|
The most important thing to know is that you don't have to fill in every field. If you just want to search for a monologue that's exactly 5 minutes long, just enter that and hit "Search."
Once you have your search results, you can choose to sort them by clicking on the column header. You can sort by everything except Authors. The arrow next to the column indicates if you are sorting that column in ascending or descending order; an arrow pointing to the left indicates that you are not sorting the results by that column. All searches are limited to 200 results. If you enter too general a query, you will be prompted to add search criteria to reduce the number of results. You can change your search criteria simply by not entering a value for a field: for example, if you previously searched for a monologue that was exactly 5 minutes long, you can remove the time restriction either by deleting the "5", or by clicking on the "Between" button, and not entering any information.
When searching by keyword, keep in mind that we will search for that exact phrase. If you enter "hot cat" into the Summary field, you will get a match for "Tommy was one hot cat," but it will not match "He cried when his cat got too hot". Similarly, searching for "cat" will not find "Cats."
All fields are considered to be ANDed together-- in English, this means that if you enter a value for character name and length, you will only see monologues matching that exact character name and length of time.
This is the name of the character that delivers the monologue in the play. This search works like a keyword search in that we will try to find the exact phrase you enter. If you're having a hard time finding a result by character name, remember that less is more -- you're better off typing in "Hamlet" rather than "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark."
When entering values, it is easiest to search by last name only.
If you want to enter a full name, enter it as "Firstname Lastname." We will always assume that the first word entered is the first name, and the last word is the last name.
You can choose what gender the character delivering the monologue is here. If you choose "Female," it will show all monologues that were marked as "Female" or "Either." Likewise, if you choose "Male," it will list all those that were marked as "Male" or "Either".
You can choose the age of the character delivering the monologue here. Selecting "Any Age" will show monologues of all ages.
You can limit the monologues returned to either comedic or serious here. Selecting "Any" will show both types of monologues.
You can search either by entering a specific number of minutes that the monologue will be, i.e. "5" for 5 minutes, or search across a range of time, i.e. "5 - 10 minutes."
Please enter a single, whole number here such as 5, and not 5.5. Keep in mind that this data is largely entered by contribution, so what someone else considers a five minute monologue you might complete in three.
As mentioned above, searching for a keyword in the summary will find that exact phrase. Searching for "hot cat" will not find "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," nor will "cat" find "Cats."
Keyword searching is best used either if you remember a keyword in a summary, or are looking for a range of plays about a certain theme (i.e. "Christmas").
|
