Theatre Arts: Audio/Visual Sources
This guide supports the History of Theatre and Drama courses and graduate study in Theatre Arts (playwrights, directors, actors, technical theatre, etc.)
Audio/Visual Sources
The Libraries has a rich collection of films on DVD and Blu-ray, along with many streaming video resources. The Libraries is unable to subscribe to commercial platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc., but there are some feature films available (see below), and several contemporary theatre productions, largely from companies in the United Kingdom.
Video
- National Theatre Collection This link opens in a new windowMUST LOGIN even when ON CAMPUS
National Theatre I & II, including classics like Hedda Gabler and Streetcar Named Desire to newer works such as Chewing Gum Dreams, Angels in America, and Barber Shop Chronicles. - Digital Theatre This link opens in a new windowWork from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC, Frantic Assembly, BroadwayHD, the Lincoln Center Theater, the Old Vic, the Lyric Hammersmith, the Young Vic, the Stratford Festival, Complicité, Shakespeare's Globe, Gecko Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, L.A. Theatre Works, the Liverpool Everyman, the Royal Opera House, the Almeida Theatre, the English Touring Theatre, the English National Ballet, and many more. Includes audio, video, and written resources.
- Shakespeare’s Globe on Screen 1 and 2 This link opens in a new windowMUST LOGIN even when ON CAMPUS
Globe’s two unique playing spaces on London’s Bankside and how different artists respond to them. Each performance transports viewers directly into the standing Yard of the world famous Globe or the magical candlelit interior of the captivating Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. - Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy on Screen This link opens in a new windowMUST LOGIN even when ON CAMPUS
Harriet Walter leads an all-female cast in these three productions of Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest, all set in a women's prison. - Theatre in Video This link opens in a new windowMix of productions and interviews from the Broadway Theatre Archive, California Newsreel, the BBC, Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Stratford, Creative Arts Television, and more.
- Crash Course Theatre and DramaIn 50 videos, Mike Rugnetta teaches you theater and drama! This course is based on an introductory college level course in Theater and explores the history, theory, and technology that contributes to the art form most like life.
- Feature Films for Education Collection This link opens in a new windowNot really a source for staged theater productions, but a large pool of feature films including some with stage roots or connections (e.g., West Side Story (2021), Hello Dolly, Titus (Taymor), Crucible (1996), The History Boys, The King and I, Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, Carousel, Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, and more.
- Kanopy Streaming This link opens in a new windowCustom online libraries of streaming videos from a variety of studios on a variety of subjects.
UIowa can subscribe to individual titles upon request.
PDA subscriptions include:
* Latin American Studies Collection
- PBS Video Collection This link opens in a new windowA few Great Performances, Shakespeare Uncovered, American Masters, and Masterpiece episodes.
- Swank Digital Campus This link opens in a new windowStreaming video titles the University of Iowa has licensed from Swank. Catalog changes each semester.
Audio
- Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection This link opens in a new windowMore than three hundred important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation’s premiere radio theatre company.
- BBC Radio DramaOpen Access collection of BBC Radio Dramas available through archive.org
Photograph of Orson Welles at work in the CBS Radio studio, used in a feature story on the War of the Worlds broadcast