Research Guides: Actors Page: Play Analysis

About a Play

Use these databases to find out what a play is "about."

General/Multidisciplinary Databases plus Subject Specific Databases
EBSCO Discovery Service is best for finding articles and resources. To locate specific database titles, go to the A-Z search

Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
International Index to the Performing Arts Full Text (IIPAFT) is a dynamic resource for the performing arts that provides indexing and abstracts for more than 210 international journals.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Content in JSTOR spans many disciplines, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.
Gale in Context: Biography This link opens in a new window
Online biographical reference database in the fields of literature, science, business, entertainment, politics, sports, history, current events and the arts.Biographical information on over one million people throughout history, around the world.
International Bibliography of Theater & Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new window
The International Index to Performing Arts Indexes journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and monographs in theatre and the performing arts and covers 1984 to present.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
With over a third of a million full-text works of poetry, prose and drama in English, together with the definitive online criticism and reference library, Literature Online is the world's largest cross-searchable database of literature and criticism.
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose. LION is the single most extensive and wide-ranging online collection of English and American literature.Resources included in this resource are: Bibliographies Biographies Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Encyclopedia of African Literature Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 vols.) Encyclopedia of the Novel Handbook of African American Literature New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Oxford Companion to Irish Literature Penguin Classics Introductions Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (2nd Edition)
Essay & General Literature Index This link opens in a new window
Essay and General Literature Index allows users to locate essays published in anthologies, annual and serial essay collections, and miscellaneous works published in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. The Index covers essay collections published from 1985 to the present.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Provides full-text access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers.

Online Play Databases

These databases include full text of plays, selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera.

Drama Online This link opens in a new window
Drama Online contains full texts and full-length filmed performances of plays ranging from Aeschylus to the present day, with supplementary material including first night program texts, critical analyses, and images from the Victoria and Albert Museum's archive of production photos. Includes the Core Collection, Critical Studies and Performance Practice, Nick Hern Books Modern Plays, National Theatre Collection, RSC Live Collection, and Aurora Metro Books, among others.
Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new window
from the late 1800s to the present by more than 200 playwrights from No. Amer. Many are rare, hard-to-find, or out of print. Many previously unpublished plays. The plays are accompanied by reference materials, performance information, and images.
Contemporary World Drama This link opens in a new window
Contemporary World Drama examines contemporary theatre and drama from a global context. The collection brings together new work from our existing playwright partners alongside work from up-and-coming playwrights from around the world, including recently produced world premieres, previously unpublished works, etc. from every continent.
Asian American Drama This link opens in a new window
Asian American Drama contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed information on productions, theaters, production companies. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera. Some 50% of these plays have never been published before.
Black Drama, 3rd Edition This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of plays, written from the 1850s to the present, from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Includes information on productions, theaters, and production companies
North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window
more than 1,500 plays by more than 300 playwrights, along with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more.
Nineteenth-Century American Drama: Popular Culture and Entertainment, 1820-1900 This link opens in a new window
Nineteenth-Century American Drama: Popular Culture and Entertainment, 1820-1900 includes a wide variety of works such as historical plays, melodramas, political satires, minstrel shows, comic operas, musical extravaganzas, parlor entertainments, adaptations of novels, and many others.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
includes the total surviving published record of the English-speaking world for 227 years in digital format. It reproduces images of over 125,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England and her colonies in any language between 1475 and 1700.
Latino Literature This link opens in a new window
contains approximately 186 plays and 33,000 pages of prose and poetry by Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican and other Latin writers working in the United States.
North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new window
This edition of North American Indian Drama contains 256 plays by 49 playwrights. More than half of the works are previously unpublished, and hard to find, representing groups such as Cherokee, Métis, Creek, Choctaw, Pembina Chippewa, Ojibway, Lenape, Comanche, Cree, Navajo, Rappahannock, Hawaiian/Samoan, and others
Theatre in Context Collection This link opens in a new window
detailed reference information on all aspects American theatre from colonial times to the present. Reference materials pertaining to plays, people, theaters, productions and production companies as well as images, playbills, and other related resources.
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection This link opens in a new window
Audio Drama: The L.A. Theatre Works Collection delivers, for the first time online, more than 300 important dramatic works in streaming audio from the curated archive of the nation’s premiere radio theatre company.
Teatro Español del Siglo de Oro This link opens in a new window
Full text database contains important dramatic works of sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain
Bertolt Brechts Werke This link opens in a new window
Authorized electronic edition of Brecht's works. This edition is based on Bertolt Brecht - Ausgewählte Werke in sechs Bänden - Jubiläumsausgabe um 100. Geburtstag, edited by Werner Hecht, Wolfgang Jeske and Jan Knopf, which collects Brecht's works and writings in six volumes with brief notes on each text.
Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new window
A fully searchable archive of nearly 350,000 poems, plays, and prose works by key authors from Literature online, together with structured access to the best of current and historical criticism. "CLICK ON "individual collections"
A fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose. LION is the single most extensive and wide-ranging online collection of English and American literature.Resources included in this resource are: Bibliographies Biographies Columbia Companion to the 20th Century American Short Story Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms Encyclopedia of African Literature Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 vols.) Encyclopedia of the Novel Handbook of African American Literature New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Oxford Companion to Irish Literature Penguin Classics Introductions Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory Routledge Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English (2nd Edition)

