A
production history (also called performance
history or stage history) is an
account of significant productions of a theatrical work (play, opera, dance,
etc.).
There
are two levels of research on production history:
- Dates, places, interpreters: When, where, and by whom
has the play been performed?
- What was each production like?
What made it significant or unique in terms of style, approach, or
reception?
Why
study a play’s production history?
- A play can serve as a case
study of changing cultural norms and theatrical styles over time.
- Seeing how different
interpreters have approached a play can deepen our understanding of it.
How
do you find production histories? Unless someone else has compiled one for you,
there’s no single, simple place to find them. You have to piece the history
together from several kinds of sources, both primary and secondary.
Production History: Primary Sources
Performances
and productions can be documented with various types of primary sources:
- Newspaper Clippings
- Theatre Reviews (also see
E-Resources)
- Playbills (organized by title
of production, date, and theatre)
- Promptbooks
- Prints & Photographs
- Posters
- Scene and costume design /
artwork
Some
of these resources are cataloged Cruzcat.
The
more information you can supply about a particular production -- production
dates, place, theater, persons involved -- the more likely it is that you will
be able to find material. This information can often be found in secondary
sources (see below) and reviews.
Production History: Secondary Sources
To
find out when and where a particular play has been performed, consult secondary
sources such as these. Books can be found using Cruzcat (see suggested subject headings below);
journal articles can be found in the databases listed here. To find the full
text of a journal article in print or online, use the Citation Linker.
- Biographies of the playwright (choose keyword search in Cruzcat for name of playwright and biography)
- Critical editions of the play
- Websites on the playwright or
the play; for example:
- The Samuel
Beckett Endpage lists recent productions
- Samuel Beckett.net is best
searched by keyword for particular plays
- Beckett in the Theatre: The Author as Practical Playwright and Director
- For Broadway productions,
search the Internet Broadway Database.
Both Broadway and Off-Broadway productions are listed in North American Theater Online.
- Journal articles via databases such
as (consult the Theater
Arts Research Guide for more sources):
- International
Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA)
- JSTOR
(mostly
literary analysis, not production history)
- North
American Theater Online
- The
New York Times and Los Angeles Times and other newspapers
(search by title in Cruzcat)
- MLA
International Bibliography
- Stage histories of particular
plays or playwrights. Example: The Chekhov theatre: a
century of the plays in performance.
To find others, see suggested library subject headings below.
Production History Subject Headings
Library
of Congress subject headings can be useful for finding production histories in
Cruzcat. In Cruzcat, choose subject search and enter the name of the playwright by
last name, first name. Then scroll down to find entries such as these below.
EXAMPLES:
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