What can one of the world's most famous institutions dedicated to the Immortal Bard teach us? Quite a bit, and the Folger Shakespeare Library website offers a cornucopia of resources for teachers. On this site, visitors can browse sections that include Lesson Plans, Audio & Video, For English Language Learners, and Teaching Sonnets. This last area is quite a gem, as it includes ten different...

If you're a fan of Shakespeare, you're going to love the University of Pennsylvania Library's online Furness Image Collection. Composed of books, manuscripts, artifacts, and over 2,000 prints and photographs, this archive of material is not just about Shakespeare's works, but also about the history of Shakespearean theatrical presentations. The theatrical performers and performances of such...

Gift of the Indus: The Arts and Culture of Pakistan, presented by ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center's arts education network, introduces the arts and culture of Pakistan to young people and teenagers in the US, Pakistan, and all over the world, in the hope of fostering greater understanding. The site has three broad sections: The Nation, with information about the people and the land; Culture & Daily...

With an interest in developing a global consortium of arts organizations, a number of institutions, including Cornell University and Columbia University, came together “to create easily accessible, multimedia, and multilingual information resources for the study and preservation of the performing arts.” Perhaps their biggest accomplishment thus far is the Global Performing Arts Database (GloPAD),...

The Global Performing Arts Database (GloPAD) is a trove of "detailed, multilingual descriptions of digital images, texts, video clips, sound recordings, and complex media objects related to the performing arts around the world." Currently, the site contains over 4,500 records and was made possible by funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. New visitors may wish to peruse...

With a well-established track record, the Great Performances series on PBS continues to offer a host of very compelling broadcasts ranging from dance recitals to musical theater. This well-thought-out website allows visitors to learn about the program schedule, offer their own feedback on the programs, and, most importantly, view a host of multimedia presentations related to the programs...

Based at New York University, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics is a rather unique consortium of various institutions, artists, scholars, and activists dedicated “to exploring the relationship between expressive behavior and social and political life in the Americas”. Equally interesting is the Institute’s desire to move beyond a number of traditional disciplinary boundaries,...

The Holocaust Theater Catalog (HTC) is a partnership between the National Jewish Theater Foundation, the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami, as well as nationally recognized Holocaust scholars, playwrights, activists, and various other funders. The HTC is truly an index in that it does not contain full text, audio, or visual materials for the...

The intersection between popular performers and politics is a curious one at times, and this online exhibition explores the "history of the involvement of entertainers in politics." Created by the Library of Congress to complement an in-situ exhibition, this exhibit was made possible by a contribution from the family of Bob and Dolores Hope. The exhibition is divided into three main sections:...

Born in Vienna in 1872, Joseph Urban came to the United States in 1912 with thousands of other immigrants. One of the distinguishing elements of Urban's life was that he would go on to design over 500 stage sets for more than 168 productions. By the time of his death in 1933, he had served as the art director of the Boston Opera, stage designer for the Metropolitan Opera, and had been in the...