Play Index on WilsonWeb is the electronic version of Play Index.

Search over 30,000 plays written from Antiquity to the present and published from 1949 to the present in the convenient electronic form that patrons prefer. An invaluable aid to finding the perfect plays to match your production resources, Play Index covers a wide range of plays written in or translated into English, including mysteries, pageants, plays in verse, puppet performances, radio and television plays, and classic drama. Search for plays by title; author; subject (sisters, culture conflict, marriage); style (symbolism, experimental theater); genre (comedy, melodrama, musical); cast type.

Play Index provides the full publication details needed to locate the play in its published manifestations. For plays published separately, the publisher, date, pagination, ISBN, and LC number are given. Plays in collections link to full bibliographic information. Teachers, students, drama coaches, theater groups, directors, performers, and researchers will heavily use this outstanding resource. Its broad scope- from puppet plays to classical drama- and detailed cast analysis make Play Index suitable to a variety of uses. Play Index includes plays published as single volumes and also plays in anthologies and collections. All Play master records contain a link to the results of an Internet metasearch of specially selected Web sites to link to full text, criticism, and other useful information.

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Fields

Bold text indicates limit fields.

Using Limit Fields

ABPL Play Abstract

The ABPL field contains a summary of a play. You can search for any word or phrase in the play abstract.

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AN Accession Number
(a limit field)

The AN field contains a unique number that identifies a record that describes a play or a resource in which a play is found.

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AU Personal Author

walcott in au

The AU field contains the name of a person responsible for the intellectual content of a  play source. Search last name only or first name and last name, in any order. You can also search personal author names by last name using the Author, Personal list in Browse.

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AUPL Play Author

albee in au

The AUPL field contains the name of a person responsible for the intellectual content of a play. Search last name only or first name and last name, in any order. You can also search play author names by last name using the Play Author list in Browse.

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BYS Boys
(a limit field)

3 in bys

The BYS field contains numbers from 0 to 35 for the number of boys in a play. Search directly with Basic Search; with Advanced Search, choose Search for a Play and use the Cast dropdown for Male. This field helps locate plays by type of cast (male, female, mixed, etc.) and number of players.

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CA Corporate Author

The CA field contains the name of an organization or group that is the author of a book.

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CAPL Play Author, Corporate

The CAPL field contains the name of an organization or group that is the author of a play.

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CLCS Large Mixed Cast
(a limit field)

y in clcs

The CLCS field indicates that a play requires a mixed cast of 36 characters or more.

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CSO Chapter Source

The CSO field gives the title of the book in which a book part was found.

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DT Document Type
(a limit field)

books in dt

The Document Type field identifies the type of resource described in the record. There are two document types: books and book parts. You can limit your search to books only or to book parts only.

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EXT Extras
(a limit field)

y in ext

The Extras field indicates that a play requires extra players for non-speaking parts or chorus.

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GLS Girls
(a limit field)

4 in gls

The GLS field contains numbers from 0 to 35 for the number of girls in a play. Search this field directly with Basic Search; with Advanced Search, choose Search for a Play and use the Cast dropdown for Female. This field helps locate plays by type of cast (male, female, mixed, etc.) and number of players.

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ISBN ISBN
(a limit field)

The ISBN field lists an International Standard Book Number.

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LA Language of Document
(a limit field)

english in la

The LA field lists the language of a resource.

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LCCN LC Control Number
(a limit field)

2001-37726 in lccn
99-89390 in lccn

The LCCN field contains a unique number assigned to a cataloging record by the Library of Congress. It usually consists of two or four digits for the year and a serial number of one to six digits.

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MEN Men
(a limit field)

8 in men

The MEN field contains numbers from 0 to 35 for the number of men in a play. Search directly with Basic Search; with Advanced Search, choose Search for a Play and use the Cast dropdown for Male.

This field helps locate plays by type of cast (male, female, mixed, etc.) and number of players.

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PA Pages

The PA field gives the total number of pages in a book.

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PACT Acts

The PACT field contains a numeric value for the number of acts in a play.

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PB Publisher

knopf in pb

The PB field contains the name of the publisher of a book.

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PD Physical Description
(a limit field)

il in pd

The PD field describes illustrative or graphic material that appears in a book. You may search a code or a term.

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PEXT Exteriors
(a limit field)

The PEXT field contains a numeric value for the number of exteriors in a play.

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PINT Interiors
(a limit field)

The PINT field contains a numeric value for the number of interiors in a play.

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PMUS Music
(a limit field)

y in pmus

The PMUS field contains a y if music is part of a play.

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PPRO Prologue
(a limit field)

y in ppro

The PPRO field contains a y if a prologue is part of a play.

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PSCN Scenes
(a limit field)

The PSCN field contains a numeric value for the number of scenes in a play. For radio and television plays the number of scenes and settings is omitted.

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PSET Settings
(a limit field)

The PSET field contains the number of sets required for production of a play. For radio and television plays the number of scenes and settings is omitted.

