One Act Plays: Home

Plays can be published separately, in collections, or in periodicals. A good starting point for finding a play is to search Primo

If you have a play in mind, search the name of the author or the title of the play. Examples:

• Suzan Lori Parks
• M. Butterfly

The following subject terms are useful when looking for plays and collections of plays.

• Acting Scripts
• One Act Plays, American
• Monologues
• American drama -- 21st century
• African Americans Drama
• Asian Americans Drama
• Hispanic Americans Drama
• American Drama Women Authors

You can  search by publisher,  ex.  "dramatists play service"

Or, search by series:

• "Best American short plays series."

• Contemporary playwrights series

You can search by genre:

• Comedies

• Tragedies

The journal, TheatreForum, includes the text of plays. In every issue there are two complete scripts of recent plays that have received professional productions but are not generally available in English. See the example below for how to search for plays in TheatreForum.

1. Go to the Journals tab in Primo and enter Theatreforum (no spaces)

2. Click on "view it" and then the link for Academic Search Premier.

3. Once connected, click on "search within this publication."

4. Enter the phrase (plays or scripts)  and click to search.

The Humanities International Complete database includes the full text of short plays published in periodicals. To find them, follow these directions:

• Go to advanced search
• Type play in the search box.
• Limit results to full text
• Choose play as the document type.

Asian American Drama includes 252 plays by 42 Asian American playwrights. Along with many works by writers of Japanese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and Chinese descent, the collection includes plays by writers of Hawaiian, Indian, Thai, Korean, Persian, and Malaysian ancestry, along with related biographical, production, and theatrical information. The collection begins in the late nineteenth century and continues to the writings of contemporary playwrights.

You can browse by author or play as well as search by keyword.