Research Guides: Plays and Playwrights: Finding Plays

New York University Provincetown Playhouse

The artistic life of the Provincetown Playhouse, 1918--1922
This thesis study traces the history of the Provincetown Playhouse, located in Greenwich Village, New York City, from 1918 to 1922 and examines how the Provincetown Players, the company that began and used the playhouse in this period, contributed to American Theatre. By identifying and describing key personnel, selected productions, and critical responses to the work of the Players, the study attempts to show the Playhouse's artistic legacy to American Theatre.

Finding Plays

Play Index This link opens in a new window
Use this source to locate plays published individually or in anthologies. Search over 30,000 plays written from Antiquity to the present and published from 1949 to the present. Play Index covers a wide range of plays written in or translated into English, including mysteries, pageants, plays in verse, puppet performances, radio and television plays, and classic drama.
New Play Exchange This link opens in a new window
The New Play Exchange is a digital library of scripts by living writers which can be filtered by title, length, age level, genre, subject matter, production history, script availability, cast size and characteristics, playwright, and playwright demographics. The database includes a directory of organizations and one of people, which are faceted by role (dramaturgs and types of writers), gender identity, race/ethnic identity, sexual identity, and location. While the focus is currently North American, the intended scope is international.

Plays in Collections

Ottemiller's index to plays in collections : an author and title index to plays appearing in collections published between 1900 and 1985
Call Number: Avail. online via EBook Central
ISBN: 0810820811
This is the Grand Daddy of collections!
Covers plays published between 1900 and 1985 in the English-speaking world. Excludes children's plays, one-act plays, radio and television productions. The first section is the main author index, listing the plays and in which collections they appear. The second provides the collections and their abbreviations included in this volume. The third section is a title index, referring back to the author index.
Drury's Guide to best plays
An index to one-act plays
Call Number: avail. offsite

An Index to one-act plays supplement

Index to plays in periodicals, 1977-198
Call Number: Offsite avail.
Plays in periodicals; an index to English language scripts in twentieth century journals.

Play Annuals

Description:

For each season, digests provide critical comments on select plays. Also has information about the theater in several US cities, with an extensive entry on Broadway and Off-Broadway productions in New York City. Lists the Pulitzer Prize winners and Drama Critics Circle Awards.

Organization:

Divided into several sections, with an author, cast and production index for each volume. This series is indexed by Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections (through 1985)--see above.

The best plays theater yearbook Jenkins, Jeffrey Eric
PN2266.A2 B5 Available in Main Collection: 2003/2004-2007/2008
Best Plays
PN2266.A2 B5 Available in Main Collection: 1952/53-1970/71, 1972/73, 1974/75-1982/83, 1984/85-1988/89
Index to the Best plays series, 1949-1960
NYU Bobst 1st Floor Reference
(PN2266.A2 B5 Non-circulating 1949-1960
The Best plays of ... and the year book of the drama in America
PN2266.A2 B5 Available in Main Collection: 1899/1909-1946/1947