Liz Svoboda
Email: esvoboda@umich.edu
Phone: (810) 762-3007
Office: Library 219, on campus Monday - Thursday
Finding contemporary news about and reviews of musicals is one of the best ways to see how they were received when they were first produced, along with any revivals, or films that they are connected to. The New York Times is a great place to start because it has very robust theater reporting and will review most shows premiering in New York both on and off Broadway.
Searchable access to the backfile of the New York Times (Late Eastern Edition), in full digitized page images.
Searchable access to the New York Times (Late Eastern Edition), from the first issue on September 18, 1851 to three months ago. Reproduces the complete full text of every issue in its original printed form, in full page images digitized from microfilm. Also incorporates indexing and subject headings from the New York Times Index, 1851-1993.
The Performing Arts Periodical database contains popular, industry, and some scholarly publications related to theater, dance, and music. Title include Variety, Rolling Stone, and The Stage, and many will have news about shows in production as well as interviews and reviews with performers and creators.
Publications created by and for specific minority groups may have different perspectives on a musical or play than the main stream press. For example, Dreamgirls was not reviewed favorably in many publications when it premiered in 1981, but publications like Ebony were more favorable towards it and commented on the coverage by other press. Ethnic NewsWatch is a database that focuses on news sources created by and for minority and ethnic groups.
Magazines, journals, and newspapers of various ethnic groups in the United States.
Ethnic NewsWatch is a current resource of full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. It also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.
Ethnicity & Culture Magazine Archive contains the backfiles of more than thirty 20th and 21st-century magazines, each aimed at ethnically specific audiences. Titles range from political publications to those concerned with lifestyle, fashion / beauty, culture, and identity. The collection reflects diverse voices and gives insight into cultural perspectives, societal shifts, and historical events. Titles are presented in color page-image format with article-level metadata and searchable text.
The following websites are good sources for news about what is happening on Broadway, though they may not contain much historical content and their search options are not very robust.