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Drama

Critical Sources

American Drama Criticism: Interpretations: REF Z1231 .D7P3
Indexes reviews as well as criticism of American plays between 1890 and 1900.
 
Contemporary Literary Criticism: REF PN771 .C59
Multi-volume set provides selected excerpts from criticism of the work of about twenty five authors per volume and is limited to those who are still living or who have died after 1960.
 
Critical Survey of Drama: REF PN1625 .C69 2003
This eight volume set supplies essays about 538 individual dramatists and 64 overview essays on topics covering, for example, African American drama, feminist theater, gay and lesbian theater, resources, and radio and television drama (limited to the US). Entries extend far beyond dramatists writing in English, cover both genders, and range historically from the ancient to the most contemporary.
 
Drama Criticism: REF Z1231 .D7C6
Volume 1 is a list of interpretations since 1940 of English and American plays. Volume 2 is a list of interpretations since 1940 of classical and continental plays.
 
Dramatic Criticism Index: A Bibliography of Commentaries on Playwrights from Ibsen to the Avant-Garde: REF PN1861 .Z9B7
 
European Drama Criticism, 1900-1975: REF Z5781.P2 1977
Includes a selection of critical writings about representative European plays.
 
Library of Literary Criticism (Series): REF Call number varies
Check Omni for various titles in this series.
 
Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800: REF PN86 .L53
Each volume of the series, which began in 1984, covers between seven and nine individuals from around the world, along with one topical entry on a major theme or issue.
 
MLA International BibliographyPB6.M61 (1921-1992) in Compact Shelving
For criticisms of plays, not theatrical productions.
  
Modern Drama Scholarship and Criticism 1966-1980: An International Bibliography: REF Z5781 .C37 1986t
 
Modern Drama Scholarship and Criticism 1981-1990: An International Bibliography: REF Z5781 .C372 1996t
 
Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism: REF PN761 .N5 (v.1-234)
Check Omni for Online holdings. Multi-volume set which covers authors who lived between 1800-1900. Each volume covers the works of from eight to fourteen different writers with every fourth volume devoted to topics rather than individual authors.
 
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism  : REF PN771 .G27 (v.1-244)
Available Online (v.1-current) via Omni. Covers authors who died between 1900 and 1959

Approaches in Omni

In Omni, do a keyword search combining the name of an author (playwright) with the word 'criticism':

 chekhov AND criticism

You can also try combining the title of a play in quotes with the word 'criticism':

  "romeo and juliet" AND criticism

You can also do an author subject search or author/play subject search: 

  Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Criticism and interpretation
  Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989. En attendant Godot