Skip to Main Content

Theatre

Students who earn degrees in Theatre often find careers in sales, marekting, broadcasting, public relations, and law or pursue higher degrees in communications. Students learn effective oral and written communication skills, while developing critical pers

Textbooks on Reserve

The RCBC Library has many course textbooks on reserve. These books can be reserved for two hours at a time.

You can view which textbooks are available by subject on this guide:

Textbooks on Reserve at RCBC

Books

Theatre Histories

This updated fourth edition of Theatre Histories offers a critical overview of global theatre, drama, and performance, spanning a broad wealth of world cultures and periods, integrating them chronologically or thematically, and showing how they have often interacted. Bringing together a group of scholars from a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to the history of global theater, this introduction to theatre history places theatre into its larger historical contexts and attends to communication's role in shaping theatre. Its case studies provide deeper knowledge of selected topics in theater and drama, and its "Thinking Through Theatre Histories" boxes discuss important concepts and approaches used in the book. Features of the fully updated fourth edition include: Deeper coverage of East Asian and Latin American theater. Richer treatment of popular culture. More illustrations, photographs, and information about online resources. New case studies, include several written by authoritative scholars on the topic. Pronunciation guidance, both in the text and as audio files online. Timelines. An introduction on historiography. A website with additional case studies, a glossary, recordings of the pronunciation of important non-English terms, and instructor resources. A case studies library listing, including both those in print and online, for greater instructor choice and flexibility. This is an essential textbook for undergraduate courses in theatre history, world theatre and introduction to theatre, and anyone looking for a full and diverse account of the emergence, development, and continuing relevance of theatre to cultures and societies across the world.

Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams

Nō drama, which integrates speech, song, dance, music, mask, and costume into a distinctive art form, is among Japan's most revered cultural traditions. It gained popularity in the fourteenth century, when the actor and playwright Zeami (1363-1443) drew the favor of the shogun with his theatrical innovations. Nō's intricacies and highly stylized conventions continue to attract Japanese and Western appreciation, and a repertoire of some 250 plays is performed today. Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams presents a selection of Nō plays, magnificently rendered in English by Royall Tyler, an eminent scholar and translator of classical Japanese literature. It includes both canonical and lesser-known works of Zeami's, as well as anonymous works. Several are outside the established repertoire, offering glimpses of Nō before the tradition was codified in the Edo period, and have not previously been translated into English. An introduction describes the structure, formal features, and performance conventions of Nō plays, and brief essays precede each work. Through Tyler's authoritative scholarship and keen ear for the subtlety and beauty of the language, Joy, Despair, Illusion, Dreams gives Anglophone readers access to the complex art of Nō.

Cover Art

The Big House Anthology: Diverse Plays for Diverse Casts

The Big House Anthology is a celebration of the last decade of work and plays by a unique theatre company, featuring five original plays that offer a chance for stories with diverse casts to contribute to the canon of theatre's literature. As a UK-based theatre company, The Big House empowers care leavers and other disadvantaged young people through performance and long-term support. Their plays are born from the hearts and minds of the young people they engage, with this anthology offering five very different plays: a runner struck down by MS; a rapper who spits and snarls and tries to find it in herself to forgive; a teenager who fights for wealth, status and respect in the underworld of county lines; a cackling cowboy they call Corona; and a dog that has been tracked, murdered and stuck in a stew. This anthology celebrates the explosive creativity that comes from mobilising and platforming diverse voices, and its importance in generating social change. Framed and introduced by directors and writers discussing their practice, along with an introduction by Jez Butterworth, this is a book for students, educators, artists, theatre-practitioners, social workers and storytellers to tell stories that are rarely told, let alone with such fierce authenticity.

Cover Art

Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival 2022: the Short Plays

The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival identifies and supports new plays that feature robust roles for college-aged actors, while providing a laboratory to train students in the skills and ethics inherent to collaborating with living playwrights on new works. This collection features the ten short plays that were Official Selections of the 2022 Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival - chosen from hundreds of submissions from around the United States. From the story of a pair of high school seniors debating whether to destroy an unopened package from the admissions office of a top-tier college, to a young woman tracking down her ex after seeing an alarming fowl-related post on Facebook, to a college student helping her sorority sister plot revenge on the Tinder date who ghosted her, the plays are funny, smart, and full of humanity. They can be performed individually or combined into a dynamic evening of theater, all with robust and challenging roles for actors in their late-teens and twenties.

