play scripts in print at UK Libraries
Scripts can be found in the stacks on the second floor of the Little Fine Arts Library, under the "PR," "PS" and "PT" classifications.
Critical editions of plays are located in Young Library, on the 4th floor under the "PR," "PS" and "PT" classifications.
Check InfoKat Discovery for specific titles or playwrights, and note their locations carefully.
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InfoKat Discovery This link opens in a new windowInfoKat Discovery allows you to quickly search multiple UK library resources simultaneously, including books, journal articles, dissertations, government documents, archives and special collections, images, maps, videos, music and open access content. InfoKat Discovery does NOT include all of the journal articles available through our databases.
play scripts found in online databases
Play scripts can also be found online in many of the Libraries' subscription databases and other collections of resources:
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Literature Online This link opens in a new windowA fully searchable Library of literary works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, plus biographies, bibliographies, key criticism and reference resources.
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Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new windowContains 1,530 plays by more than 220 playwrights, together with information on related productions, theaters, and production companies. Also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays.
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Black Drama This link opens in a new windowFull-text database that provides access to over 1,300 plays, including works by more than 200 playwrights from North America, English-speaking Africa, the Caribbean, and other African diaspora countries. Additionally includes information on related productions, theaters, production companies as well as selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Some 500 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.
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American Drama This link opens in a new window1714-1915
Containing more than 1,500 dramatic works from the early eighteenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth, American Drama 1714–1915 reflects American dramatic writing in all its richness and diversity: plays in verse, farces, melodramas, minstrel shows, realist plays, frontier plays, temperance dialogues and a range of other genres are represented. Major dramatists include David Belasco, Rachel Crothers, Augustin Daly, Clyde Fitch, Edward Harrigan, James Herne, William Dean Howells and Joaquin Miller.
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American Variety StageCovering popular entertainment from 1870-1920, especially vaudeville, The American Variety Stage is a multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. Included are 334 English- and Yiddish-language playscripts, 146 theater playbills and programs, 61 motion pictures, 10 sound recordings and 143 photographs and 29 memorabilia items documenting the life and career of Harry Houdini.
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Internet Shakespeare EditionsThe Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) is a non-profit scholarly website publishing in three main areas: Shakespeare’s plays and poems, Shakespeare’s life and times, and Shakespeare in performance. They deliver open-access, peer-reviewed Shakespeare resources, freely available to anyone online. All plays are currently published in old-spelling versions, and twenty-two plays and most of the poems now appear in modern spelling.
play scripts not available through the UK Libraries
For scripts you cannot find in our online resources or in the Libraries, you can request an interlibrary loan (ILL), and the UK Libraries will borrow it for you from another library and let you know when it arrives.