We are thrilled to share that our project director, @aelagrand.bsky.social, has been selected as one of two recipients of Texas A&M University Libraries' 2025 Open Access Award! ✨

Shakespeare's plays are filled with unforgettable women—but too often, their voices are cut short. On the podcast, acclaimed actor Dame Harriet Walter talks about her book, "She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said": www.folger.edu/podcasts/sha...

Today, 88 records were added for performances of Coriolanus, Henry IV Part I, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Richard III, and The Taming of the Shrew in Philadelphia from 1863-1865 to bring the record total to 8,172. ✨🎩

Today, 34 records were added for performances of As You Like It, Henry IV Part I, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, and The Taming of the Shrew in Philadelphia from 1854-1864 to bring the record total to 8,084! ✨🎩

We are thrilled to be the cover story in the Texas A&M English Department’s student-designed and student-written newsletter: newvariorumshakespeare.org/news

This summer, @aelagrand.bsky.social visited the Library Company of Philadelphia and UPenn's Kislak Center to consult playbills and collect records of women's breeches performances in Philadelphia! ✨🎩

Check it out! Our project director, @aelagrand.bsky.social won the @honeyandwaxbks.bsky.social Book Collecting Prize for her collection of materials related to Shakespearean breeches actresses! ✨🎩 Points Like A Man even gets a shout-out!

After a bit of a break, we are back to bring you some more records! ✨ Today, 17 records were added for performances of Romeo and Juliet in Dublin, Leeds, Liverpool, London, and Torquay from 1809-1830 to bring the record total to 8,050. 🎩

Celebrating reaching 8,000 performance records on my database today 🎉 Since @pointslikeaman.bsky.social launched in 2023, it has grown exponentially, reaching 8,033 performances by 1,090 actresses at 133 theatres, representing 90 roles across 25 Shakespearean plays in cities throughout the world.

Not every day that you see actresses playing Macbeth! ✨ We’re preparing our next batch of records and came across these two playbills featuring Patricia Rignold and Kate Bateman as the titular Macbeth. 🎩

24 records were just added for performances of Twelfth Night in Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London from 1811-1877 to bring the record total to 7,955! ✨🎩

One of our Associate Digital Editors Dr. Kris May has won the David Greetham Prize (alongside former @tamu.bsky.social professors Heidi Craig and @lauraestill.bsky.social) for an article about trans-inclusive bibliography. Congratulations! newvariorumshakespeare.org/news/

We are inching ever so close to 8,000 records! ✨ Today, 50 records were added for performances of As You Like It, Cymbeline, and Twelfth Night in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, London, New York, and Providence from 1820-1901 to bring the record total to 7,931. 🎩

Moment of appreciation to the Polish-American actress Helena Modjeska, who was so renowned that she was billed simply as “Modjeska.” ✨ See, for example, this 1887 playbill for Twelfth Night from the Hollis St. Theatre in Boston, which listed her last name first and in bold type! 🎩

Today, 27 records were added for performances of As You Like It and Twelfth Night in Birmingham, Boston, Cincinnati, Ipswich, London, and New York from 1869-1900 to bring the record total to 7,881. ✨🎩

We're back with a large batch of performance records! ✨ Today, we added 176 records for performances of The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew from 1751-1843 to bring our record total to 7,854. 🎩

Today, 139 records were added for performances of The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew in Boston, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Norwich, Stafford, Walsall, and Windsor from 1844-1869 to bring the record total to 7,678! ✨🎩

19th-century audiences adored Charlotte Cushman in Shakespeare, including Hamlet and Romeo but also Viola/Cesario. Explore the Cushman-related "Twelfth Night" finds in our collection: www.folger.edu/blogs/shakes...

Today, we added 63 records for performances of As You Like It, Macbeth, and The Merchant of Venice in Edinburgh, Liverpool, London, and Manchester from 1801-1888 to bring the record total to 7,539. ✨🎩

We are preparing a new batch of records to add to the site and are just in awe over this playbill for a performance of The Merchant of Venice at Windsor Castle in 1848. The design of it is simply stunning! ✨🎩

Happy Friday and end of the semester, everyone! ✨ Today, 89 records were added for performances of King John in Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, North Shields, Weymouth, and York from 1803-1865 to bring the record total to 7,476. 🎩

Today, we added 11 records for performances of Cymbeline in London, New York, Nottingham, and Washington, DC from 1806-1897. ✨ These records include our first for Nottingham and Washington, and have helped us reach 100 theatres represented in our database! 🎩 Our theatre map is steadily growing! ⤵️

Today, 107 records were added for performances of King John, Macbeth, and Richard III in Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, Montreal, and Newmarket from 1840-1889 to bring the record total to 7,376. ✨🎩

News story on our website about our developer and technical editor Dr. Bryan Tarpley winning a Digital Humanities Award: newvariorumshakespeare.org/news/

While prepping our next batch of records, we added 64 actresses to our Actress Index. With these additions, we now have well over 800 actresses represented in our database! ✨🎩

