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Theaters for live performance: General resources

Recommended resources on performing arts facilities - including opera houses, theaters and concert halls - providing location info for print resources and links for digital resources.

Recommended books

Recommended image resources

Search “concert hall” or "theater" in Detail Inspiration, or "concert hall" or "theater" in Jstor.

Explore organizations & institutions

American Federation of Musicians (AFM)

Arts & Economic Prosperity (a report from Americans for the Arts)

International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)

USITT, The Association for Performing Arts & Entertainment Professionals

Other resources

Live Design (Stage technology journal)

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (Full text via JSTOR)

"Theater and Theatre—How Is It Spelled?", Catherine Traffis (via Grammerly.com)

Variety (Literate entertainment industry institution; website offers limited searchable full-text)

Recommended for all architectural research

Theater buildings in general

"Architecture/Environment," The Drama Review TDR, Spring 1968, Vol.12, #3 (Theme issue via JSTOR)

Barlow, Graham F. et al. "Theatre," (Full text via Oxford Art Online)

Brejzek, Thea, The Model As Performance : Staging Space in Theatre and Architecture, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018 (via Proquest Ebook Central)

Hardy, Hugh, Building type basics for performing arts facilities, John Wiley, NA6821 .H227 2006

Leitermann, Gene, Theatre planning: facilities for performing arts and live entertainment, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, NA6821 .L45 2017

Pevsner, Nikolaus, A history of building types, Princeton University Press, NA4170.P48 1976 (Chapter 6, “Theatres”)

Roveri, Elisabetta Vasumi, I teatri di Romagna: un Sistema complesso, Editrice Compositori, NA6840.I82 E45 2005

Schmolke, Birgit, Theatres and concert halls, DOM, NA6821 .S36 2011

Strong, Judith, Theatre buildings: a design guide, Routledge, NA6821 .H22 2006

"Theater, theatricality, and architecture," Perspecta, 1990, #26 (Theme issue via JSTOR)

Uffelen, Chris van, Performance architecture + design, Thames & Hudson, NA6821 .U44 2010

Live theater across eras

Ancient Greek Music (Stefan Hagel)

Blumenthal, Arthur R., Theater art of the Medici, University Press of New England, N6921.F7B56

Burden, Michael. Where Did Purcell Keep His Theatre Band? Early Music, August 2009, p.429-443 (PDF via Jstor)

Cerutti, Steven & L. Richardson, Jr., “Vitruvius on Stage Architecture,” JSAH, June 1989, p.172-179 (PDF via Jstor)

Diderot, M., Encyclopédie, Pergamon Press, Office-AE25.E5 1969 v.4 (Plates xxx),

Forster, Kurt Walter, "Stagecraft and Statecraft," Oppositions, Summer 1977, #9, p.63-87

Grange, William, A primer in theatre history: from the Greeks to the Spanish golden age, University Press of America, 2013 (via Ebook Central)

Izenour, George, “The Ancient Roman Roofed Theater,” Perspecta, 1990, #26, p.69-82 (PDF via Jstor)

Izenour, George, Roofed Theaters of Classical Antiquity, Yale University Press, PA3201.I97 1992

Klee, Bruce, “Three Gallo-Roman Multi-Purpose Theatres,” Educational Theatre Journal, December 1975, p.516-520 (PDF via Jstor)

McDonnelly, Marion C., Theaters in the Courts of Denmark and SwedenJSAH, December 1984, p.328-340 (PDF via Jstor)

Pearson, John, Arena: the story of the Colosseum, McGraw-Hill, DG68.1 .P4

Vitruvius, Pollio, The ten books on architecture, Dover, NA2515.V73 1960 (Book 5, Chapters 3-8)

American Federation for the Arts, The ideal theatre: eight concepts, Owen for A. F. A., PN2081.A6

Appleton, Ian, Buildings for the Performing Arts, Architectural Press, NA6821.A65 1995

Breton, Gaëlle, Theater, Karl Krämer, NA6821 .B74 1989

Cole, Wendell. The Theatre Projects of Walter GropiusEducational Theatre Journal.Vol. 15, No. 4 (Dec., 1963), pp. 311-317 (Full text via JSTOR)

Futagawa, Yukio (editor), Theater, A.D.A. Edita, NA6821 .T475 2006

Izenour, George, An Experimental TheatrePerspecta, 1959, #5 (PDF via Jstor)

Izenour, George et al, Theater design, Yale University Press, Office-NA6821.I94 1996

