Research Guides: Musical Theatre Resources: Other Online Resources

Finding Reviews

In addition to some of the print and online resources found in this guide, you can refer to the following research guides for assistance in finding reviews of musicals:

Theatre and Drama

Reviews

Reviews of musicals can also be found at these selected websites:

AisleSay

CurtainUp

London Theatre Guide

Dissertations & Theses

Below are some electronic resources that will assist you in finding dissertations and theses related to musical theatre.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Descriptions, sometimes with full text, of doctoral dissertations & master theses from US, UK, Canada, Ireland, etc.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature This link opens in a new window
International bibliography of scholarly writings on music and related disciplines classified by topic. Includes citations and abstracts for articles, dissertations and more.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).
WorldCat This link opens in a new window
Includes over 179 million citations to books, periodicals, sound recordings, videos, musical scores, archival materials and much more representing the holdings of most libraries in North America and some in Europe.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).

Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology-Online
DDM-Online contains bibliographic records for completed dissertations and new dissertation topics in the fields of musicology, music theory and ethnomusicology as well as in related musical, scientific and humanistic disciplines.
Access: Open to all users.

International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 60,000 journal articles, books, book chapters and dissertation abstracts. It has more than 500 full-text titles, including more than 170 full-text journals and more than 360 full-text books & monographs.

Selected Library Resources & Websites

Oxford Music Online
Searches across multiple Oxford reference resources (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, The Oxford Companion to Music and The Oxford Dictionary of Music) covering all aspects of music, including biographies, definitions of terms, musical examples, lists of works, links to audio and more.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).
Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance
Provides authoritative and up-to-date information about theatre and performance from ancient Greek theatre to the latest developments in London, Paris, New York, and around the globe. In addition to performances in playhouses, it covers dance, opera, radio, film, television, and popular performance, including carnivals, circus, and public executions. Entries range from short definitions of terms to lengthy considerations of genres and movements, such as feminism and psychoanalytic criticism. Entries on cities and regions place performance in its local social and political context.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).
Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance
Based on the celebrated Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, and covers styles and movements, organizations, regions and traditions; it has a particularly strong focus on biographies of actors, playwrights, directors, and designers. New entries cover the people and companies who have come into prominence since the publication of the Encyclopedia. The Companion includes all the most popular and accessible information from the Encyclopedia, concentrating primarily on the personalities involved in producing theatre, as well as overviews of the genres within which they work.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).

Encyclopedia of Popular Music This link opens in a new window
This encyclopedia's 30,000 entries cover all genres and periods of popular music from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).
MusicalAmerica.com This link opens in a new window
Top international performing arts professionals go to MusicalAmerica.com for in-depth coverage of performing arts industry news; special reports into the key issues and solutions driving the performing arts industry; extensive databases with critical information covering the international landscape of performing artists, facilities, managers, presenters, schools, media, services and organizations; frequently updated news stories, reviews, databases; news directly from industry groups and organizations through its Press Releases section. The site contains a wealth of data, including international industry news, all contact information and articles from the print directory and archive information.
Access: Limited to authorized UM users (through validated sign-on).
MusicalTheaterSongs.com This link opens in a new window
An index to musical theater songs allowing searching by voice type, range, character ago, tempo, and other parameters.

Music Theatre International
Music Theatre International (MTI) is one of the world's leading theatrical licensing agencies, granting schools as well as amateur and professional theatres from around the world the rights to perform the largest selection of great musicals from Broadway and beyond. MTI works directly with the composers, lyricists and book writers of these shows to provide official scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to over 60,000 theatrical organizations in the US and in over 60 countries worldwide. MTI is particularly dedicated to the idea of theatre as education and has created special collections to meet the needs of various types of performers and audiences.
National Alliance for Musical Theatre
A not-for-profit organization serving the musical theatre community and seeking to advance musical theatre by nurturing the creation, development, production and presentation of new and classic musicals; providing a forum for the sharing of resources and information relating to professional musical theatre through communication, networking and programming; and advocating for the imagination, diversity and joy unique to musical theatre.
NewMusicalTheatre.com
Dedicated to the distribution and promotion of a new generation of musical theater writers who self-publish their own digital sheet music.
Broadway League
The Broadway League is the national trade association for the Broadway industry. Its 700-plus members include theatre owners and operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in North American cities, as well as suppliers of goods and services to the commercial theatre industry. The League is dedicated to fostering increased interest in Broadway theatre and supporting the creation of profitable theatrical productions.
Internet Broadway Database
IBDB was created by the Research Department of The Broadway League, the national trade association for Broadway. IBDB provides a comprehensive database of shows produced on Broadway, including all "title page" information about each production. IBDB also offers historical information about theatres and various statistics and fun facts related to Broadway.
Internet Off-Broadway Database (Lortel Archives)
The Lortel Archives, also known as www.IOBDB.com (Internet Off-Broadway Database) provides a catalogue of shows produced Off-Broadway. Each production includes all information available, including title page credits, original cast members and replacements, window card photos, awards won, number of performances and much more. In addition, there’s information about Off-Broadway theatre spaces, theatre companies and the people who make Off-Broadway come to life.
OffOffOnline
Covers off-off Broadway theater in all five boroughs of New York City, and occasionally Off-Broadway and Broadway theater. OffOffOnline.com serves as a platform to review, recognize, support and promote new and emerging theater.
Talkin' Broadway
Provides up-to-the-minute news, interactive discussion, and information about Broadway, Off-Broadway and the current theatre scene in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and other regional areas across the United States.
New York Times - Theater Section
Broadway: The American Musical (PBS Series)
Broadway: The American Musical tells two stories: the 100-year history of musical theater and the story of its relationship to 20th-century American life. The six-part series begins with the immigrant experience at the turn of the century, when a melting pot of voices and styles gave rise to a popular new form of entertainment, and ends with today’s Broadway, where big-budget new productions and revivals of classic favorites compete side by side for box office success.
American Theatre Wing
Committed to championing and honoring American Theatre by creating the Tony Awards®, developing educational programs and through distributing thousands of dollars of grants and awards each year.
American Society for Theatre Research
The American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) is a U.S.-based professional organization that fosters scholarship on worldwide theatre and performance, both historical and contemporary. Members of the American Society for Theatre Research say the Society is a space to share scholarship and a home for networking within the profession. ASTR also sponsors or coordinates several awards, grants, fellowships, and prizes to support and recognize outstanding scholarship in theatre and performance studies.
Goodspeed Musicals
Goodspeed, a professional musical theatre, mounts six new and newly-worked musicals a year. It aims to produce and preserve the American musical, simultaneously reinventing the classics and inventing new ones. Goodspeed contributes to the preservation of the art form through its Scherer Library of Musical Theatre, the second most extensive musical theatre research library in the United States. Throughout the year, and intensively during the months of winter, Goodspeed addresses issues unique to the field by offering innovative and highly sought-after programs through its Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre.
Musicals101.com
Musicals.net
Provides the online community of musical theatre lovers a place to "meet" other people, to share information about the shows that they love, and to learn about shows they may come to love.