Monologues & Scenes

Tips for locating monologues and scenes

Most of our books of monologues have call numbers beginning with PN 2080 and are shelved on the 8th floor. If you don't have a specific type of monologue in mind, you might want to browse the shelves to see what's available.
In the online catalog, there is no specific subject heading for scene books.You can perform a keyword search in the catalog for the term monologues. If you are looking for a particular type of monologue, try combining the word monologues with a descriptive keyword, such as:
- monologues and men,
- monologues and women,
- monologues and classical, and
- monologues and contemporary, etc.
You can also find monologues in any of the Online Play Databases, just choose Advanced Search and enter monologue.

Play Index This link opens in a new window
Use the Play Index to limit your results to plays with a specific number of male and/or female roles, search for monologues, or search for plays by title; author; subject. A descriptive annotation summarizes the plot and indicates any musical requirements

Play Reviews

Try these databases to find play reviews

Searching Tip:

Enter name of play + author's name (in quotes) + the word "Review"

For example: A Raisin in the Sun + "Lorraine Hansberry" + Review

Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Performing Arts Periodicals Database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 210 international journals in the performing arts dating from 1864 to the near present.
International Bibliography of Theater & Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new window
The International Index to Performing Arts Indexes journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and monographs in theatre and the performing arts and covers 1984 to present.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) This link opens in a new window
This database indexes about 1,700 arts and humanities journals. Dates of coverage: 1975 to present.
Adjust settings to expand your searching to include the Social Sciences Citation Index, the Science Citation Index, the Book Citation Index, and others.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
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Nexis Uni (Formerly LexisNexis Academic Universe) provides access to full-text newspapers (U.S. and some international), news wires, transcripts, and trade journals.
Please clear your browser's cache and cookies before attempting to access this resource.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive offers digitized primary sources for studying the history of the film, music, theater, and broadcast industries from 1880 to the near present. Magazines include American Cinematographer, Back Stage, Billboard, Broadcasting, Hollywood Reporter, Mix, Musical Express, Radio and Records, Reggae & African Beat, Spin, Stage, Variety, and Writers Guild of America.
Historical Newspapers (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Search the PDF full text and image archives of more than 100 major U.S. and African American newspapers.

Highlights include: Atlanta Constitution (1868-1945), Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003), Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988), Chicago Tribune (1849-1986), Christian Science Monitor (1908-2004), Los Angeles Times (1881-1995), New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993), Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002), The Chicago Defender (1910 - 1975), The New York Times (1851-2014), The New York Tribune (1841-1922), The New York Tribune (1900-1910), San Francisco Chronicle (1869-1922), The Wall Street Journal (1889-2000), The Washington Post (1877-2001), St. Petersburg Times / Tampa Bay Times (1901-2009), Korea Times (1956-2016)
ProQuest Central This link opens in a new window
ProQuest Central is a large, multidisciplinary database with over 11,000 titles, with over 8,000 titles in full-text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets. Over 160 subjects areas are covered extensively in this product including business and economics, health and medical, news and world affairs, technology, social sciences and more.