Library Search: Acting: Specialist Resources

Playtexts

Drama Online This link opens in a new window
Drama Online introduces new writers alongside the most iconic names in playwriting history, providing contextual and critical background through scholarly works and practical guides.

Inter Play
Looking for a short play that was published in a larger anthology or collection? Inter Play indexes citations for international plays and playwrights in selected collections, anthologies, and periodicals to help you find what you need.

Oberon Books Collection This link opens in a new window
The collection of over 500 titles features a diverse range of ground-breaking British plays and international drama.
Project Gutenberg This link opens in a new window
Project Gutenberg offers for free the full text of over 50,000 ebooks which are out of copyright, such as the complete works of Shakespeare, and allows you to read them online or download them in a range of formats.

Screenplays & Scripts

Bloomsbury and Faber Screenplays and Criticism This link opens in a new window
A broad collection of online searchable Faber & Faber Screenplays.

The Library collection of scripts and screenplays is found at 791.437

Theory and techniques of screenplays and script writing is found at 791.432

You can also find material on writing and narrative at 808.02

The following websites contain links to various scripts and screenplays, although some are simply transcribed from the films themselves.

BBC Writers Room

The Daily Script

Internet Archive

Internet Movie Script Database

No Film School - features free downloadable scripts for some articles.

Screenplayed

Scripts.com

Script-o-rama

Script Reader Pro

Scriptslug

Simply Scripts

TV Writing

If a script is available commercially and you feel we should have it within our collection. Contact your Subject Librarian.

Journal of Screenwriting.

PATAZ: Physical Actor Training: an online A-Z

Physical Actor Training: an online A-Z This link opens in a new window
PATAZ: Physical Actor Training: an online A-Z contains over 60 dynamic videos with accompanying audio commentary, reflection, and texts for today’s physical actor, teacher, and trainer. It prioritizes movement, voice, and the body rather than character or text-based approaches to making performance and preparing the actor.

Performers, Productions & Practitioners

The Library provides access to many recorded performances, interviews with practitioners, and masterclasses.

Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new window
Full length productions, documentaries, insights in the play making process and more. Off-campus access is available. Click on 'Sign In' in the top right, select AUB from the 'Select (Institution)' list and then click on 'Sign in with my Institution'.

Kathakali Mudras
A digital dictionary of Kathakali Mudras (sign language), which includes some YouTube lessons.

Theatre in Video This link opens in a new window
Provides access to over 250 twentieth century theatre productions on streaming video, as well as documentaries and interviews with artists, writers, designers and directors. Also included is access to the BBC Shakespeare collection.
Theatre Performance and Design Collection This link opens in a new window
The first comprehensive, international collection that covers all aspects of theatre from production and design to performance, from the 17th century through to the present day, including, set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design, makeup, and more. Includes full video performances from the National Theatre, BroadwayHD and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Accent Resources

Accent CDs
A selected range of recordings of UK regional and international accents.

British Library Sounds - *Temporarily down due to security attack* This link opens in a new window
50,000 recordings from the British Library's extensive collections on music, drama and literature, oral history, UK regional dialects, wildlife and environmental sounds.

International Dialects of English Archive
Primary-source recordings of dialects and accents as heard around the world.

National Theatre & Royal Shakespeare Company Collections

National Theatre Collection This link opens in a new window
National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streaming video of world-class productions offering significant insight into theatre and performance studies. Through a collaboration with the U.K.'s National Theatre, this collection offers a range of digital performance resources never previously seen outside of the National Theatre’s archive.
Royal Shakespeare Company Collection This link opens in a new window
These high-definition, surround-sound recordings of William Shakespeare’s plays featuring the world’s best Shakespearean actors, like David Tennant, Sir Antony Sher, Paapa Essiedu, and Simon Russell Beale, and directors like Robin Lough and Dewi Humphrey.

Featured DVD & Blu Ray Resources

Greek & Roman Drama

APGRD
The APGRD is a research project based in the Classics Centre at the University of Oxford. It investigates the performance of ancient texts in any medium and any period, from Greek tragedy to Roman epic, from stage to screen, from antiquity to the present day.

Film & Video

The Library has a wide variety of DVDs relating to acting, including films, recordings of live performances, instructional DVDs, accent CDs, documentaries and interviews. You can search and browse these on the Library Catalogue. These can be borrowed or watched on campus. If you do not have a DVD or Blu-ray player, there are facilities in the Library that can be booked at the Library counter.

The Library also provides access to thousands of films and programmes through a wide range of video streaming services:

Box of Broadcasts This link opens in a new window
BoB is a permanent archive of over 1 million recorded TV and radio programmes. Available in UK territories only.
When searching BoB, use the 'Search options' e.g. to search the 'Title only' and 'TV only'.

Kanopy This link opens in a new window
Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video service which includes titles from PBS, the BBC, the Criterion Collection, the Media Education Foundation and more.

Kanopy lists its acting-related content here.

Shakespeare

BBC Shakespeare Archive
Hundreds of TV and radio programmes from the BBC’s Shakespeare collection, as well as more than a thousand photos from classic Shakespeare productions.

JSTOR Understanding Shakespeare
Complete texts of all of Shakespeare's plays, with each line linked to scholarly articles from the JSTOR archive that quote it, for research and close reading.

MIT Global Shakespeares: Video and Performance Archive
Video archive providing online access to performances of Shakespeare from many parts of the world as well as essays, interviews and scripts.

Shakespeare Films & TV Drama
Full streaming access to films such as David Tennant’s RSC Hamlet performance, the BBC Hollow Crown series, and the BBC Shakespeare Performances, via BoB National.

Play for Today

Play for Today
BBC Archive of the series Play for Today 1970-1984.
‘Play for Today was revolutionary and exciting’
David Hare
‘An inspiration for anybody that’s thinking about the nature of what film or drama is or should be’
Mike Leigh