We are preparing our next batch of records, sourced from playbills at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts! ✨ With this Richard III playbill from the Theatre Royal Montreal, we will be adding our first-ever performance records from Canada! 🎩 (Call Number: 8-MWEZ + n.c. 876)

Today, 38 records were added for performances of Richard III in Dublin, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Oxford, Rochdale, Shifnal, Torquay, Twickenham, and York from 1804-1835 to bring the record total to 7,269. ✨🎩

Today, 54 records were added for performances of Macbeth and Richard III in Edinburgh, Halifax, Kendal, Leeds, and London from 1758-1836 to bring the record total to 7,231. ✨🎩

We're back with another batch of records! ✨ Today, 48 records were added for performances of Richard III in Bath, Birmingham, Coventry, London, and New York from 1801-1837 to bring the record total to 7,177. 🎩

It is with heavy hearts that we share the news that #NEH grant funding for "Extending the London Stage Database" was terminated abruptly earlier this month. You can help us advocate for the importance of this project and the #humanities more broadly. Read more:

🧵 Today’s lesson: Diving into Digital Humanities This project (funded with the help of NEH) allowed researchers to digitize and study 700 playbills from the 1800s from one of the nation’s oldest theaters in Philadelphia. Sounds super cool, right? That’s because it IS! 1/3 shorturl.at/DY9jH

We've added another batch of records sourced from playbills at The New York Public Library of the Performing Arts! ✨ Today, we added 43 records for performances of The Merchant of Venice and Richard III from 1811-1868 to bring the record total to 7,129. 🎩

Very many congratulations to New Variorum Shakespeare developer and technical editor Dr. Bryan Tarpley, whose digital humanities tool Corpora (on which the NVS and many other projects depend) has won ‘Best DH Tool’ at the 2024 Digital Humanities Awards!

Congratulations to our developer, Dr. Bryan Tarpley of Texas A&M’s Center of Digital Humanities Research, for winning Best DH Tool at the 2024 Digital Humanities Awards, for Corpora! 🏆 We use Corpora for our database and are truly indebted to Dr. Tarpley for it. Many congratulations! ✨

Today, we added 70 records for performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream in London from 1816-1905 to bring the record total to 7,086. 🎩 With this batch of records, we also reached over 700 actresses represented in our database. ✨

Today, we added our first records - 4 total - from the midwest, taking place in Denver, Colorado, for performances of The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter's Tale in 1900! This brings our record total to 7,016. ✨🎩

We stand in solidarity with everyone affected by the recent NEH cuts. So many incredible scholars and field-changing projects have been affected, and we offer our immense sympathies. We remain on standby to offer any support we can.

Everyone go check out the Bluesky profile of our friends over at @londonstagedb.bsky.social! ✨🎩

Final call for voting in the 2024 Digital Humanities Awards! ✨ Get your votes in today!

To finish off our day, we added another 6 records for performances of The Two Gentlemen of Verona in London to bring our record total to 7,012. ✨🎩

We’re thrilled that @aarontpratt.bsky.social will be giving our next NVS Seminar, on ‘Selling Your Play in Jacobean England’. Wed 16 April, 1pm CST, in-person and streamed live on Zoom. For full details, including the Zoom link, see newvariorumshakespeare.org/news/

We’ve reached another special milestone of over 7,000 records! 🎉 Today, 30 records were added for performances of Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, and Romeo and Juliet in Dublin, Leeds, London, Manchester, and Plymouth from 1844-1889 to bring the record total to 7,006! ✨🎩

We’re starting work on sifting through an enormous backlog of playbills we’ve collected from archives throughout the country to find more records for our database ✨🎩

No joke! We have been nominated for Best DH Resource and our developer (Corpora) has been nominated for Best DH Tool for the 2024 Digital Humanities Awards! ✨ Voting is open until April 4!

We're celebrating something special today! ✨ Since the creation of our database, we have welcomed over 1,500 visitors who have viewed our site over 5,000 times. 🎉

We’re having such a great time at #Shax2025 and are so excited that so many have been interested to hear more about the database! ✨ We have just a few postcards and stickers left, so if you want one or want to hear more, come find @aelagrand.bsky.social at the Digital Meet-Up this morning! 🎩

For our last batch of records from the 1890's (for now!), we added 88 records today for performances in London from 1896-97. This brings our record total to 6,968. ✨🎩

Though I don’t have a playbill for Bernhardt’s performances as Hamlet at the Adelphi, I do have one for her as Hamlet at the Garden Theatre in New York! ✨

Today, 130 records were added for performances of Hamlet and King John from 1899-1900 in London in 1898 to bring the record total to 6,880. ✨🎩

We've been nominated for Best DH Resource and our developer (Corpora) has been nominated for Best DH Tool at the 2024 Digital Humanities Awards! ✨ We would be honored to have your vote, but while you're there, be sure to check out the other incredible projects! ⤵️ dhawards.org/dhawards2024...