Overview
The Drama Collection serves the Yale theater community, including the graduate School of Drama, its professional counterpart the Yale Repertory Theatre, the undergraduate Theater Studies program, Yale Cabaret and Summer Cabaret, the Yale Dramat, and many other performing groups.
Drama-related collections onsite in the Arts Library currently include thousands of playscripts, books on the history of theater, theater architecture, dramaturgy, dramatic criticism, costume and stage design, stage lighting and production, theater management, biographies, related reference books and journals, and performance recordings on various media. Thousands more books and journals on theater as literature, history, theory, and criticism of theater, as well as additional playscripts, are held in Sterling Memorial Library and the Library Shelving Facility. Electronic resources include article databases, reference works, and collections of images, sound, and video. Archival records and unique materials are held in Arts Library Special Collections, Manuscripts and Archives, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Departments/disciplines/programs/subject areas supported
The Drama Collection primarily supports the production research needs of the departments within the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale: Acting, Design, Directing, Playwriting, Dramaturgy, Technical Design and Production, Stage Management, and Theater Management. As part of the Arts Library, the collections are regularly used by the staff of the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Yale Center for British Art.
Formats collected
Print and electronic books and journals; DVDs and streaming video; electronic databases.
Languages collected
Drama materials are primarily in English. Playscripts and scholarly works in languages other than English are generally housed at Sterling Memorial Library.
Chronological and geographical focus
Playscripts primarily focus on current production, including 20th- and 21st-century works as well as performing editions of often-produced classics by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Ibsen, Moliere, Chekhov, Brecht, Wilde, etc. The United States and Europe, especially the United Kingdom, have been the primary geographic focus.
Collaborations within Yale
Within the library, the Drama Collection closely relates to the theater, film, literature, and fashion materials in the humanities collections in Sterling Memorial Library, the musical theater and opera collections in the Music Library, the performance recordings in the Yale Film Archive, and the drama-related holdings of Manuscripts and Archives and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Subject Librarian
Erin Carney
Arts Librarian Drama/Theater/Performance Studies
Arts Library, Robert B. Haas Family
203.432.2672