How do I Find Play Reviews?

Play Reviews are published in all kinds of popular magazines and newspapers. Below are a few general databases that cover a wide variety of magazines and newspapers.

Academic LexisNexis
Academic LexisNexis contains the full text of many newspapers, including the New York Times. To search for play reviews, click on Guided News Search tab near the top of the screen. Choose Arts & Sports News from the first drop down menu. Then choose Book, movie, music or play reviews from the second drop down menu. Finally, search for the title of the play being reviewed in quotes.

Academic Search Premier
Academic Search Premier indexes a wide variety of popular and scholarly sources, including many titles that contain play reviews. When searching be sure to put the name of your play in quotes in the first search box; in the second search box, type Theater Reviews and select Subject from the drop-down menu beside the second search box.

InfoTrac OneFile
InfoTrac OneFile, like Academic Search Premier, indexes a wide variety of popular and scholarly sources, including many titles that contain play reviews. When searching be sure to put the name of your play in quotes in the first search box; in the second search box, type Theater Theater Reviews (yes, that's right) and select Subject from the drop-down menu beside the second search box.

Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature
Readers' Guide is a comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada from 1982-present. Search for the title of the play and select "performance review" under document type.

Readers' Guide Retrospective
Readers' Guide Retrospective is a comprehensive index of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and Canada from 1890-1982. Search for the title of the play and select "performance review" under document type.

If you encounter play reviews that are not full text in any of the print or electronic resources you have just read about and you wish to locate those materials, use the instructions for finding an article to make your search successful.