PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
PlayShakespeare.com: The Ultimate Free Shakespeare Resource
  Monday, 11 August 2008
  7 Replies
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So I don't know if I'm the first director to use playshakespeare's texts in production, but I'm probably one of the first. So I'd like to start by thanking the admins for their hard work. It's truly wonderful to have access to FORMATTED scripts online.

I have a few suggestions that I think could help make this site useful to all actors and directors: currently, I'm in the process of cutting "Cymbeline." (I wrote in the directing forum about how much I hate cutting. But I've been forced by various circumstances to make cuts in this case.) Naturally, I want to use playshakespeare's excellent scripts as the basis for making cuts. I then want to post the cuts online for my actors. I've set up a private wiki for that purpose.

But I've discovered that it's a bit of a nightmare to cut/paste from this site and maintain the formatting. Luckily, I'm enough of an HTML expert to get around the problems. But there are a few things that would have made it much easier:

1) in the source code for the scripts, it would be great if there was some sort of commenting, e.g. [!-- scene starts here --] blah blah blah [!--scene ends here].

2) line numbers would be really, really helpful. In rehearsal, you need a quick way to refer to a section of the script. Saying, "lines 47 through 49" helps orient everyone.

I recommend numbering in the left margin, rather than to the right of lines, as is often done with Shakespeare texts.

It would be really easy, via some sort of batch process, to add line numbers and comments to all playscript pages. If the admins don't do this, I will do it myself for my own private work. But it would be great for this to be made public for everyone.

I have one much more pie-in-the-sky suggestion: hire a programmer (if you don't already have one on staff) to create an annotation system. Then open it up, so that users of the sites can write text notes. There is NO place you can go (online) to see annotated Shakespeare. You can get raw scripts here, at gutenberg.org and plenty of other places, but if you want notes, you have to buy a book.

Over time, this really could become the site where all experts and enthusiasts go for texts, because these texts would be always evolving and getting richer, via notes.

I've thought about this for years, and I've always figured I'd make my own Shakespeare annotation site some day. I will if you won't! You should scoop me and do it first!

Having said that, I have a bunch of ideas about how to make such a system user-friendly and useful. I'd be happy to discuss this with admins if they're interested.
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