My favorite fishing holes

WHETHER YOU’RE looking for new monologues or want to expand your knowledge of new plays and playwrights, the list below contains some of my favorite go-to resources. Each is an overlooked mine of information. Make a habit of visiting these sites. Read the play descriptions and cast breakdowns, read the playwrights’ bios, and look at production photos. As you do, you’ll start to get a clear idea of which playwrights you want to explore first and which plays may have roles for you. Happy fishing.

The New Play Exchange is a streamlined script discovery and recommendation engine for the new play sector built by the National New Play Network. NPX is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers. Students can subscribe for $7 per year, allowing you to perform advanced, filtered searches, download and read scripts, and contact writers.

League of Resident Theatres is the largest professional theatre association of its kind in the U.S., with 74 member theatres. Through the LORT website’s Member Theatres section Member Map, you can navigate to each member theatre’s website to peruse their production history. I recommend starting with Actors Theatre of Louisville, where you can scroll through the plays produced in the Humana Festival.

The Kilroys’ List includes the results of an annual industry survey of excellent unproduced and under-produced new plays by female and trans playwrights. The website notes that playwrights on the list have been encouraged to list their plays on the New Play Exchange to make them as accessible as possible.

HowlRound’s World Theatre Map is a user-generated directory and real-time map of the global theatre community. Students can create a profile and search the ever-growing directory to connect to organizations, people, shows, and events.

The Drama Bookshop is the next best thing to visiting this little New York City gem in person and spending hours with other actors perusing plays. They have a great monologue collection organized by year of publication. Caveat: When your teachers tell you not to get a monologue from a monologue book, that’s because (a) these pieces tend to be overdone, and (b) they don’t want you to choose a piece from a monologue book without reading the play. You must read the entire play. Monologue books are only a starting place to see which writers appeal to you. While on this website, also check out the Staff Picks, New Plays, and On Stage sections to get to know the plays and playwrights being produced in New York and London.

New Dramatists, located in New York City, provides playwrights with time, space, and resources to create work. Playwrights selected as part of the resident company participate in a seven-year, new-play laboratory. If a playwright is a current resident or alumni of New Dramatists, you want to know their work. They’re all listed on the website.

The Lark is an international theatre laboratory based in New York City, dedicated to supporting extraordinary playwrights. Check the Featured Playwrights and History/Timeline sections for a complete listing of playwrights past and present. Like the New Dramatists website, you won’t find plays or monologues here, but if finding fresh, new audition material is your goal, the first step is having your finger on the pulse of new and emerging playwrights. Once you have a list of playwrights to research, go to the Drama Bookshop and New Play Exchange websites to find their plays.

Theatre reviews in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times will keep you in the loop with the latest theatre news. You don’t have to buy a subscription. Your school or local library should have a copy of these newspapers. So, read the reviews and look at the production photos. There may be a role for you.

This story appeared in the October 2018 print issue of Dramatics. Subscribe today to our print magazine.