Research Guides: Theater Arts and Technology: Home

Our Joint Program with Rutgers

The joint Rutgers-NJIT theatre program trains students in applied theatre education: set, stage, light and sound design, play writing, improvisational theatre techniques, music ensembles, directing and performance.

Digital Collections

NY Public Library Billy Rose Theater Collection The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public.
Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design The Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design is a valuable source of documentation on the history of theatre and is housed in The Rare Book and Manuscript 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 United States. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric.
IBDB Internet Broadway Database IBDB was created by the Research Department of The Broadway League, the national trade association for Broadway. The League has collected relevant Broadway information and statistics for many years. In 1996, the Research Department began to organize and expand the League's data collection in order to produce a website that would serve as a comprehensive history of Broadway for the benefit of League members, press, theatre professionals and enthusiasts.

Thinking about Dramaturgical Research

Research moves from attempts to understand the structure of a play, its dramaturgy, to ways of exploring historical and critical contexts that inform and energize that dramaturgy. Research asks how we can apply a knowledge of the liberal arts to the process of making a play.

Here, for example, is one way of imagining these categories:

Worlds of the Play
The Author and His/Her Worlds
Our World and the Worlds of the Play
Production History
Drama Criticism
Images and Sounds
Sources, Influences & Analogue