Discover Electronic Resources
Below you will find a wide variety of electronic resources to help you as you study Shakespeare. From streaming media to special collections, this page introduces you to important resources that are freely available to you as a member of the UIUC community.
Theatre Companies and Associations
Below you will find theatre companies and associations dedicated to Shakespeare's work.
The Royal Shakespeare Company performs Shakespeare's plays as well as those of his contemporaries. The company has a home learning page, with links to online performances, virtual tours of the theatres, and more. They also have a Youtube channel with clips and videos of past performances.
Shakespeare's Globe is a performance venue and historical landmark. They perform the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and offer recordings of some of their performances. Their website contains a useful discover page, which links to several resources, like their blog, podcast, and a virtual tour of the building. In addition, the learn page contains links to workshops, research and collections, and programs for higher education.
The Chicago Shakespeare Theater performs many programs a year, several of which celebrate Shakespeare and his works. They also have a variety of educational tools available, including teaching resources and a useful education page.
The American Shakespeare Center is a Virginia-based theatre company. In addition to performing at their theatre--which is a re-creation of Shakespeare's original indoor theatre--they tour, host workshops for educators and students, and have a production archive, which is freely accessible.
Watch Shakespeare
Watch productions of Shakespeare from the comfort of your home.
Global Shakespeares is a video and performance archive created by MIT. It provides access to recordings of Shakespeare performances from around the world. Productions can be filtered by play, language, or region. Essays, interviews, and scripts for specific productions are also available.
Drama Online provides playtexts, books, video, and audio to support literature and theatre studies. In addition, it contains character grids, part books, and word and speech graphs to allow the user to engage critically with the materials provided.
Shakespeare's Globe on Screen 1 and 2 contains 30 recorded productions spanning 2008-2018, all performed in Shakespeare's Globe.
Alexander Street Press provides access to a great variety of educational material. Stream productions of Shakespeare's plays, as well as additional educational content. ASP provides thousands of films and clips related to Shakespeare Studies.
Special Collections and Archives
Below you will find special library collections and archives dedicated to Shakespeare's work.
The Folger Shakespeare Library is the largest collection of Shakespeare in the world. Their collection contains 260,000 print books, 60,000 manuscripts, and 90,000 prints and works of art. They offer podcasts, a list of Shakespeare publications (most of which are free!), and several more online resources that may be of use.
The Horace Howard Furness Shakespeare Library is located at UPenn. Donated by Horace Howard Furness Jr., the library contains both primary and secondary sources, all of which relate to Shakespeare studies, theater production, criticism, and history. The library contains texts and images. Images are searchable through the Furness Theatrical Image Collection. The entire collection can be searched on the homepage.
Shakespeare in Quarto is hosted by the British Library and provides access to 107 quartos of 21 of Shakespeare's plays. It provides information about Shakespeare's life and the quartos themselves.
The Shakespeare Electronic Archive seeks to make it easier to access digital copies of primary material while reading digital versions of Shakespeare. It is free to use. When accessing a play, simply click the one you want and it will pull up the text alongside a related primary material. The archive has images of of the 1623 First Folio and artwork.
UW-Madison's Illustrated Shakespeare Collection merges artwork with Shakespeare. Images available were produced during the 19th and 20th centuries. You can either browse the collection or search for something specific.
The Shakespeare Resource Center acts as a repository for information about Shakespeare and his works. The site directs users to information by providing links to useful resources available online.
Touchstone is a UK based website that seeks to map and identify significant Shakespeare collections. There are specific pages for various aspects of Shakespeare: Shakespeare in performance, which has a database of archived performances as well as lists of current and upcoming ones; Shakespeare associations, which presents a list of UK-based and international organizations; Online exhibitions, which are related to the collections mentioned in the database; and the Touchstone database, which is a point of access for the various Shakespeare Collections in the UK.
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust cares for the several Shakespeare Heritage Sites in Stratford-Upon-Avon and encourages the celebration and study of the bard. Their research page provides links to scholarly publications, current research projects, and the online catalog, which gives users free access to materials held in the library. In the catalog, you may specify if you're looking for holdings specifically in the museum, archive, library, or in performances.