The Boston Athenæum Theater Database

Play: With the exception of foreign language titles, leave out all articles ("the", "an", "a", etc.) and punctuation. If search result is unsatisfactory try spelling out numbers and dates.
Actor: Enter last name and first into appropriate field. If search yields too few results, search only by last name. Often, actors are listed in the playbill by last name only. An asterisk (*) may be used as a truncation device.
Theater: Remember that Boston theaters spell the word "theater" as "theatre". Do not include article "the" in searches.
Date: Dates are of the form mm/dd/yyyy. The asterisk (*) is useful for searching when the day, month or year is unknown. For instance, to see all records for programs dating from 1889, enter: */1889. Likewise, a search for Feb. 4 without a year is entered: 2/4/* .