Plays and Monologue/Scene Collections in the Library Catalog
Copies of plays are located in several libraries on campus. For browsing, a good starting place is the Arts Library Selected Plays & Monologues collection, located near the Reference shelves on the entry level. This collection is focused on acting editions, monologue anthologies, and dialect CDs, which can be borrowed for two weeks. Other locations for plays include Young Research Library and Powell Library.
- UC Library Search This link opens in a new windowUC Library Search is the unified discovery and borrowing system for all 10 UC Campuses. Select the UCLA Library Catalog scope to search holdings of materials owned by the UCLA Library and other UCLA collections, whether online or in print. Does not contain full-text articles or article citations. Select the Articles, books and more scope to search for materials in all 10 UC campuses. More information in this guide.
Online Play Collections: UCLA Library
The Library subscribes to a number of full text play collections, where you may also locate monologues and scenes of interest. If connecting from off-campus and using library-subscribed resources, make sure your computer is configured properly.
- African Writers Series This link opens in a new windowThe Heinemann African Studies Series (AWS), founded in 1962, covers a broad historical range of modern African fiction, from novels, poetry, and drama by black African authors. Most of the works in the series come from English-speaking countries in western, southern, and eastern Africa, but there are also a number of volumes translated from other languages.
- American Drama 1714-1915 This link opens in a new windowOnline collection of American dramatic writing. Contains full text of more than 1,100 plays from the colonial period to the beginning of the 20th century.
- Asian American Drama This link opens in a new windowFull text plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.
- Black Drama: Second Edition This link opens in a new windowContains approximately 1600 plays by 200 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays.
- Drama Online - Bloomsbury This link opens in a new windowIncludes full text of plays and reference works, as well as streaming audio and video of performances. UCLA subscribes to the modules: Core Collection, Aurora Metro Books, BBC Drama Films, Classic Spring Oscar Wilde Collection, Critical Studies and Performance Practice, Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy, L.A. Theatre Works, Maxine Peake as Hamlet, National Theatre Collections, Nick Hern Books Modern Plays, Oberon Books, Playwrights Canada Press, RSC Live Collections, Shakespeare in the Present, Shakespeare's Globe on Screen, Shakespeare's Heroes and Villains, Shakespeare in the Present, Stage on Screen, Stratford Festival Shakespeare Collection, TCG Plays, Theatre Performance and Practice Video Library.
- eBooks on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new windowUCLA subscribes to about 1200 e-books on this site, mostly in the social sciences, humanities, and business. Full downloading requires creation of an EBSCOhost account.
- English Drama This link opens in a new windowContains more than 3,900 plays in verse and prose from the late thirteenth century to the early twentieth. It covers the dramatic literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, as well as Restoration plays, medieval morality plays and mystery cycles, and nineteenth-century closet dramas.
- Expand the Canon (Hedgepig Ensemble)Annual curated list of producible classic plays by women and underrepresented genders. Some titles available online.
- Film Scripts Online This link opens in a new windowFilm Scripts Online (volumes I and II) contains full text of copyrighted screenplays, with additional information on scenes, characters and individuals. Also includes full text of selected BFI Film Classics critical assessments volumes.
- Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama, and Fiction This link opens in a new windowPlays, prose and poetry by Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and other Latin writers working in the US. The vast majority of the materials are from the Chicano Renaissance to the present. About 30% of the database is previously unpublished or rare materials.
- Literature Online This link opens in a new windowAlso known as LION. An array of literary databases (including the full text of poems, plays, and fiction), reference works (including bibliographies, encyclopedias, etc.), and links to other Web resources for the study of literature. The complete text of journal articles is available on the database for all or some of the journals indexed. Fully searchable texts of over 250,000 works in English and American Literature.
- Loeb Classical LibraryVirtual library of Greek and Latin literature from Harvard University Press. Includes major works of drama and comedy from the classical world.
- New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical EditionIncludes online access to the Modern Critical Edition (with modern spelling), the Critical Reference Edition (with original spelling), and an Authorship Companion.
- New Play Exchange This link opens in a new windowSearch and discovery for plays using indexing terms for facets like playwright demographics, cast information, themes, etc. The database provides details about playwrights and creative works (generally unpublished), and also includes full text for some plays.
- North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new windowFull text of plays by American Indian and First Nation playwrights of the 20th century, information about the plays and their production, and biographical data. Represents tribes across the United States and Canada. Also includes issues of the Native playwrights' newsletter.
- North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new windowFull text plays, along with related biographical, production, and theatrical information. The collection begins with the works of Mercy Otis Warren and Susanna Haswell Rowson in colonial times and spans the 19th and 20th centuries to the present.
- ProQuest Ebook Central This link opens in a new windowFormerly called ebrary. UCLA selectively licenses e-book titles from Ebook Central. Titles are searchable from the ProQuest platform and in the UCLA Library Catalog. Through June 30th, all Proquest e-books already owned by UCLA Library, including single-user and three-user models, will automatically receive unlimited concurrent user access.
- Standard EbooksA volunteer driven, not-for-profit project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, and free.
- Theatre in Context Collection This link opens in a new windowA reference source that covers multiple aspects of the international theater, including full text of major reference materials and records for individual plays, people, theaters, productions, and production companies. Also includes images, playbills, postcards, scrapbooks and other ephemera. Formerly titled North American Theatre Online.
- Twentieth-Century Drama This link opens in a new windowPublished plays from throughout the English-speaking world, covering the history of modern drama from the 1890s to the present day.
Find Plays and Monologues, Including Collections and Periodicals
These sources can help you identify a play by subject or by cast size and other factors. Some of them also help you locate where plays are published in collected works and anthologies, which is common for short plays.
- Play Index This link opens in a new windowLook up a play, click on the full record, then choose "Find this play in a book." This assists in showing if a play is published in a collection. You can also search for plays on a particular topic or genre.
- Inter-PlayIndexes citations for international plays and playwrights in selected collections, anthologies, and periodicals. No longer updated as of December 2013.
- Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook, Updated and Expanded Edition : An Actor's Reference to Over 1,000 Scenes and Monologues From More Than 300 Contemporary Plays (2007)Index to monologues and scenes in specific plays, published in 2007. One concurrent user limit.
- The Monologuer (Backstage)Contains a selection of classical and contemporary monologues from plays, including a number of Shakespeare titles.
- Non-Binary MonologuesWebsite that collects and shares monologues written for non-binary actors.
- PlayFinder (Dramatists Play Service)Look up plays published by DPI with keywords, and limiters by cast size/gender.
- Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowSome plays are published in American Theatre and included full text by the database, but most of the content found here will be reviews and critical articles. Search by title or author for best results.
