Schauffler Library: Shakespeare: Watching & Performing Shakespeare

Stream Shakespeare Productions and More!

Digital Theatre+

Digital Theatre+ is the perfect resource for streaming award-winning productions of Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and others! In addition to these recorded productions you'll find helpful video analyses, interviews with set designers and others working behind the scenes, and more.

The Global Shakespeares Video & Performance Archive

Global Shakespeares provides global, regional, and national portals to Shakespeare productions on an open access website. This resource is especially helpful for students who want to study productions either in an environment focused on one area—Shakespeare Performance in Asia is the first of these—or in the context of world-wide Shakespeare production. The archive is a work in progress and currently includes a catalogue of over 300 productions.

Kanopy

Kanopy is an on-demand streaming video platform for films and documentaries offered by public libraries, colleges, and universities. Your Boston Public Library eCard gives you 18 tickets to watch. These tickets reset each month and do not roll over to the next month. Depending on the length and viewing period of each title, movies in Kanopy will require between 0-5 tickets per viewing. You can see your remaining tickets for the month in the top-right corner of the homepage.

Find Even More With Your BPL eCard

Did you know all NMH community members can get a BPL eCard?

With the BPL eCard, you can access the Boston Public Library's online resources.

To Register:

Open the Registration Form
Fill out the form using your NMH mailing address and email
Create a 4-digit PIN--be sure to use something you can remember easily
Once submitted, you will receive an email with a verification code to put in to confirm your account
Check your NMH email for the BPL confirmation email with your Library Card number

After Registering:

You will have access to the great Shakespeare resources listed below along with many other great resources! Just click the link and input your new BPL eCard number and pin when prompted.

Royal Shakespeare Company Collection
These high-definition, surround-sound recordings of William Shakespeare's plays featuring the world's best Shakespearean actors bring performances filmed at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Stratford-upon-Avon theater to your computer screen.
Theatre in Video
Over 150 definitive dramatic performances and over 300 documentaries and interviews featuring directors, designers, writers, and performers. Videos include closed captioning and synchronized scrolling transcripts.

Shakespeare in Performance: Resources

Shakespeare's Staging: media resources for students & teachers
Students writing about Shakespeare, teachers teaching Shakespeare, scholars researching Shakespeare, and performers staging new productions of Shakespeare’s work can all use the site to enrich their understanding of the performance aspects of Shakespeare's scripts.
Shakespeare's Globe: Ask an Actor
This pioneering interview series takes you behind the scenes at Shakespeare’s Globe. For every production of Shakespeare performed at the Globe over the last 20 years, there have been accompanying interviews with the actors and creative teams, listen to them here.

DVDs in the Library

NMH has DVD copies of a number of film versions of Shakespeare’s works by a range of directors, from Laurence Olivier's Hamlet to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet, and beyond!

To see all that's on offer, go to the Advanced Search, and type in Shakespeare as your keyword. Then, under Collection make sure to select DVD, as shown in the image below:

Did you know, we also have DVD players available to borrow? Ask at the front desk if you want to borrow one!