The Actor's Practice: How to Build a Library

A brief look at strategies to growing your scene library

Hi Actor,

One of the biggest overlooked habits for actors is building a library of scenes to work on. Not having this habit gets in the way of most people practicing. Building your library piece by piece is the equivalent of setting out your workout clothes the night before when starting a gym routine. It removes another barrier to getting the task done, making it easier to begin practice and harder to avoid. Here are 4 strategies to building your very own scene library.

Subscribe

Subscribe to services like Stagemilk or Acting Mastery that provide valuable access to libraries worth of monologues and scenes that you can work on with the click of a button. They both have a full database worth of scenes to collect. It would be worth asking around to see if any of your actor friends use other services that feature an easy to use database of scenes. FYI - services like these will likely come with a fee/membership to access.

There are other free websites out there that have catalogues of downloadable scripts too. I'm not sure which ones out there are safe to use but I'm sure some of them are genuine. If someone can shed light on which ones are legit, please do so in the comments section, that would be great!

Trade Scenes

Bring yourself back to the good ol' days with a game of "trading cards". This time instead of cards, we trade scripts. Ask around your acting circles to see if anyone is open to doing a "one to one trade". One scene for one scene. You can trade more at a time of course but my main point here is if you have 20 scripts to trade, the other person should be trading roughly 20 as well. Unless they have a valuable scene you really want. Then double up your offer!

Hold Onto The Scenes You Get Given

Keep a hold of every scene you can get your hands on: anything from classes; workshops; auditions (don’t trade your auditions with others & put these in a seperate folder - leaving a note, reminding yourself not to share these scenes publicly); Anything that comes by your inbox, grab it. Don't filter any scene from your collection. If you get sent 16 scenes for a term of class and 8 of those scenes are for female and 8 are male characters, label them as such and add them to your data base. When it comes to practice, you should be able to use most of those scenes regardless of gender. If the scene doesn't quite work, maybe try a couple of script tweaks and you'll be right as rain. If a workshop is giving you the option to select out of a list of 50 scenes that they provided, download all 50, not just the one you're going to work on.

Watch & Transcribe

Watch your local industry and see what shows & movies are being produced. If you come across a scene you like, or think suits you, transcribe it word for word to a document and add it to the library. Doesn't even have to be limited to your local film industry. If it's a Hollywood film and you get the inspiration to work on a scene from it, just type it out and file it away. There are transcribing services out there too that would save you a bunch of time, if you're willing to pay a few dollars per scene. You pay by the minute with these services . Record the audio of the scene and upload it to the service. I have used 'Rev' in the past for a different part of my practice, however I don't see why it couldn't be used for this exercise too. Give it a crack and let me know how you go.

Over the years, I've met countless actors that struggle to find material to practice with. Give some of these a go and you'll have yourself an endless supply of scripts to work with. Enjoy!

Talk soon,

Lachy

Lachlan is an Australian Actor who has been working within the industry nearing a decade. He’s worked in Film & Theatre.

© Lachlan Stuart 2025