LibGuides: ENTH 3139: Modern American Drama and Performance: Citing and Writing

How to Cite Dramatic Works

Theatre research resources can come in a variety of types, so you may find yourself citing something that's a bit unusual. Here are some helpful examples, links, and tips. The following examples all refer to the MLA style, as that is commonly used for Humanities and Arts citation. If you're ever unsure, ask a librarian.

Printed Plays/Dramatic Works

In-text citation

In-text citation should refer to the Act, Scene, and Line numbers. Roman numerals can be used but are less preferred.

(Cruz 3.7-14) refers to Scene 5, lines 7-14 of a play.

(IV.i.22-36) is an example of roman numeral usage for act 4, scene 1, lines 22-36.

Titles of dramatic works are italicized both in your paper and should be abbreviated in in-text citations, e.g., Tragedy for The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

Works Cited

Many plays may be published in anthologies. The MLA Handbook explains that the title of an independent work (such as a play, novel, or artwork) is italicized even when the work is contained within another independent work. So the citation may look like:

Gurira, Danai. Eclipsed. Contemporary plays by women of color: an anthology, edited by Roberta Uno, Routledge, 2018, pp. 53-79.

Author’s Name. Title of Work. Title of Anthology, Editors/Translators, Publishing House, Year, pp. Page Numbers.

A play published on its own would be treated as a book.

Interviews:

To cite an interview you conducted, give the name of the interviewee, the kind of interview (e.g. personal, telephone, email, etc), and the date.

Miranda, Lin Manuel. Personal interview. 22 July 2016.

To cite a published interview, use the name of the interviewee, title of interview (if part of a publication or recording, use quotes; if independent, italicize the title; if untitled, use the label Interview but not italicized or in quotes), and finish with the appropriate bibliographic information and medium.

Blanchett, Cate. "In Character with: Cate Blanchett." Notes on a Scandal. Dir. Richard Eyre. Fox Searchlight, 2006. DVD

Gordimer, Nadine. Interview. New York Times 10 Oct. 1991, late ed.: C25. Print

Live performance:

For a live performance, use this format - Title of Performance. By Firstname Lastname. Dir. Firstname Lastname. Perf. Firstname Lastname/s. Theatre/venue, Place. Date of Performance. Performance.

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812. By Dave Malloy. Dir. Rachel Chavkin. Imperial Theatre, New York. 17 Nov. 2016. Performance.

If you're citing the contribution of a particular individual within a performance, begin with that name.

Chimo, Tracee, perf. Noises Off. By Michael Frayn. Music by Todd Almond. Dir. Jeremy Herrin. Roundabout Theatre Company. Amer. Airlines Theatre, New York. 14 Jan. 2016. Performance.

CiteSource from Trinity College has examples on citing in-person interviews, live performances, tweets, websites, and more.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has more traditional and extensive citation information.

When to Cite

You should cite in order to both provide credit where it's due, and also to allow those reading your work to find the same original source material. The Purdue OWL has a helpful guide here. Columbia College's guide to citing sources is also useful.

You must cite all sources that have directly or indirectly contributed to your analysis, synthesis, and/or argument in the work you submit.

Quotes

You should quote your sources when it is important to convey the original author’s precise words.

If you use the exact text – words, phrases, sentences – you must enclose them in quotation marks and cite.
Short quotes – words and phrases – can be embedded into the text you write. Longer quotes – sentences and paragraphs – should be indented and separated from your words.

Paraphrase

If you rewrite the original text in your own words, you must cite the source.

Summarize

If you summarize the argument or data of another author, you must cite the source.

Indebtedness

You must cite any text you read that helped you think about your paper even if you do not reference it directly in the text of your paper.
If a person assisted you in clarifying your thoughts – either in conversation or email correspondence – you must cite this source.

One way might be to acknowledge in a footnote connected to your paper’s title or opening sentence your indebtedness to a book or person (noting the date(s) of any relevant conversation or correspondence). Alternatively, for a more significant piece of work – such as an independent study or senior thesis – you can include a paragraph of acknowledgements, noting the range of assistance you received from many people.

Common Knowledge

Common knowledge is information that a reader can reasonably be expected to know. It does not need to be cited.

For example, “Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, was a student of Columbia College” can be considered to be common knowledge and does not need to be referenced.

However, common knowledge does not include opinion.

For example, you might agree with the statement “Columbia College is the best college” – but this is an opinion, not common knowledge and to make this case you would have to cite sources and data that support the supposition.

You should therefore be careful in the assumptions that you make in assessing what might be considered common knowledge.

Moreover, what might be common knowledge in one discipline might not be common knowledge in another discipline. It is important, then, to learn from your instructor the expectations for citing common knowledge in any given class.

If in any doubt, err on the side of caution and cite your source.

Citing Work in Digital Archives

While some Digital Collections (such as NYPL) may have a citation section that will auto-generate with detail and information about a collection, there can be errors in the information. This can especially occur in historical newspaper citation generation. Many older newspaper articles didn't have titles, so databases may pull up part of a first line, or a listing of topics, as a "title." Also, many newspaper articles are read by machines, which won't auto correct for issues such as capitalization.

For example, ProQuest Historical Newspapers auto-cites this article in MLA format as:

"TO STAGE TWO PLAYS FOR JUDGE'S VERDICT." New York Times (1857-1922), Aug 06, 1912, pp. 9. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/97301706?accountid=10226.

The actual article title is depicted as such in the original paper (note: for accessible form of article, click here for the original ProQuest link):

Except this article has two other hidden articles further down the page. My search term was "Mae West," and she does show up but only in that last small stub on the week's theatre productions:

Using Core Elements to Create a Citation

When auto-generated citations go wrong like in the above examples, it's best to go back to basics and use the core elements to create a citation - it's not as hard as it seems!

The MLA Style Center has a great interactive template to create your own citation, as well as examples for each type of resource. Using the elements and knowing the formula lets you build a citation easily.

Using these elements, a better-looking citation for our example source above might look instead like this:

ENTH 3139: Modern American Drama and Performance

Quick Citation Links

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