LibGuides: Theatre & Dance: Plays & Playbills

Indexes to Plays

Ottemiller's Index to Plays in Collections
The standard location tool for full-length plays published in collections and anthologies in England and the United States since the beginning of the 20th century.
English and American Stage Productions
An annotated checklist of prompt books, 1800-1900, from the Nisbet-Snyder drama collection, Northern Illinois University Libraries.
Guide to Play Selection
By the National Council of Teachers of English.
The Drama Scholars Index to Plays and Filmscripts
A guide to plays and film scripts in selected anthologies, series, and periodicals.

Full-Text Plays

SearchWISE
For major plays, search for titles. If you get no results, try searching for the play title as a keyword, or search by playwright or author.

Asian American Drama This link opens in a new window This edition of Asian American Drama contains 252 plays by 42 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs, and other ephemera related to the play.
Black Drama This link opens in a new window The second edition of Black Drama contains approximately 1,462 plays by 233 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs, and other ephemera related to the plays.
Twentieth Century North American Drama This link opens in a new window Contains 1,530 plays by 223 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs, and other ephemera related to the plays. More than 150 of the plays are published here for the first time.
Latin American Women Writers This link opens in a new window A collection of prose and poetry, including plays, by Latin American women writers.
Latino Literature This link opens in a new window Brings together more than 100,000 pages of poetry, fiction, and over 450 plays written in English and Spanish by hundreds of Chicano, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and other Latino authors working in the United States. Some items included have never been published before. Researchers will also find numerous Chicano folk tales and audio files of selected poems and plays.
North American Women's Drama This link opens in a new window Contains 1,517 plays by 330 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. More than 30% of the plays in the collection have never been published before. Also includes selected playbills, production photographs, and other ephemera related to plays.

Playbills

Playbill Vault
An online database of Broadway theater production information from 1930 to the present, created and operated by Playbill. Provides Playbill cover images, Broadway casts, who’s who biographies, awards, production credits, actor head shots, and box office data.
Internet Broadway Database
Provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theater until today. Details include pertinent people involved, as well as production facts and statistics. Also offers historical information about theaters.
Lortel Archives (Off-Broadway Internet Database)
Includes information about off-Broadway productions going back to 1958.