Koss, Juliet, Bauhaus Theater of Human DollsThe Art Bulletin, December 2003, p.724-745 (PDF via Jstor)

“Performing Halls,” Progressive Architecture, November 1975 (Theme issue)

Slessor, Catherine, “The mirror of life,” Architectural Review, June 1994 (Theme issue on performing arts buildings)

Smith, C. Ray, "Rehousing the drama," Progressive Architecture, February 1962, p.96-109

Solomon, Nancy B., "Flexible Theaters," Architecture, August 1992, p.95-102

Staples, David (Editor), Modern theatres, 1950-2020, Routledge, NA6821 .M56 2021

“Theater Spaces and Performance Spaces,” Architectural Review, June 1989 (Theme issue)

“Using Arts to Revive Cities,” Architectural Record, May 1999 (Building Types Study)

Van Hoogstraten, Nicholas, Lost Broadway Theatres, Princeton Architectural Press, PN2277.N5 V36 1991

“Building ovations,” Architectural Record, August 2006 (Building types study)

“Civic identity,” Architectural Record, January 2008 (Building types study)

Futagawa, Yukio (editor), Theater, A.D.A. Edita, NA6821 .T475 2006

Hammond, Michael, Performing architecture: opera houses, theatres and concert halls for the twenty-first century, Merrell, NA6821 .T447 2010

Hart, Sara, “Performing arts complexes are evolving from shoebox venues into multipurpose arenas,” Architectural Record, October 2003, p.143-146, 148

“Music and theater,” Detail, May/June 2009, #3 (Theme issue)

“Poetry of performance,” Architectural Record, October 2003 (Building types study)

Rossetti, Massimo, “Architettura e spettacolo,” Abitare, July 2011, p.53-60 (Survey of concert halls) (In Italian)

“Taking a bow,” Architectural Record, February 2009 (Building types study)

Live theater topics A to Z

Nelson, Reginald & David Schwimmer, How to start your own theater company, Chicago Review Press, 2010 (via Ebook Central)

Osborne, Elizabeth A. & Christine Woodsworth (editors), Working in the wings: new perspectives on theatre history and labor, Southern Illinois University Press, 2015 (via Ebook Central)

Variety (Literate entertainment industry institution; website offers limited searchable full-text)

Acoustics” and “Concert hall” in Oxford Art Online

Clarke, Joseph, "Wagnerism embodied," Log, Fall 2011, p.59-69 (PDF via Jstor)

Jaffe, J. Christopher, The acoustics of performance halls, W.W. Norton & Co., NA2800 .J34 2010

Jencks, Charles, “Architecture becomes music,” Architectural Review, May 2013, p.91-108

Kirkpatrick, Ralph, On Concert Halls: Conversations with Ralph Kirkpatrick, Perspecta, 1980, Vol.17, p.92-99 (PDF via Jstor)

Newhouse, Victoria, Site and sound: the architecture and acoustics of new opera houses and concert halls, Monacelli Press, NA6821 .N45 2011

Schmolke, Birgit, Theatres and concert halls, DOM, NA6821 .S36 2011

Statham, H. Heathcote, The structure and arrangement of concert halls, Proceedings of the Musical Association, 38th Sess., (1911 - 1912), p.67-92 (PDF via Jstor)

Comedy” & “Tragedy,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Drama Review: TDR  (Main journal of scholarship on historic and contemporary theater. Full text via JSTOR)

McAuley, Gay, Space in performance: making meaning in the theatre, University of Michigan Press, PN2091.S8 M383 2000

Osborne, Elizabeth A. & Christine Woodsworth (editors), Working in the wings: new perspectives on theatre history and labor, Southern Illinois University Press, 2015 (via Ebook Central)

PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (Full text via JSTOR)

TDR (Performing arts journal. Full text via JSTOR)

Wickham, Glynne William Gladstone, A History of the Theatre, 2nd ed., Phaidon, PN2101.W52 1992

Aristotle’s Poetics,” Oxford Art Online

Bernheimer, Richard, Theatrum MundiThe Art Bulletin, December 1956, p.225-247 (via JSTOR)

Carlson, Marvin, Theories of the theatre: a historical and critical survey from the Greeks to the present, Cornell University Press, PN2039 .C26 1993

Csapo, Eric et al (editors), Greek theatre in the fourth century B.C., De Gruyter, 2014 (via Ebook Central)

