Actors' Equity AssociationActors' Equity Association (“Equity") is the U.S. labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional Actors and Stage Managers.
Directors Guild of AmericaThe Directors Guild of America is a labor organization that represents the creative and economic rights of directors and members of the directorial team working in film, television, commercials, documentaries, news, sports and new media.
SAG-AFTRA One UnionScreen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is an American labor union representing approximately 160,000 film and television actors, journalists, radio personalities, recording artists, singers, voice actors, and other media professionals worldwide.
Stage Directors and Choreographers SocietySDC is the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional Stage Directors and Choreographers throughout the United States.
Alliance of Los Angeles PlaywrightsThe Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) is a service and support organization dedicated to protecting the rights and addressing the professional needs of the Los Angeles playwriting community. Founded in 1993, ALAP has a large and diverse membership of area playwrights ranging from students and beginning writers to established professionals.
American Society for Theatre ResearchASTR is a U.S.-based professional organization that fosters scholarship on worldwide theatre and performance, both historical and contemporary.
Association for Theatre in Higher EducationATHE serves as an intellectual and artistic center for producing new knowledge about theatre and performance-related disciplines, cultivating vital alliances with other scholarly and creative disciplines, linking with professional and community-based theatres, and promoting access and equity.
British Association of Film, Television and Screen StudiesBAFTSS exists to promote the recognition of the discipline and represent the academic and professorial interests of those engaged in it to the academy, government, funding agencies, the cultural industries and the public; encourage best teaching and research practice; and promote the training of postgraduate students in research.
College Art AssociationCAA, as the preeminent international leadership organization in the visual arts, promotes these arts and their understanding through advocacy, intellectual engagement, and a commitment to the diversity of practices and practitioners.
Dramatists GuildThe Dramatists Guild of America is the national, professional membership trade association of theatre writers including playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists.
National Endowment for the ArtsThe NEA supports exemplary arts projects in communities nationwide through grantmaking, initiatives, partnerships, and events.
National Theatre ConferenceThe NTC is a not-for-profit organization that explores the means of best serving the interests of the American Theatre, and to initiate, encourage, and support projects of value and significance with a view to strengthening and broadening the influence of theatre in our country.
Society for Cinema and Media StudiesSCMS is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.
Theatre Library AssociationTLA supports librarians and archivists affiliated with theatre, dance, performance studies, popular entertainment, motion picture and broadcasting collections.
Women's Caucus for ArtThe Women’s Caucus for Art was founded in 1972 in connection with the College Art Association (CAA). WCA is committed to recognizing the contribution of women in the arts; providing women with leadership opportunities and professional development; expanding networking and exhibition opportunities for women; supporting local, national and global art activism; and advocating for equity in the arts for all.
Women of Color in the ArtsWOCA is dedicated to creating racial and cultural equity in the performing arts field, by promoting professional opportunities for arts administrators and providing a platform to give voice and visibility to women of color. WOCA works diligently to move the conversation of racial and cultural equity forward with the intent of creating equitable systems for all to prosper inside and outside of the arts.
HowlRoundHowlRound is a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide that amplifies progressive, disruptive ideas about the art form and facilitates connection between diverse practitioners.
Theatre Communications GroupTCG is a national organization for the American theatre that fosters communication among professional, community, and university theatres.
Call for Papers - UPennOnline hub for active "call for papers" submissions for publication or conference presentation. Areas of interest include film and television and theatre, among others.
A guide created by faculty at Sarah Lawrence that introduces the theatre student to sources in the expansive theatre field and critical writings that support research.
Graduate Studies at AMDA
This webpage was created in collaboration with the AMDA Library and Graduate Program Faculty.
Degrees supported:
Master of Arts in Theatre
Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Theatre and Media
Amazing digital library of over 1,700 plays, 350 audio plays, and 150 hours of streaming video from theatre publishers and companies. Featured collections include the L.A. Theatre Works audio play collection, the Royal Shakespeare Company Live, critical studies and performance practice material, as well as plays from major publishers like Bloomsbury and Nick Hern.
The New Play Exchange®, a National New Play Network project, is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. Designed and built with the needs of the entire new play sector in mind, the New Play Exchange® serves writers, producers, directors, artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturgs, publishers, agents, actors, professors, students, and even fans of the theater.
Once logged into JSTOR with AMDA credentials, users can navigate to the Artstor on JSTOR platform and explore millions of images from the world's top photo archives, museums, libraries and artists.
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts has launched their new site for digital collections. Special topics include the Christina Giannini Collection of Design Drawings, the North Carolina Dance Theatre, plus collections of posters and programs of performances.
