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THEATRE 101: Acting for Non-Majors

Finding plays, monologues, and resources for Theatre 101.

Searching for Plays in the Library

Tips for searching the library's collections:      

  • When you use the Search@UW box on the library homepage, you're searching all the books, videos, and other media in the UW system, plus encyclopedias, articles in periodicals, and some free online resources.

  • Search@UW is best for looking for specific titles or authors, but even a search for the title of a specific play will turn up a mix of encyclopedia entries, articles analyzing the play, and videos, as well as the script itself.
  • If your title includes common words, you may want to put it in quotation marks, so that the search looks for the whole phrase (ie., "Our Town").
  • Within your search, you can control the format and location of your results. Along the left side, there are options to limit your results by criteria like "Library" and "Resource Type." If you only want book results that are available at UWM, you can limit your results this way.
  • Remember that you can request materials from other libraries if we don't have them here!

Search@UW results for "Miss Julie," showing filters for limiting results

Searching for Monologues and Scenes in the Library

Search@UW can also help you locate collections of plays or monologues. The best way to find collections of monologues is to use the Advanced Search screen. 

From the dropdown "Any field" menu, choose "Subject" and try "Monologues" as the search term. 

Other "Subject" keywords you might want to try:

  • dialogues
  • drama -- collections
  • drama -- excerpts
  • acting -- auditions
  • acting -- scenes
  • plays -- excerpts

These can all be combined with general keyword searches for terms to narrow down the type of material you're most interested in. For example, adding identity terms (ie., women, students) or genre or author terms (ie, comedy, Shakespeare), will show you specialized collections.