A Source Book in Theatrical History: Twenty-five centuries of stage history in more than 300 basic documents and other primary material

by A.M. Nagler

"An indispensable complement to the study of the drama." — Educational Theatre Journal . A rich resource for students of theater and theater historians, this volume features an annotated collection of more than 300 unusually interesting and detailed articles. Passages by contemporary observers from ancient Greece to modern times include notes on acting, directing, make-up, costuming, stage props, machinery, scene design, and much more. "Most valuable. An inspiring guide." — Theatre Notebook .

Genres: Theatre, History, Nonfiction, Art, Reference

640 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1959

Reviews

[Monica]

I found the book entertaining. So you know, my classmates did not. They hated it with a passion. It contained old texts many left with older modern spellings (or misspellings as there was not a set spelling for every word back then). Some context is needed for some of the entries, but someone who has a bit of knowledge about theatre history should be in familiar territory.

[Adam Chandler]

Originally published in 1912 and reprinted in 1959, so the theatrical history it covers is Western material from the ancient Greeks to the 19th century, nothing in the 20th or 21st centuries. Still, it is greatly informative and, as a sourcebook, has many tidbits of the plays and mechanics of plays over the centuries. Unfortunately, as these types of books must be, it is fairly selective in what it includes. The descriptions of how to make scene changes in the early modern period was fairly interesting, and I greatly appreciated the short chapter on Weimar Classicism (and thought that more should be covered on German playwrights in general).