Byte By Byte, Putting It Together: Electronic Editions of Musical Theatre Texts

Doug Reside
Doug Reside
Assistant DirectorMITHUniversity of MarylandWebsiteRead Bio

While many humanities scholars have explored how computers might assist them in their work, there have been very few attempts to use electronic tools to study the musical. Musical theatre seems particularly well-suited, though, to the multimedia capabilities of the modern PC. This presentation will explore the ways in which electronic editions of musicals would not only be of use to musical theatre scholars, but might also help to develop a wider audience for artistically-minded (as opposed to commercially-driven) musicals. This talk outlines the benefits offered by electronic editions and describes the steps taken by the author to develop an AJAX-based electronic edition of the 1998 musical Parade.

Doug Reside is the Curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division and manages all aspects of the division’s collections and public services. He joined NYPL in 2011 first as the digital curator for the performing arts before assuming his current position in 2014. Prior to joining NYPL, Reside served on the directorial staff of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at the University of Maryland. He has published and spoken on topics related to theater history, literature, and digital humanities, and has managed several large grant-funded projects on these topics. Reside is especially interested in the use of digital forensic tools to study the creative process. He received a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky.

A continuously updated schedule of talks is also available on the Digital Dialogues page.

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All talks free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches.

Contact: MITH (mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 301.405.8927).