We now have access to the Core Collection of Drama Online, a resource for finding full texts of plays. It Includes full texts of plays from across the history of the theatre, ranging from Aeschylus to the present day. It also includes non-English-language works in translation, scholarly and critical editions, first night program texts, and critical analysis and contextual information. Critical interpretations, theatre history surveys and major reference works on authors, movements, practitioners, periods and genres are included alongside performance and practitioner texts, acting and backstage guides.
You can browse by plays, playwrights, genres, periods, context and criticism, and by theatre craft. Advanced search options also allow you to search by type, playwrights, genre, period, theme, and setting.
Each play in the collection includes a production enquiry, which gives helpful information on who to contact to get performance rights for the play. Many plays also include useful tools, like a Character Grid that can be used to see only the lines of a given character.
Another great tool is the Words and Speeches tool that shows how many words and speeches are spoken in different acts of the play.
Currently we don’t have access to all the Nick Hern plays or the videos, but it’s quite likely that our access will expand in the next year!