Theatre: Electronic Resources - Play Scripts

American Drama (1714-1915)
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.

Asian American Drama
Contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. Some 50% of these plays have never been published before. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays.

Black Drama, 1850 to present
Contains approximately 1200 plays by 201 playwrights, together withinformation on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. 440 of the plays are published here for the first time.

English Prose Drama
Plays published in English prose from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th century, covering over 1600 works.

English Verse Drama 2000 works 13th century through 19th century
More than 2,000 works by around 450 named authors and approximately 230 anonymous works. English Verse Drama contains works acted on or intended for the stage, which are either wholly or predominantly in verse. Masques, entertainments, translations and adaptations are included, along with certain closet dramas omitted from the English Poetry Full-Text Database. The entire text of each verse drama is included. Any accompanying text written by the playwright and forming an integral part of the work, such as epigraphs, dramatis personae and notes, is generally also included, along with commendatory and prefatory poems by both the playwright and others. Enables, for example, full-text search of 40 works by Wm. Shakespeare.

Riverside Shakespeare
The complete text of the Riverside edition of the works of William Shakespeare. Users may browse individual works or search for words and phrases, both in individual works and in groups of works. Also includes an extensive bibliography.

Shakespeare Oracle
Shakespeare Oracle allows the user to identify the frequency and location of a given word or phrase within the Riverside edition of the works of William Shakespeare.

Twentieth-Century Drama
When complete, this database will contain 2,500 published plays from throughout the English-speaking world, covering the history of modern drama from the 1890s to the present day. The full range of dramatic styles, genres and traditions will be represented, from widely studied and frequently performed plays to important examples of radical theatre, regional theatre, postcolonial theatre, women's theatre and popular forms such as farce and thriller that are often under-represented in surveys of the period. Representative playwrights: Amiri Baraka, Noël Coward, Susan Glaspell, John Godber, Beth Henley, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Eduardo Machado, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, John Osborne, Sean O’Casey, Terence Rattigan, Bernard Shaw, Megan Terry, Derek Walcott, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson.

Play Index
This resource provides publication details for classic and historical plays, as well as the works of contemporary playwrights, including new editions or translations, allowing you to locate over 30,000 plays by author, title, subject, and cast size.

From The First Night Gilbert and Sullivan Programs, illustration by T. Bolton

Last updated: 07/16/07