Princeton University Library

Musicals

Guide to Research on Musical Theater

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Introduction

Princeton's libraries extend a wealth of resources that will help you locate information in a variety of formats. This research guide for Musical Theater is intended as a point of departure.

Contents

Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
Searching
Finding Articles:

Dictionaries & encyclopedias

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. (SV) ML100 .N48 2001.
The articles and bibliographies on "Musical[s]", "Cabaret", and biographical entry on Richard Rodgers are good examples of the kind of information Grove will provide.

Norton, Richard C. A Chronology of American Musical Theater. (SV) ML1711.8.N3 N67 2002.
A listing of production details for musicals in the United States from 1750 to 2001.

Gaenzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. (SV) ML102.M88 G3 2001.

Hischak, Thomas S. The American Musical Theatre Song Encyclopedia. (SV) ML102.M88 H59 1995.

--. Stage it With Music: An Encyclopedic Guide to the American Musical Theatre. (SV) ML102.M88 H6 1993.

Drone, Jeanette Marie. Index to Opera, Operetta, and Musical Comedy Synopses in Collections and Periodicals. (SV) ML128.O4D76.

--. Musical Theater Synopses. ML128.O4 D76 Suppl.
[NOTE: Both of Drone's works double as extensive bibliographies.]

Bunnett, Rexton S. [et al.]. Collins guide to musicals. ML102.M88 B86 2001

Peterson, Bernard L. A Century of Musicals in Black and White: An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About, or Involving African Americans. (SV) ML102.M88 P37 1993.

Green, Stanley. Broadway Musicals: Show by Show. (SV) ML1711 .G78 1996.
A chronological guide to popular musical theater in the United States, providing details on productions and a short description of shows.

Green, Stanley. Hollywood Musicals: Year by Year. Rev. and updated by E. Schmidt. (SV) PN1995.9 .M86 G74 1999.
A chronological guide to musical films, providing details on productions and a short description of shows.

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. (SV) ML102.P66 G84 1998.
Includes entries for diferent manifestations of musicals by title.

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Searching for print, audio, and visual materials

Search the library's Main Catalog to find relevant materials, including reference books, monographs, recordings, and videos or DVDs. Note that performers and performing groups are considered "authors" in the catalog.

If you wish to find a particular musical, searching by title is the best method. If you are looking for materials about musicals, browsing by subject (i.e. "Musical theater") is a good way to start.

For more help with searching the library catalog, Click here.

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Finding articles

Article indexes
For information directly related to musical theater, start with the International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) and RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) and the Music Index will also be useful. All four databases will provide citations to a broad range of materials. RILM tends to focus on exclusively on scholarly literature, whereas IIPA, IIMP, and Music Index will include wider coverage of popular magazines..

The New York Times Fulltext, which provides access to all of the New York Times content up to three years ago, and the Lexis-Nexis News Index which provides indexing of the New York Times and numerous other major newspapers worldwide, will help you find additional articles and reviews. ProQuest, which indexes most major news and literary magazines, will also be useful. 

For related information on musical theater in a broader context, databases such as, Arts and Humanities Citation Index or Humanities Index will be useful. Refer to Princeton's collection of article indexes for additional materials.

Finding Journals
When searching electronic indexes and databases you will often see the Find it @ PUL icon. This icon will connect you to the online catalog or directly to your article whenever possible. Online journals are made accessible via projects such as JSTOR or Project MUSE , which may also be searched directly. You can also browse the library's list of E-Journals.

When the full text of a journal article is not available electronically, print versions of most journals will be shelved alphabetically by title in the appropriate library on campus. Recent issues can be found in each library's reading room.

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Information on the World Wide Web

Internet Broadway Database. Provides comprehensive historical information and statistics related to Broadway.

Live Broadway.com is the "Official website of Broadway". The research portion of the site provides a wide range of statistical information.

"Musical Theater" at Wikipedia.org. A sort of people's history of the medium. Please read the overview of the Wikipedia project before using information from this site.

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