University Library

Find Monologues Dialogues or Scenes

Library Use Only collection of anthologies - PN2080

McHenry Library maintains a non-circulating Monologues and Acting Scenes Collection for acting practice and audition. The collection is in call number PN2080 on the third floor of the McHenry Library. They are classified as Library Use Only and they cannot be checked out. Students may photocopy monologues and scenes if they wish. When the library has a duplicate copy of a particular title, that copy may be checked out. Otherwise the collection is intended for consultation within the library.

For a class assignment requiring that the student perform a monologue but also read the entire play, the collections in the PN2080 stacks can help in identifying a selection; however, these volumes contain many contemporary monologues from plays that the Library does not have. Limiting the search to playwrights on the class list (major authors), those plays should be in in CRUZCAT, either by title or in compilations of plays by that author.

The Library subscribes to many full-text play databases, all of which are listed at:

http://library.ucsc.edu/subjects/theater-arts/websites

These full-text play resources can also be valuable sources of monologues and dialogues.

Find Materials in the Library Using LC Subject Headings

Search the library catalog CRUZCAT for the following Library of Congress Subject Headings to find books and collections with monologues and dialogues:

Theater

Film

motion picture plays

For a copy of a specific play or a screenplay, look under its title or author.

Examples of screenplays, plays, and authors are:

Titles

Authors

World Wide Web Sites

Playdatabase.com
http://www.playdatabase.com/
A "free service to help theatre lovers find plays to produce and monologues to memorize". Searchable by cast size, length, and keywords in the synopsis.

The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project Collection, 1935-1939
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/fthome.html
Also created by the Library Congress, this site contains the playscripts from over 70 productions of the Federal Theatre Project.

The English Server Drama Collection
http://eserver.org/drama/
A collection of original plays and screenplays, criticism and links to other sites concerned with theatre. It publishes both classic and contemporary works including the works of Shakespeare, Aristophanes, and Bernard Shaw.

Yahoo: Screenplays
http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Movies_and_Film/Screenplays/
A list of Websites with links to movie and television scripts, as well as movie monologues sites.

Actorama
http://www.actorama.com/monologues-scenes/
Searchable database of monologues and scenes.