Cover Art

Why the Theatre

Why the Theatre is a collection of 26 personal essays by college teachers, actors, directors, and playwrights about the magnetic pull of the theatre and its changing place in society. The book is divided into four parts, examining the creative role of the audience, the life of the actor, director, and playwright in performance, ways the theatre moves beyond the playhouse and into the real world, and theories and thoughts on what the theatre can do when given form onstage. Based on concrete, highly personal examples, experiences, and memories, this collection offers unique perspectives on the meaning of the theatre and the beauty of weaving the world of the play into the fabric of our lives. Covering a range of practices and plays, from the Greeks to Japanese Butoh theatre, from Shakespeare to modern experiments, this book is written by and for the theatre instructor and theatre appreciation student.

Cover Art

The Essential Theatre

This text is a welcome and helpful resource whether you are a major looking forward to a career in the theatre, or a nonmajor interested in an overview to help you better appreciate theatre as an audience member. Written by highly respected theatre historians, THE ESSENTIAL THEATRE has established a reputation as one of the most comprehensive, authoritative surveys of the theatre in colleges nationwide. Its vibrant treatment of theatre practice-past and present-range from the origins of theatre to postmodernism and performance art. Chapter after chapter, this book will encourage you and get you excited about becoming an active theatergoer, while providing the insight and understanding that will enrich your theatre experience throughout your life.

Cover Art

Play the Scene

Alexander Dumas * Christopher Durang * Beth Henley * Kenneth Lonergan * Donald Margulies * Steve Martin * Nicky Silver * Bernard Shaw * Alfred Uhry * Paula Vogel A collection of the greatest scenes and monologues ever written-ranging from Elizabethan to Tony Award-winning plays-this comprehensive anthology spans over five hundred years of theatre.Play the Scene: The Ultimate Collection of Contemporary and Classic Scenes and Monologues by coauthors Michael Schulman and Eva Mekler includes scenes and monologues from classic plays by such notable authors as Edith Wharton as well as the best in contemporary theatre, such as Margaret Edson's Wit. * Blight Spirit * Camille * The Chosen * The Graduate * How I Learned to Drive * The Last Night of Ballyhoo * The Lisbon Traviata * This Is Our Youth * Vincent in Brixton * And many more!

Cover Art

The Ultimate Audition Book

A collection of classic and contemporary monologues drawn from fiction, essays and poetry that provides new audition material for actors.

Cover Art

Musical, the, Second Edition

The Musical, Second Edition, introduces students and general readers to the entire scope of the history of musical theater, from eighteenth-century ballad operas to nineteenth-century operettas, to the Golden Age of Broadway to today. In this comprehensive history, master theater historian Kurt Gänzl draws on his vast knowledge of the productions, the actors, the music and dance, and the reception of the central repertory of the musical theater. Focus boxes on key shows are included in every chapter, along with a chronology of the major musical productions described in the text. Production photographs from around the world enhance the descriptions of the costumes and staging. This book is an ideal introduction for college-level courses on the History of Musical Theater and will also appeal to the general theatergoer who wants to learn more about how today's musical developed from its earliest roots.

Print Books

Print books are arranged on the shelf in Library of Congress Call Number order. Each call number begins with an alphanumeric base (e.g., "BF109.J8") that is followed by a cutter and a date of publication (e.g., "A25 1993"). See a librarian if you need assistance.

Call Number Range (where to look on the bookshelves)

Suggested eBooks

If you're interested in finding ebooks only, head to eBook Collection. To log in, use the barcode located on the back of your student ID and your pin number. You have the option to download ebooks to a device, but we strongly recommend reading them online to take advantage of the full suite of available tools. Create a personal account using your Library barcode and PIN to manage and organize your ebook reading and research.

Need A Book We Don't Have?

  • RCBC Library is part of the Burlington County Library Sysytem (BCLS)

    • Your RCBC Library barcode allows you to check out physical material at other BCLS branches! (separate BCLS Library card needed to be able to access their online resources) 

    • If another branch has a book that you are looking for, either call them to have it placed on hold for you, or we will be happy to call them to have them place a book on hold for you. Note: a book that shows up as being in another branch may be currently in use by another patron or otherwise not on the shelf, so save yourself a trip and call to double check the book's availability.

    • If another branch has a book that you want and you are not able to visit that branch, we can order it to be delivered to the RCBC Library for you! Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.

  • Inter-library Loans

    • If a book that you want is not available in the RCBC Library or BCLS, we can attempt to order the book from an outside library to be delivered to the RCBC Library. Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.

    • To order a book via inter-library loan, please either fill out a blank form from JerseyCat or contact Debbie Kolodziej at dkolodzie@rcbc.edu.

  • Faculty Book Requests

Please fill out this form. For more information, please contact Rachel Pieters at rpieters@rcbc.edu or ext. 1269.

 

Library Services

  • Research assistance - help finding sources, evaluating sources

  • Online workshops for citing and plagiarism are held throughout the semester. To request a citing workshop, please email library@rcbc.edu