Play Citation Generator
Cite a published play or drama — Shakespeare, modern scripts, or translated works — in seconds. Enter the playwright, title, editor or translator, publisher, and year and get a complete, formatted citation in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, and 10,832 styles. Free, no sign-up.
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How to Cite a Play
- 1. Enter the play details. Type the playwright, the play's title, the publisher, and the year of the specific edition you read. Add the editor or translator if your edition has one — for Shakespeare, that is the editor of your Folger, Arden, or Norton text.
- 2. Pick a style. Choose APA, MLA, Chicago, or any of the 10,832 styles. The reference is formatted like a book — but remember that MLA in-text citations of verse plays use act.scene.line numbers, e.g. (3.1.56), never page numbers.
- 3. Generate. We build a full reference to your edition of the play. Edit any field, then copy it or export to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I generate a citation for a play?
- Enter the playwright, the play's title, the publisher, and the year of the edition you used — plus the editor or translator if there is one — then pick your citation style and click Generate Citation. A published play is cited as a book, so the source type is preset accordingly; copy or export the finished reference.
- How do I cite a play in MLA?
- The works-cited entry looks like a book: Playwright, the italicized play title, the editor of your edition, publisher, and year. In-text, MLA cites verse plays by act, scene, and line numbers separated by periods — (Shakespeare 3.1.56) means act 3, scene 1, line 56 — never by page number, so readers can find the passage in any edition. Prose plays without numbered lines fall back to page numbers.
- How do I cite Shakespeare?
- Cite the specific edition you read: Shakespeare as author, the play's title in italics, the editor of the edition (e.g. the Folger or Arden editor), the publisher, and the edition's year. In-text, use act.scene.line numbers, e.g. (Hamlet 1.5.35-37) — and if you cite more than one Shakespeare play, abbreviate the titles (Ham., Mac., Oth.) in the parenthetical.
- How do I cite a translated play?
- Keep the playwright as the author and add the translator as a contributor. MLA lists 'Translated by ...' after the title; APA puts the translator in parentheses after the title, e.g. (M. Meyer, Trans.), and adds the original publication year at the end: (Original work published 1879).
- Do I cite the play or the performance?
- This tool cites the published text, which is what you quote from in an essay. A live performance is a different source type: it is cited by the production — director, theater company, venue, and the date you saw it — with no page or line numbers. If you discuss both the script and a production, cite each separately.
- Is the play citation generator free?
- Yes. It is 100% free with no sign-up, no ads, and no limits — and it supports all 10,832 styles in our library, including APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago, and Harvard. Your citations are saved locally in your browser and can be exported to BibTeX, RIS, CSV, or Word.