Theatre: Images
This guide provides links to basic theatre research: history, design, acting, production, scripts, videos, and careers.
Digital Images Collections Online
- J. Willis Sayre PhotographsOver 24,000 images of traveling theater, vaudeville, and film entertainers who performed in Seattle between the 1870s and 1955.
- Europeana: TheatreEuropeana enables people to explore the digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. Images, texts, sounds, and videos.
- Ringling Theatre Collection from the Belknap Collection for the Performing ArtsAn assemblage of images tracing the history of stagecraft through Shakespearean prints, 18th, 19th and 20th century European and American handbills, posters and heralds, souvenir photographs and prints of the legendary performers of the past three centuries, numerous production and publicity stills of 20th century plays and films, and hundreds of individual photographs of the legendary and the now forgotten stars of minstrel, vaudeville and burlesque.
- Museum of the City of New York: Theaters CollectionThis collection includes over 15,000 photographs documenting NYC theater. Browse the "Themes" and choose "Theaters" to view Broadway production stills, theater buildings, theater companies, posters and other promotional materials, etc.
- Samuel French Archival CollectionThe official company archive for Samuel French Publishing will be organized and indexed by fall 2016.
Finding Images
Find Performance Images in Print Materials
Theatre World (Location: ARC - PN2277.N5 A17) Annual summary of Broadway, off-Broadway, touring, and regional productions since 1945. Each book includes production credits, plot summaries, awards, and production photos. (Each volume is stored in the Automated Retrieval Center (ARC) and requires you to log into your library account to request it.)
Or, search the library catalog for the keyword phrase: theater AND "pictorial works"
Find Theatre-related Images in Databases
- The Vogue ArchiveComprises every issue--more than 400,000 pages--in high resolution color from 1892 to today. Search by designer, photographer, model, author, advertiser, label/brand, article of clothing, fabric/material, color, and more!
- ARTstorProvides curated collections of more than 2 million images of art, architecture, artifacts, and primary documents, including costume and set renderings, playbills, production photos, etc. Time periods range from ancient to modern and geographic locations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. (Off-campus? Read "More" information below.)
- Using ARTstor for Theatre & Dance ResearchAlso, check out these Theatre History Image Groups.
