The Internet Shakespeare Editions is a non-profit organization that produces a website devoted to William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 and his works. The organization is an associate member of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America

Shakespeare Theatre Association of America

The Shakespeare Theatre Association of America was established to provide a forum for the artistic and managerial leadership of theatres whose central activity is the production of Shakespeare's plays; to discuss issues and share methods of work, resources, and information; and to act as an...

, under the classification of theatre service provider, and is supported by the University of Victoria

University of Victoria

The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...

 and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The website includes a variety of Shakespeare-related resources, including fully annotated texts of his plays and poems, multimedia materials and records of his plays in performance, and historical information about Shakespeare's life and the Renaissance.

History

The project began on a floppy disc in 1988, which creator Michael Best called Shakespeare's Life and Times. In 1994 he transferred it to CD-ROM. By 1996, Best decided that the Internet was the ideal medium for his Shakespeare project. He translated his earlier formats into a web format and formally founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1999.

In 2010, the freely accessible site was redesigned to include advertisements.

In addition to the website, the Internet Shakespeare Editions also published a CD-ROM titled A Shakespeare Suite. The CD-ROM, published in 2002 and distributed by Insight Media, is a companion tool for Shakespeare studies designed for teachers and students.

Editing and publishing

The ISE's academic development is overseen by an Editorial Board of 23 members from universities in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In addition to featuring searchable texts and facsimiles of the folios and quartos, the website is a venue for Shakespeare scholars to publish their fully edited and annotated texts. Existing peer-reviewed publications include:

• As You Like It, edited by David Bevington
  David Bevington
  David Martin Bevington is an American literary scholar. He is Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and in English Language & Literature, Comparative Literature, and the College at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1967, as well as chair of Theatre and Performance Studies...
  
  ;
• Cymbeline, edited by Jennifer Forsyth;
• Henry IV, Part One, edited by Rosemary Gaby;
• Julius Caesar, edited by John D. Cox;
• Romeo and Juliet, edited by Roger Apfelbaum;
• The Tempest, edited by Brent Whitted and Paul Yachnin;
• Troilus and Cressida, edited by William Godshalk and Anthony Colianne; and
• Venus and Adonis, edited by Hardy M. Cook.

Additional modern texts, complete with annotations and collations, have been published but have not yet been peer reviewed.

The ISE also publishes editions of plays written for the Queen's Men

Queen's Men

The Queen's Men was an Elizabethan playing company that operated between 1583 and 1595. It was a popular company and its patron was Queen Elizabeth I...

, many of which influenced Shakespeare. These plays are prepared for the project Shakespeare and the Queen's Men, based out of McMaster University and the University of Toronto.

Theater

The Internet Shakespeare Editions' database of Shakespeare in Performance is a searchable archive of information and materials related to performances of Shakespeare's plays. There are thousands of digitized artifacts—images, audio clips, and videos—currently available for public viewing on the site, as well as cast and crew lists for hundreds of films and live performances. The database is overseen by a board of actors, directors, and academics.

In winter 2007, the ISE launched its Performance Chronicle. The Performance Chronicle is a searchable blog-style database of reviews of contemporary Shakespearean productions, written by the general public and scholars. It also includes reviews from scholarly journals, such as Cahiers Élizabéthains, Shakespeare Bulletin, and Early Modern Literary Studies.

External links

• Internet Shakespeare Editions
• Shakespeare and the Queen's Men
• Shakespeare Theatre Association of America
• University of Victoria