Theatre

Open Textbooks

• An Introduction to Technical Theatre
  “Intended as a resource for both secondary and post-secondary theatre courses, this text provides a comprehensive overview of technical theatre, including terminology and general practices.”
• Huma 207: Exploring the Arts and Culture of the World
  This textbook from the College of Western Idaho provides an introduction to the humanities, including history and geography, art and architecture, religion and philosophy, literature, and the performing arts. The scope is global and extends from prehistory to the present day.
• Improvisation Recipe Book
  “The following recipes, or games, are intended to be used as reference and study for the college course: Improvisation. This format has been set up to help with ease of quick learning and immediate application. Bon Appétit!”
• The Path to Funding: The Artist’s Guide to Building Your Audience, Generating Income, and Realizing Career Sustainability
  This book for performing artists and their instructors is based on coursework developed at Peabody Conservatory and addresses such topics as developing an artist statement, finding an audience, and making creative projects happen.
• Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook
  This book is “an open education resource consisting of a collection of full-length recordings of online Playback Theatre performances, and a 55-page explanatory guidebook. […] The resource as a whole is suitable for a wide range of theatre students in courses such as applied theatre, theatre for social justice, improvisation, theatre appreciation, or acting.”
• Technical Theatre Practicum
  Topics covered in this textbook include performance etiquette, scenery, props, lighting, costumes, sound, and blocking notation, among others.
• Theater & Film bookshelf at LibreTexts
• Theatrical Worlds
  This book provides an introduction to theatre and theoretical production.

Open Access Books

• Detroit on Stage: The Player’s Club, 1910-2005
• Emotional Excess on the Shakespearean Stage
• Latinx Shakespeares
• Oriental, Black, and White: The Formation of Racial Habits in American Theater
• Realisms in East Asian Performance
• Theater and the Sacred in the Middle Ages

Additional Open and Zero-cost Resources

• BBC Sound Effects
  “The BBC Sound Effects Archive is available for personal, educational or research purposes. There are over 33,000 clips from across the world from the past 100 years. These include clips made by the BBC Radiophonic workshop, recordings from the Blitz in London, special effects made for BBC TV and Radio productions, as well as 15,000 recordings from the Natural History Unit archive.” Check the Terms of Use to understand how these sound clips are licensed.
• Development of Theatre 1: Classical – Neoclassical Forms
  This anthology includes Aristotle’s Poetics, Oedipus the King, Lysistrata, The Brothers (Adelphoe), The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika), Everyman, Hamlet, and Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño).
• Folger Shakespeare Library Collection at OER Commons
  “Folger Shakespeare Library is the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, the ultimate resource for exploring Shakespeare and his world.”
• HowlRound
  “HowlRound is a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide that amplifies progressive, disruptive ideas about the art form and facilitates connection between diverse practitioners.”
• Intro to Theater – Learning Resources
  This resource book includes three assignments that can be used in theatre courses. Some activities are based on topics in the open textbook Theatrical Worlds.
• Transforming Stories, Driving Change
  “This workbook is for anyone interested in collaborating on a project that uses community-based theatre as a creative platform for working alongside the people whose voices and visions are essential to, and mostly absent from, public direction-setting for the cities we live in.”