Wozworld’s Weblog

Along with dance and opera, theatre rounds out the trio of subject areas benefitting from the newest purchase of research resources for the performing arts.  Like its’ dance and opera sisters, Theatre in Video captures classic performances on film for 250 plays plus documentaries and interviews with directors and actors.  Browsing indexes allows users to select material by play title or director/ performer name. Cook Library’s license allows for three simultaneous users, whether on or off campus.  While users can sign in and create an account to save selected plays and create film clips of specific sections of scenes,  the clip creation tools are not as high tech as those offered in the other two databases.  Some of the icons used for adding items to playlists and editing clips do not look exactly like those used in the dance and opera video databases, but a quick hover with your mouse will quickly orient you to the usage for that tool.  Registered users can keep playlists and clip lists private or share with TU members or all database users.  System requirements are easy to find, and like all the Alexander Street video products, you have the ability to stream your video in a quarter, half, and full screen mode for better visibility.  Shakespeare productions are particularly plentiful in number,  and Alexander Street expects to add a greater variety of play titles by world playwrights as copyright agreements with distributors are reached.  If productions are not in English, subtitles appear directly on the film.  One drawback is that very few productions beyond the Shakespeare titles allow users to stream by specific scene location within the film; most allow you to stream the entire video production, rather than select a specific scene.  As this was the first of the three Alexander Street video streaming products created, maybe this feature was a later added option in the newer products.  I enjoyed eating my lunch watching Derek Jacobi plot to gain the crown of England in Richard II – I bet you will find lots of fav films as well.