Theatre Research Guide

Library Catalogs list separately published plays and provide some access to plays in anthologies and collections. Any play published separately or in a collection of two or three will be listed by author and title in the catalog. Records for larger collections and complete or selected works of one author may have a "contents note" showing individual titles. Without such a note, you will have to examine the book itself to see if your play is included.

The HSU Library Catalog is usually the best place to start looking for a play script:

• If you know the author, search their name using a Keyword search (type their name in the search box and click 'Search').
  • When you see a work by that author in the results list, you can see all other writings by them by clicking on their name in the item details. 

​

• You can also search by a specific title using the Keyword search. 

• The HSU Library catalog searches for items in any CSU school. To only see results for HSU, you can change this using the dropdown menu next to the search box at the top of the list of results. 
• If you have neither an author nor a title in mind, a Title search using plays as the search term will give a list to browse. It won't be complete but offers a place to start. Use the subject headings in records for interesting items to direct further searching.

If you need more help, please ask a librarian.

Indexes to plays list plays by author, title, and sometimes by subject, and identify the anthologies or periodicals where each work appears. (Most index volumes cover a specific time period, so it helps to know the date of your play.) When you have found the name of a collection containing the play, look up the name of the collection, not the play, in the HSU Library Catalog to see if we have it. Or, look in the index volume for the list of publications indexed -- sometimes we note our holding there  If we don't have the collection, you can borrow it on interlibrary loan.

Some play indexes in our Reference collection are listed below. Ask at the Reference desk if you need help with them.

• The Drama Scholar's Index to Plays and Filmscripts (ref PN 1655 S35 v. 1 & 2)
• Drury's Guide to Best Plays (ref PN 1655 D78 1987)
• Index to Full Length Plays (ref PN 1655 T56 v. 1-3)
• An Index to One-Act Plays (ref PN 1655 L65 & suppl. 1-5)
• Index to Plays in Periodicals (ref PN 1721 K44 1979)
• Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections (ref PN 1655 P88 1988)
• Play Index (ref PN 1655 P53)
• Plays in Periodicals (ref PN 1655 P38)

OmniFile Full Text Mega can be used to partially update the play indexes. It lists hundreds of plays published in periodicals from as far back as 1982. On the search screen, choose Drama (Text of Play) in the Document Type box. You can search at this point or add keywords for subject, title, or author of the play you are looking for. Many of the plays in Omnifile are in fulltext, but they do tend to be lesser known ones.

Humanities Index (Abstract AI 3 R492, in the Reference collection) is the print equivalent of Omnifile's Humanities subject area. It covers the years 1974 -1983, with a separate volume for each year.  Look under author or the subject headings Dramas, Radio plays, or Stage Adaptions. There is no listing by title.

If you are looking for a scene or monologue, rather than a complete play, you may use the books listed below to identify possibilities. They refer you to scenes in published plays and may include information about cast, running time, and genre of the scene or monologue. To find copies of the plays containing the scenes, follow the steps explained elsewhere on this tab.

• Actor's Guide to Monologues (ref PN 2080 G78 1974)
• Actor's Guide to Scenes (ref PN 1655 G78)
• Guide to Monologues, Men (ref PN 2080 G84 1988)
• Guide to Monologues, Women (ref PN 2080 G85 1988)
• Ultimate Scene and Monologue Sourcebook (ref PN 2080 H66 1994)

To find books consisting of collections of scenes or monologues, do an Advanced Search in the HSU Library Catalog, not QuickSearch, for Title, using actor? scene? as the search.  (The question marks are important; they are for truncation.) You can also do a Subject search using monologues or dialogues or drama collections as the search terms.