TAR 100 & 149 - Acting - Library Research Guide
Finding Plays
Finding Plays in the UA library collection (when you do not have a title)
Do a title search in the UA Library Catalog on Best Plays and you'll see lots of choices, including Best Plays, and Best Plays of the Modern American Theatre, etc.
Do a title search in the UA Library Catalog on Humana Festival. These are all American plays. If you know the name of a playwright whose plays you are interested in, do an author search in the UA Library Catalog.
Play index Online (Also available in print PN2021.W48/Info Commons Ref) Indexing many anthologies and listing individual publications of plays published 1949 to date, this index is the first tool to use to locate a play not found in the library catalog. In addition to the expected author and title indexes, this set also has an index by subject and cast of characters (mixed cast, female, male, and number of each). For the main entry of each play-under the author's name, there is a one or two sentence summary of the play.
Use the character index to find plays that meet your needs. This is a somewhat limited approach, but may be useful to you.
Play Texts Online See this list for links to a number of full text play collections available to UA faculty and students. Use advanced search for plays and use the advanced search screen (or multi-field search) to choose ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, full-text of the plays are available in the database, and character descriptions are available for each play. A quick search revealed characters for Blackfoot Indian, White, Black, African American, Mixed.
Finding Monologues in the UA library collection
There are a couple of ways to find monologues in the UA Library Catalog. The first way is to do a subject search in SABIO. Choose the LC subject option and type in the word monologues. You will notice that there is a general heading followed by more specific headings.
You can also try a keyword search in the UA Library Catalog. If you do a keyword search on monologues, you'll find too many hits, but a search on monologues And women will narrow it down. You can also use monologues And men; monologues And ethnic; monologues And minorities; monologues And gay; and so forth.
Sometimes searching keyword 'play' is less helpful because you'll find lots of items with the word play or plays that don't have anything to do with theatre.
There are lots of monologue collections in the library. Theatre Arts instructors also have copies of monologue collections for your use, so consult with them if the library's copies are checked out. You can also find a number of used monologue books at places like Bookman's Used Books.
After you find a monologue, use the steps in Finding Plays below to locate a copy of the play.
Finding Plays in the UA library collection (when you know the title of the play)
Do a title search in the UA Library Catalog. If your play comes up, then get the call number and find it in the stacks using the Call Number Location Guide.
If a title search fails, use a keyword search in the UA Library Catalog and key in the title of your play. Your play may be in a collection of plays by an author, time period or subject; a keyword search will search the table of contents of some of those collections. The title of your play might appear in the table of contents. Again, get the call number, etc.
Another way to locate plays in collections, is to use these sources.(See above for description of the first two sources).
Play index Online (Also available in print. PN2021.W48
Info Commons Ref)
Play Texts Online
Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections PN1655 .O87 1988
Info Commons Ref
Inter-play An online source for finding published plays. Does not give location information.
If the above methods fail, then do a keyword search in the WorldCat database on a the last name of your author plus a couple of words from the title of your play. If your play appears in the table of contents for a collection of plays that you find in WorldCat, you will be able to determine whether or not the UA library has the item. You can use the WorldCat interlibary loan feature (ILL) to request a copy. It should arrive in 3-5 days.
Or, you can try searching in nearby libraries for your play: Pima Community College or Pima County Public Library.
Purchasing your own copy of the play
If you cannot locate a copy of your play you will need to purchase a copy. Good places are Samuel French, Broadway Play Publishing, Amazon.com, or Dramatists Play Service. Plays usually arrive quickly and are inexpensive (usually under $10.00).