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PSIN Singing
(a limit field)

y in psin

The PSIN field contains a y if there is singing in a play.

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PSU Play Subjects

family reunions in psu

The PSU field contains a controlled vocabulary term that describes the subject of a play. The field can contain personal names, topical terms, organization names, geographic names, and uniform titles. You can search for a term or for any word or phrase in the term. You can also search play subjects by using the Play Subject list in Browse.

The field also contains headings for plays in a distinctive form, such as farces, mystery and detective plays, one-act plays, pantomimes, plays in verse, puppet plays, radio plays, television plays, etc.

To search on a form heading, use the Genre dropdown in the Play search screen and choose the appropriate heading.

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PXAU Related Name

grimm in pxau

For a play that is an adaptation or dramatization of another work, the PXAU field contains the name of a person who created the original work. Search last name only or first name and last name, in any order.

The PXAU field also contains the title of the original work.

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PY Publication Year
(a limit field)

1993 in py

The PY field contains the year in which a book was published. This field is range searchable.

You can search a range of dates using the and operator:
(py>1990) and (py<1998)

You can also search for a specific date using the Publication Year list in Browse.

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RLC Interest Grade Level
(a limit field)

c in rlc
y in rlc
a in rlc

The RLC field contains a symbol c to denote a play intended for children through grade six. The field contains a y to indicate plays suitable for young people in grades seven through twelve approximately. Plays of interest to adult audiences have an a in the rlc field.

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RS Responsibility Statement

The RS field is a statement that names persons or groups that have contributed to the creation of a book. This could include authors, translators, editors, compilers, or illustrators.

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TI Title

repertory in ti

The TI field contains the full title of a book. You can search for any word or phrase in the title. The field may include the edition of the book.

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TIPL Play Title

cats in tipl

The TIPL field contains the title of a play. When the same play has different titles, it contains a uniform title. You can search for any word or phrase in the play title.

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TSN Series

The TSN field contains the name of a series to which the book belongs.

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UD Update Code
(a limit field)

19980203 in ud

The UD field contains the year, month, and day in which the record was added to the database in the format yyyymmdd. You can search for a single date using in as shown above. In addition, you can search for a range of dates.

< (less than),
<all>(ud<19940802)

> (greater than),
<all>(ud>19940802)

<= (less than or equal to),
<all>(ud<=19940802)

>= (greater than or equal to),
<all>(ud>=19940802)

You can also search a range of dates using the and operator:
(ud>19990801) and (ud<19990901)

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VTIPL Variant Title

The VTIPL field contains alternative forms of the title of a play. You can search for any word or phrase in this field.

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WMN Women
(a limit field)

The WMN field contains numbers from 0 to 35 for the number of women in a play. Search this field directly with Basic Search; with Advanced Search, choose Search for a Play and use the Cast dropdown for Female.

This field helps locate plays by type of cast (male, female, mixed, etc.) and number of players.

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Using Limit Fields

Limit fields, when combined with other search terms, are particularly useful for focusing or limiting a search. To search a limit field, use the in operator with the field abbreviation, such as book in dt. Omitting the field label retrieves information from free text (non-limit) fields only.

You can also search many limit fields using field-specific indexes in Browse.

For limit fields containing numeric data, you can also use other special operators:

< less than,
<all>(py<1984)

> greater than,
<all>(py>1993)

<= less than or equal to,
<all>(ud<=19930802)

>= greater than or equal to,
<all>(ud>=20010531)

Combine this type of numeric-field range search with another search term:
(py>2001) and dramatists

You can search a range of dates using the and operator:
(py>1998) and (py<2001)

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Database Usage Statement

Play Index, Copyright 2006, The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved.

The subscriber may use this database for research purposes only, and may not publish, reproduce, transmit, store in any information retrieval system, or otherwise make available or sell the disc or its contents, whether in hard copy, electronically transmitted or any other form, and whether for commercial, educational or other purposes, other than for its own internal purposes or otherwise in accordance with the Subscription and License Agreement.

H.W. Wilson uses its best efforts to ensure that this database contains an accurate representation or interpretation of the original material from which the database was drawn, but neither H.W. Wilson nor its licensors shall be held responsible for any damage, claim, or expense incurred by a subscriber or user as a result of its use or reliance upon the database.

Neither The H.W. Wilson Company nor its licensors make any representations or warranties, express or implied, including without limitation, warranties as to merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose in connection with the database, the search and retrieval software, the documentation files, indexes, or supporting files. The H.W. Wilson Company and its licensors specifically disclaim all such warranties and representations. Neither H. W. Wilson nor its licensors shall be liable for damages or other claims and demands arising out of use of this product or the data contained therein. In no event shall H. W. Wilson or its licensors be liable for special, consequential, exemplary or indirect damages, or for "lost profits," even if advised of the possibility thereof. All use must be consistent with the laws applicable to copyrighted materials.

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