Drama: Digital Resources & Video

Drama resources including production resources, digital collections, image collections, costume resources, plays and monologues.

Teaching with Streaming Media?

If you plan to use streaming video in your class and we do not currently have access to what you need, please fill out our Streaming Media Request Form. All the resources below are free for UW students, faculty, and staff to use in the classroom, and on or off campus.

Digital Plays

The best place to search when looking for a digital play would be in the UW Libraries catalog search. You can search by play title and/or playwright and use the filters on the left side to narrow your search perimeters.

New Play Exchange This link opens in a new window
The New Play Exchange®, a National New Play Network project, is the world’s largest digital library of scripts by living writers.

Drama eBooks
Full-text plays (and many other eBooks on Drama) from Oberon, Nick Hern, Methuen Drama, Currency Press, Theatre Communications Group, and others.

Black Drama This link opens in a new window
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Online collection of plays written by African American playwrights.
North American Indian Drama This link opens in a new window
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Plays by twentieth-century American Indian and First Nations playwrights. Includes issues of the Native playwrights' newsletter.
Literature Online This link opens in a new window
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Comprehensive database emphasizing English and American poetry, drama and prose, literature journals, author biographies, and critical essays.
Gale Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new window
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Comprehensive database of poetry, drama and prose, literature journals, author biographies, topic overviews, and critical essays.

Digital Archives

The Billy Rose Theatre Division (NYPL)
The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public.
Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive
Over a century and a half of adventurous performance and programming featuring artists from the city and the world beyond.

Live Performances & Streaming Video

National Theatre Collection 1 & 2 This link opens in a new window
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Video of theatrical performances from the National Theatre, London. Most are from the last ten years.
Donmar Shakespeare Collection This link opens in a new window
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Performances featuring all-female casts in productions of Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest, all set in a women's prison. The prison characters are inspired by real women who have experienced the criminal justice system.
Shakespeare’s Globe on screen (2008-2015) This link opens in a new window
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Video of theatrical performances from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Shakespeare’s Globe on screen 2 (2016-2018) This link opens in a new window
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Video of theatrical performances from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.
Royal Shakespeare Company Collection This link opens in a new window
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Collection of high-definition, surround-sound recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Stratford-upon-Avon theater.
Ontheboards.TV This link opens in a new window
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Streaming-video performances in contemporary dance, theater, and music.

Theatre in Video
Brings together hundreds of the world’s most important plays, documentaries, interviews, and instructional materials in more than 550 hours of streaming video.
The Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL)
Provides a digital venue for documenting the expression of social and political life through performance in the many cultures and political landscapes of the Americas. Includes streaming video performances of El Teatro Campesino, Danny Hoch, Split Britches, and others.
Shakespeare Uncovered
Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of its celebrated hosts to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. This resource links to full broadcast versions of plays from the PBS archive, and lesson plans for teachers who use Shakespeare in the classroom.