Dox, Donnalee, The idea of the theater in Latin Christian thought: Augustine to the fourteenth century, University of Michigan Press, 2004 (via Ebook Central)

Grange, William, A primer in theatre history: from the Greeks to the Spanish golden age, University Press of America, 2013 (via Ebook Central)

Harbison, Robert, Reflections on Baroque, University of Chicago Press, NX451.5.B3 H37 2000 (Ch. 5 "The World as Scenery")

King, Sharon, City tragedy on the Renaissance stage, Edwin Mellen Press, PN1650.C57 K56 2003

Lippman, Edward A., “The Sources & Development of the Ethical View of Music in Ancient Greece,” Musical Quarterly, April 1963, p.188-209

Lublin, Robert I. & Helen Ostovich, Costuming the Shakespearean stage, Routledge, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Manuwald, Gesine, Roman republican theatre, Cambridge University Press, 2011 (via Ebook Central)

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The birth of tragedy, 1872 (Ian Johnstone translation)

Outline of Plato & Aristotle on Tragedy (Duke University)

Peacock, John, Inigo Jones's stage architecture and its sourcesThe Art Bulletin, June 1982, p.195-216 (via JSTOR)

Turner, Henry S., The English Renaissance stage: geometry, poetics, and the practical spatial arts, 1580-1630, Oxford University Press, 2006 (via Ebook Central)

Wisch, Barbara & Susan Scott Munshower (editors), Art & pageantry in the Renaissance & Baroque, part 2: theatrical spectacle and spectacular theatre, Department of Art History, Pennsylvania State University, GT5010 .A75 1990 pt. 2

Artaud, Antonin, Theater and its double, Grove Press, PN2021.A713

Baer, Nancy Van Norman, Theatre in revolution: Russian avant-garde stage design, 1913-1935, Thames and Hudson, PN2091.S8 B275 1991

Barris, Roann, Culture as a Battleground: Subversive Narratives in Constructivist Architecture and Stage DesignJournal of Architectural Education, November 1998, p.109-123 (via JSTOR)

Brecht, Bertolt, Brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic, Hill and Wang, PN2021 .B68 1992

Burnham, Linda Frye, "High performance," performance art, and meThe Drama Review: TDR, Spring 1986, #1, p.15-51 (Full text via JSTOR)

Gropius, Walter & Arthur S. Wensinger (editors), Theater of the Bauhaus, Johns Hopkins University Press, PN2091.S8 S3313 1996

Hannah, Dorita, Event-space : theatre architecture and the historical avant-garde, Routledge, PN2193.E86 H36 2019

Harding, James A. & John Rouse (editors), Not the other avant-garde: the transnational foundations of avant-garde performance, University of Michigan Press, 2006 (via Ebook Central)

Internet Broadway Database (the stage equivalent of www.imdb)

Ioffe, Dennis G. & Frederick White, Russian Avant-Garde and radical Modernism: an introductory reader, Academic Studies Press, 2012 (via Ebook Central)

Leach, Robert, Makers of modern theatre: an introduction, Routledge, 2004 (via Ebook Central)

Mahala, Macelle & Lou Bellamy, Penumbra: the premier stage for African American drama, University of Minnesota Press, 2013 (via Ebook Central)

Mason, Fran, Historical dictionary of postmodernist literature and theater, The Scarecrow Press, 2007 (via Ebook Central)

Segel, Harold B., Fin de siecle Cabaret, Performing Arts Journal, Spring 1977, #1, p.41-57 (via JSTOR)

Aspden, Suzanne (Editor), Operatic Geographies : The Place of Opera and the Opera House, University of Chicago Press, 2019 (Ebook available via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Baker, Evan, From the score to the stage : an illustrated history of continental opera production and staging, University of Chicago Press, ML1720 .B35 2013

Bereson, Ruth, The operatic state: cultural policy and the opera house, Routledge, 2002 (via Ebook Central)

Condee, William Faricy, Coal and culture: opera houses in Appalachia, Ohio University Press, 2004 (via Ebook Central)

Devlin, Es, An atlas of Es Devlin, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, N6797.D48 A4 2023

Fisher, Burton D., History of Opera : Milestones and Metamorphoses, Opera Journeys Publishing, 2003 (Available via ProQuest Ebook Central) 

Forment, Bruno, “Jumbo-sized artifacts of operatic practice,” Music in Art, Spring/Fall 2013, #1-2, p.115-125 (Historical stage sets) (via JSTOR)