Thousands of high-quality scanned images of costume and set designs from the Motley Collection at the University of Illinois. The Motley group designed sets and costumes from 1932 to 1976 for plays by Shakespeare and modern classics, opera, ballet, and motion pictures. Their designs were used in productions in the West End of London, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the English National Opera, and in the United States on Broadway.
The collections from MCNY contain a large theatre collection, including Yiddish theater, Broadway, the Federal Art Project, and visual design collections.
The database includes scholarly video material of documentaries, interviews, performances, news programs, field recordings, demonstrations, and original and raw footage including tens of thousands of exclusive tiles. There are thousands of award-winning films, Academy,® Emmy,® and Peabody® winners along with the most frequently used films for classroom instruction.
(LA Public Library database) This is the index to the LAPL's Joseph E. Casey Fashion Plate Collection, which contains over 6,000 handcolored fashion plates from British and American magazines dating from the 1790s to the 1880s. Part of the public library's "Visual Collections", the images are available for online viewing. This resource is great for research into character creation and costuming..
(LA Public Library database) This is a Gale Virtual Reference e-Book. It covers over 450 designers, milliners, footwear designers, and fashion houses that have been active throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This resource is great for research into character creation and costuming. You will need an LAPL card to access this resource.
This streaming library has more than 2,000 important classic and contemporary films - plus a constantly refreshed selection of Hollywood, international, art-house, and independent films. Access is available via Library-provided accounts. To reserve an account login for a 48-hour loan, please fill out the form linked here. Please see the Library Criterion Guide for technical information: https://bit.ly/AMDACriterionGuide
(LA Public Library database) Digitalia offers streaming films available to watch online, mostly foreign language but also has some classic American cinema. Includes feature films as well as documentaries. You will need an LAPL card to access this resource.
Founded in 2009, Digital Theatre+ provides 3 million students in over 1,700 schools, colleges and universities across 65 countries with unlimited access to over 900 full-length productions and educational resources. DT+ is constantly evolving and growing, with more filmed productions and interviews as well as superb written content being added every month.
Amazing digital library of over 1,700 plays, 350 audio plays, and 150 hours of streaming video from theatre publishers and companies. Featured collections include the L.A. Theatre Works audio play collection, the Royal Shakespeare Company Live, critical studies and performance practice material, as well as plays from major publishers like Bloomsbury and Nick Hern.
A popular resource found in many academic settings worldwide, this resource was designed for the premier researcher, rich with the most valuable, comprehensive multidisciplinary content available. As a leading scholarly database, it provides access to acclaimed full-text journals, magazines, and other valuable resources.
(LA Public Library database) Film Index International offers detailed film information on over 100,000 films from more than 170 countries from 1900 through 2003. You will need an LAPL card to access this resource.
(LA campus only) Check out digital magazines using the Flipster app! AMDA subscribes to various magazines that users can access online or on their personal devices. Titles include the subject areas of the performing arts and entertainment.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database covers a broad spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry - including dance, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, circus performance, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, performance art, film, television and more. This database indexes (with abstracts) more than 395 international periodicals; 160 of those have full article texts.
The Los Angeles Public Library has many archival newspaper databases. This list curates some of their highlights and coverage.
New Dramaturgy by Katalin Trencsényi and Bernadette Cochrane
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781408177075
Publication Date: 2018
From Bloomsbury publishing, this title explores new dramaturgy in depth, and considers how our thinking about dramaturgy and the role of the dramaturg has been transformed.
The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy by Magda Romanska
Call Number: Oversize PN 2053 .R78 2016
ISBN: 9781138946330
Publication Date: 2015
This collection focuses on contemporary dramaturgical practice, bringing together contributions not only from academics but also from prominent working dramaturgs.
Theatre and Adaptation by Margherita Laera
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781472526533
Publication Date: 2014
Featuring seventeen interviews with internationally-renowned theatre and performance artists, 'Theatre and Adaptation' provides an exceptionally rich study of the variety of work developed in recent years.
Theatre Criticism by Duška Radosavljevic
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781472577122
Publication Date: 2018
This book features 16 contributions from scholars, arts journalists, and bloggers, as well as a small selection of innovative critical practice. They share their perspectives on relevant historical, theoretical and political contexts influencing the development of the discipline, as well as specific aspects of the contemporary practices and genres of theatre criticism.
This MLA formatting and style guide should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA eighth edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.
The MLA Style Center provides students and educators with a host of free resources for teaching and learning the MLA’s approach to research, writing, and documentation. It offers a quick guide to citing any source according to the MLA format template, a practice template, a Q&A feature with hundreds of citation examples, a blog of writing tips, guidelines for formatting a paper and avoiding plagiarism, and more!
New Dramaturgy by 
The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy by 
Theatre and Adaptation by 
Theatre Criticism by 
