Drama Online is an award-winning digital library from Bloomsbury, the world's leading drama publisher. Our exclusive imprints, Methuen Drama and The Arden Shakespeare, are joined by playtext and streaming content from world-renowned partners including the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe, Stratford Festival, TCG Books, L.A. Theatre Works and many more.

This fast-growing resource is now available to millions of users in several hundred institutions across the globe. It offers over 4,500 playtexts, 800 hours of video, 450 audio plays, 650 scholarly books and over 30 volumes of major reference works.

Discover...

  • Diverse content and traditionally underrepresented writers: Key collections include Oberon Books, Shakespeare Globe to Globe on Screen, the upcoming Global Plays Collection and more. 
  • Unlimited simultaneous video streaming: Watch, read, listen and learn in one space, from anywhere.
  • Resources to meet your institution’s needs: Choose the collections that best meet your course and research needs.

Available now for purchase via annual subscription and perpetual access at institutions worldwide.

Drama Online

Librarians

Register your interest in a free trial for your institution

Americas: [email protected]

UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia: [email protected]

Australia and New Zealand: [email protected]

 

Faculty, Instructors and Scholars

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Content Highlights

We recognize that content highlights differ by institution so you can customize your Drama Online experience. Choose from the collections below to meet your institution's needs:

Playtexts

  • Core Collection: Methuen Drama, The Arden Shakespeare and Faber & Faber
  • Oberon Books 1 and 2
  • Nick Hern Books Modern 
  • TCG Books Plays: American Drama
  • Currency Press: Australian Drama
  • Playwrights Canada Press 
  • Aurora Metro Books 

Video

  • Asian Theatre Video Collection
  • BBC Drama Films & Documentaries
  • British, American and Australian Theatre Video Collection
  • The Classic Spring Oscar Wilde Collection
  • The Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy on Screen
  • European Theatre Video Collection
  • The Hollow Crown
  • Ken Rea's The Outstanding Actor 
  • Maxine Peake as Hamlet
  • National Theatre Collections 1, 2 and 3
  • Playwrights and Practitioners Video Collection
  • RSC Live
  • Shakespeare’s Globe on Screen 1 and 2
  • Shakespeare's Globe to Globe Festival on Screen 1, 2 and 3
  • Shakespeare’s Heroes and Villains
  • Shakespeare in the Present
  • Shakespeare Video Collection
  • Stage on Screen
  • Stratford Festival Shakespeare Collection
  • Theatre Making and Performance Training Video Collection
  • Theatre Performance and Practice Video Library

Audio Plays

  • L.A. Theatre Works

Scholarly Books

  • Critical Studies and Performance Practice
  • Focal Press Theatre Books

Reference

  • Theatre and Performance History Collection

Features and Benefits

  • Interactive Transcript Player: Full transcripts are available for all video content, with real-time tracking of lines spoken, automatic text scrolling, hyperlinked text for easy navigation to the relevant timestamp, and a ‘search transcript’ function
  • Play Finder: Select plays based on cast size, gender of roles, word count, period, and playwright
  • Related Content: All content on Drama Online is linked by genre, period, and theme keywords, making it easy to discover and compare and contrast works for projects and research
  • Personalization Features: Save searches, highlight and annotate text, and bookmark content
  • Monologue Search: Find monologues by keyword, gender, and word count
  • Character Grid: Each play includes a character grid that shows character appearances by part and scene with circles that correspond in size to the number of lines spoken, showing how and when characters interact
  • Words and Speeches Graph: Each play includes a bar graph showing the number of words in each scene by total or by individual character
  • Develop a Part Book: View lines and stage directions for individual roles
  • Create bespoke video clips: Create and save video clips to support teaching and learning
  • Read annotated plays intuitively: The seamless eReader includes in-text annotations and citations, with page numbers and line numbers
  • Performance Rights Information: Each play includes production enquiry information on who owns rights for the play and how to contact them

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the Best Interface award from The Charleston Advisor

Winner of the Innovation Excellence Award from Stationers’ Livery Company

Drama Online appeared in Library Journal's Must-Have Databases for Academic and Public Libraries 2020

Drama Online [is] a gigantic digital storehouse of recordings, play texts and contextual academic information run by Bloomsbury...The site has also significantly just taken receipt of a mouth-watering batch of NTLive and National Theatre archive recordings. The Telegraph, November 2019


“An excellent resource that all schools with theater departments and libraries serving artistically minded patrons should seriously consider.” School Library Journal

“Drama Online offers audiences the option to read Romeo and Juliet, listen to the audio production, or watch various filmed performances ... a valuable enhancement to academic collections serving theater programs, and school or public libraries.” Choice

“...succeeds admirably in making the texts of plays available online in an environment that will enhance their use for study and performance.” The Charleston Advisor

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