Hammond, Michael, Performing architecture: opera houses, theatres and concert halls for the 21st century, Merrell, NA6821 .T447 2010

Hegenbart, Sarah, From Bayreuth to Burkina Faso : Christoph Schlingensief's Opera Village Africa as postcolonial Gesamtkunstwerk? Leuven University Press, ML1729.6 .H44 2022

Izenour, George C., Theater technology, 2nd edition, Yale University Press, NA6821.I947 1996

Kreuzer, Gundula Katharina, Curtain, gong, steam : Wagnerian technologies of nineteenth-century opera, University of California Press, ML1700 .K74 2018

Levin, David J.. Unsettling Opera : Staging Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Zemlinsky, University of Chicago Press, 2007 (Ebook available via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Lima de Toledo, Benedito & Elza B. de Oliveira Marques, Opera Houses, The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, 1995, Vol.21, p.42-59 (Brazil-themed issue via JSTOR)

New opera house, 2nd edition, Statsbygg, NA1273.S66 N48 2005

Newhouse, Victoria, Site and sound: the architecture and acoustics of new opera houses and concert halls, Monacelli Press, NA6821 .N45 2011

The "Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series" provides 100+ monographs on specific operas, with librettos, commentary and analysis available via ProQuest Ebook Central 

Ranno, Danielle, The beginner's guide to opera stage management : gathering the tools you need to work in opera, Routledge, MT955 .R34 2023

Sharon, Yuval, A new philosophy of opera, Liveright Publishing Company, ML3858 .S437 2024

Tsypin, George, George Tsypin opera factory : building in the black void, Princeton Architectural Press, ML423.T78 A3 2005

Wilkinson, Tom, “Typology: opera houses,” Architectural Review, October 2013, p.91-104

CINEMA BROADCASTS. In the 21st century all theaters are TV studios. In 2006 the Metropolitan Opera in NYC began streaming live HD broadcasts of stage productions to cinemas around the world. The experiment proved so powerful and profitable that it was copied everywhere. Today, operas, concerts, and stage plays are routinely presented in cinemas. See Fathom Events, distributors of the “The Met: Live in HD” series, and – locally – the Laemmle chain of cinemas.

Bowlt, John E., "Stage Design and the Ballets Russes,The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Summer 1987, Vol.5, p.28-45 (Russian/Soviet theme issue via JSTOR)

Dorn, Dennis, Drafting for the theatre, Southern Illinois University Press, 2012 (via Ebook Central)

Dunham, Richard, Stage lighting: fundamentals and applications, Routledge, 2016 (via Ebook Central)

Forment, Bruno, “Jumbo-sized artifacts of operatic practice,” Music in Art, Spring/Fall 2013, #1-2, p.115-125 (Historical stage sets) (via JSTOR)

Kendrick, Lynne & David Roesner (editors), Theatre noise: the sound of performance, Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2011, (via Ebook Central)

Live Design (Stage technology journal)

McAuley, Gay, Space in performance: making meaning in the theatre, University of Michigan Press, PN2091.S8 M383 2000

Oddey, Alison & Christine White (editors), The potentials of space: the theory and practice of scenography & performance, Intellect Books, 2006 (via Ebook Central)

Read, Gray, “Theater of public space: architectural experimentation in the Theatre de l’espace,” Journal of Architectural Education, May 2005, p.53-62 (via JSTOR)

Alternative keywords

Amphitheaters, Arenas, Auditoriums, Band shells, Cabarets, Concert halls, Concert pavilions, Cultural centers, Equity waiver theaters, Music halls, Odeums, Open-air stages, Opera houses, Outdoor stages, Performing arts centers, Puppet theaters, Stage lighting, Stage machinery, Stages, Temporary stages, Theater architecture, Theaters, Theater curtains, Theater design, Theatres, Variety theaters

Please note

  • These guides are intended to provide initial orientation, and suggest a variety of different lines of investigation—not take the place of individual research.
  • All the resources cited here--print and digital--are available through the Kappe Library at SCI-Arc.Items not available at SCI-Arc are not included.
  • Surveys covering multiple projects are preferred over monographic studies focusing on specific works or individuals.
  • Resources on Los Angeles and Southern California are stressed.
  • Proprietary digital resources (Avery Index, Oxford Art Online, ArtStor, etc) can be accessed on-campus at SCI-ARC via any SCI-Arc internet provider. Off-campus they can be accessed 24/7 via the Kappe Library proxy server, and a valid SCI-Arc Network username and password.

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