the Seattle-based performing arts venue On The Boards.
- Swank Digital Campus This link opens in a new windowSwank provides streaming access to a variety of feature films from major and independent movie studios. Choose "Musical" from the Category drop-down menu to see which we have purchased access to this year.
If you are on a Mac in the library, please use the Safari browser to access this database. In order to view films, Google Widevine Media Optimizer should be installed on your computer. See HELP link on this entry for specific system requirements.
Swank is a database which provides access to a variety of streaming video titles from multiple studios.
- BBC Shakespeare CollectionA collection of 37 streaming video recordings of Shakespeare's plays, produced by the BBC in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
- Films On DemandStreaming video of historically significant performing arts productions, news programs, TV series, and documentaries. Featured producers include BBC, PBS, MVD Entertainment, Films for the Humanities, and Royal Opera House.
- Dance in VideoFeatures streaming videos of 20th century dance performances and documentaries about choreographers and dance training. Includes dance styles ranging from ballet and tap, to jazz and contemporary, to experimental and improvisational dance. Most videos are not available commercially. Create an account to share playlists and link directly to clips.
- Opera in VideoContains over 500 hours of staged opera performances, interviews, and documentaries. Videos are compatible with traditional computers and a variety of mobile devices. Faculty and students who create an account can save and share playlists, save selected clips from any video, and link to clips created by others.
- Media Streaming @ Marriott LibraryWatch selected documentary & educational films owned by Marriott Library.
Plays & Musicals on DVD, CD, & VHS
When browsing the Marriott Library catalog, it's not possible to create just a list of video recordings of staged play productions and film adaptations of stage plays because non-theater-based feature films also end up in the search results.
So, to determine if Marriott Library or McKay Music Library owns a video recording of a specific play, simply search Usearch for the title of the play and limit the Material Type to "Audio Visual."
A browseable list of recordings of musicals can be done fairly well. You can see that list by clicking the link below:
- Musicals: Audio and Video RecordingsThese results are in alphabetical order.
Music Online
- Naxos Video LibraryA performing arts video library with over 1,300 operas, ballets, documentaries, live concerts, and musical tours of historic places. It includes the Naxos DVD label, Opus Arte, Arthaus, Dacapo, and EuroArts, among others, and is continuously updated.
- Medici.TVVideo streams of 1,200 classical music, opera, and ballet performances by international companies and artists. Includes broadcasts of live musical events.
- Naxos Music LibraryContains more than 43,340 CDs, over 621,400 tracks of music. 1,000 CDs are added every month. Provides comprehensive liner notes, opera synopses, libretti, and composer and artist biographies. Genres include: classical music, contemporary jazz, world/folk, contemporary instrumental, Chinese music, and pop and rock.
- Spotify.comTheir music catalog contains millions and millions of tracks and albums, including Musical Theater and Operettas. Requires that you download the Spotify player.
Multimedia Resources
- Theatre Lectures DVDDisc 1: Theatre Art, Greek Theatre, Theatre Space, Theatre Style, Design, Elizabethan Theatre, Acting Disc 2: Stage Lighting, Directing, Theatre Today, The Commedia dell’Arte, Early American Theatre, French Theatre, Playwriting, Art of Film, Narrative Film, Screenwriting, American Film
- Theatron3This site is no longer actively maintained. However, the Multimedia Library will give you a video tour of 3D models of historic theatre buildings from ancient times to the Elizabethan era.
- Europeana: TheatreEuropeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. Images, texts, sounds, and videos.
- GloPADGloPAD (Global Performing Arts Database) records include authoritative, detailed, multilingual descriptions of digital images, texts, video clips, sound recordings, and complex media objects related to the performing arts around the world, plus information about related pieces, productions, performers, and creators.
- MIT Open Course Ware: Music & Theater Arts coursesMIT provides free access archived videos of lectures in a variety of disciplines. Some courses include assignments, exams, images, and multimedia components.
- EDUCAUSE: Legal Sources of Online ContentEDUCAUSE maintains a site that links to dozens of sources for streamed and downloadable media (music, television, film).
- Theatre Museum CanadaVideo interviews with theatre practitioners based in Canada.
- MIT's Global ShakespeareVideo-streaming archive to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world, as well as essays and metadata provided by scholars and educators in the field.
