Library of Congress Classification for Theatre
The Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts Library and the William T. Young Library use the Library of Congress Classification system. In this system, works of knowledge are sorted into broad subject areas known as classes. Each class is assigned its own letter of the alphabet and is further subdivided into its own subclasses. The Library of Congress Classification system contains 21 classes.
Information about Theatre and related fields are found in multiple classes:
- Class G: Geography, Anthropology, and Recreation
- Class N: Fine Arts
- Class P: Language and Literature
- Class T: Technology
Play Scripts
Scripts can be found on the second floor of the Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts & Design Library, in the shelves where call numbers begin with "PN," "PQ," "PR," "PS" and "PT." Monologues can be found under the call numbers beginning with PN 2080.
If you're looking for a specific play or playwright, you can use InfoKat Discovery to find the exact call number. Critical editions of plays are often located in the William T. Young Library, so check call number locations carefully.
Play Scripts & Primary Sources at the UK Libraries
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American DramaContains more than 1,100 dramatic works from the early eighteenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth. Includes plays in verse, farces, melodramas, minstrel shows, realist plays, frontier plays, and temperance dialogues. Major dramatists featured include Clyde Fitch, Augustin Daly, David Belasco, James Herne, and Joaquin Miller.
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Black DramaFull-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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Editions and Adaptations of ShakespeareIncludes eleven major editions from the First Folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, 28 separate contemporary printings of individual plays and poems, selected apocrypha and related works. Also contains more than one hundred adaptations, sequels and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the whole of Bell's Acting Edition of Shakespeare's Plays (1774).
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New Play ExchangeThe New Play Exchange®, a National New Play Network project, is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. The NPX serves writers, producers, directors, artistic directors, literary managers, dramaturgs, publishers, agents, actors, professors, students, and theatre fans by providing an open platform on which writers all over the world can share their work and others can discover that work. The NPX's Core Development Committee is composed of representatives from Chicago Dramatists, Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, The Playwrights' Center, and the Playwrights Foundation.
NPX is a digital library of scripts by living writers that includes tens of thousands of scripts by thousands of writers. Students can find plays for directing projects, inquire about rights and contact writers, and find monologues for auditions. -
Twentieth Century North American DramaContains 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.
Play Scripts & Primary Sources Online
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American Drama 1714-1915Containing 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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BlakStageCollection of the best Australian First Nations playwriting. Features a video gallery and other resources.
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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.
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Non-Binary Monologues | Monologues for Non-Binary ActorsA volunteer-run project the organizers call a "labor of love" that publishes and shares monologues written for non-binary actors (actors whose identities lie outside the gender binary of male/female).
Call Number Ranges for Browsing the Shelves
Subclass PJ – Oriental languages and literatures
PJ 5001-5060 Hebrew Literature
PJ 7501-8517 Arabic Literature
Subclass PK – Indo-Iranian languages and literatures
Subclass PL – Languages and literatures of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania
Subclass PN – Literature (General)
PN 1530 The monologue
PN 1551 The dialogue
PN 1560-1590 The performing arts. Show business
PN 1585-1589 Centers for the performing arts
PN 1600-3307 Drama
PN 1635-1650 Relation to, and treatment of, special subjects
PN 1660-1693 Technique of dramatic composition
PN 1720-1861 History
PN 1865-1988 Special types
PN 1990-1992.92 Broadcasting
PN 1992.93-1992.95 Nonbroadcast video recordings
PN 1993-1999 Motion pictures
PN 1997-1997.85 Plays, scenarios, etc.
PN 2000-3307 Dramatic representation. The theater
PN 2061-2071 Art of acting
PN 2085-2091 The stage and accessories
PN 2131-2193 By period
PN 2219.3-3030 Special regions or countries
PN 3151-3171 Amateur theater
PN 3175-3191 College and school theatricals
PN 3203-3299 Tableaux, pageants, "Happenings," etc.
Subclass PQ – French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Literature
Subclass PR – English literature
Subclass PS – American literature
Subclass PT – German, Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavian literature
Subclass GT — Manners and customs (General)
GT 500-2370 Costume. Dress. Fashion.
Subclass NA — Architecture
NA 6820-6845 Theaters. Opera houses. Music halls.
Subclass NK — Decorative Arts
NK 3600-9990 Other arts and art industries
NK 4700-4890 Costume
Subclass TT — Handicrafts. Arts and crafts
TT 490-695 Clothing manufacture. Dressmaking. Tailoring
TT 950-979 Hairdressing. Beauty culture. Barbers' work
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