We created several play libraries as above: full length (largest), one act, anthologies, Shakespeare, and musical. Plays are in each one by title (except Anthologies by title of book). It took my theatre management class a couple weeks but we entered every play into a google spread sheet (any spread sheet will work) with Title, Playwright Last Name, Playwright first name, length of play, which library it is in.
The document ended up being 28 pages and we put it in a notebook with the libraries. Kids also use the live document to sort by playwright if they need to.....etc. Kids can also check them out for projects through a handwritten check out sheet (we're trusting and I know I've lost a few a long the way), but my bookkeeper will send a fine if they don't return it. A couple of my theatre management students work on it every once in a while, adding new plays (to both libraries and catalog), re-filing plays.......etc.
I end up ordering a lot 1-2 times a year when students are working on scenes or monologues and we don't have the full script yet because I require them to read the whole play. Because we have quite a collection, I don't have to order as many anymore!
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Kelley Marchant
Artistic Director/Teacher/Actress
Milwaukie OR
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-26-2020 11:07
From: Glen Perazzo
Subject: System for organizes plays
It's wonderful to have access to a lot of play scripts. Here is the way I organized my script library closet. I have the following categories organized in the closet: 1) Shakespeare collection by title of play, this section also includes all books about Shakespeare. 2) Greek Theatre collection by playwright, 3) Musicals by title, 4) Anthologies, multiple plays by the same playwright, 5) Collections, books with multiple plays by different playwrights, 6) Plays by time period (the library gave me their 'Best Plays of ...' series - I added by 'Restoration Plays' , etc.), 7) One-acts and short plays, 8) Plays Magazines, 9) Monologue source books, 10) Individual copies of play scripts by title (which takes up a majority of the shelving), and then I have 11) Radio and Television books and scripts, 12) Technical Theatre books, 13) Autobiographies of famous theatre folk, ie 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and then I also have a couple file cabinets in the closet as well with alphabetized manuscripts of plays by title of the play. It took some time to get it organized. Each theatre class has an appointed Librarian that checks out and returns scripts. I hope that helps.
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Glen Perazzo
Churchill County Theatre Department
Fallon, NV
Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2020 09:34
From: Marla Blasko
Subject: System for organizes plays
Hi everyone,
I am getting through this pandemic crisis by cleaning out my closets and reorganizing my life so that I can hit the ground running when it is deemed safe to venture out of our homes. This week's project is to organize my play collection. I have have a bizillion scripts - how do you organize your collection?
- by author/playwright?
- by genre (i.e. mystery, comedy, drama, classics, etc. )?
- By title?
- by number of parts?
Thanks for sharing your 'system' :)
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Marla Blasko
Director/Teacher Theatre Arts
Long Reach High School
Columbia, Maryland
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