Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Biography
Sally-Beth MacLean is Director of Research and General Editor of the Records of Early English Drama at the University of Toronto. Her primary research interests are Medieval and Renaissance Theatre History and the development of digital resources for wider dissemination of interdisciplinary discoveries in the field. She has been closely engaged in the editing and research direction of the Records of English Drama series since the project was founded and has initiated and directed three open access research and educational digital projects, the Patrons and Performances Web Site, launched in 2003; Early Modern London Theatres, launched in 2011; and REED Online, REED's publication website, launched in 2017. Her book co-authored with Scott McMillin, The Queen's Men and Their Plays won the Sohmer-Hall prize from the Globe Theatre for best book published in 1998 on early English theatre and staging. With Lawrence Manley, she co-authored Lord Strange's Men and their Plays, winner of the RSA Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize for the best book published in Renaissance studies in 2015.
Publications
Books
Lord Strange's Men and their Plays, with Lawrence Manley (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2014).
REED in Review: Essays in Celebration of the First Twenty-Five Years. Co-edited with Audrey Douglas. Studies in Early English Drama (University of Toronto Press: Toronto 2006).
The Queen’s Men and Their Plays, with Scott McMillin (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1998).
Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women. Co-edited with Jennifer Carpenter (Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press 1995).
As REED Series Editor
Records of Early English Drama (Toronto: U. of Toronto Press, 1979-2009). 28 print collections in 36 vols. Most recently:
Civic London to 1558, Anne Lancashire (ed). 3 vols (Derek Brewer: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2015).
REED Online (2017- ). https://ereed.library.utoronto.ca. 6 digital collections. Most recently:
Rose Playhouse, Sally-Beth MacLean (ed). August 2023.
In Preparation
Bear Gardens/Hope Playhouse, Stephanie Hovland and Sally-Beth MacLean (eds). Forthcoming REED Online, December, 2023.
Articles (selected)
'Braving the New World: REED at the Digital Crossroads,' On Making in the Digital Humanities: Essays on the Scholarship of Digital Humanities Development in Honour of John Bradley, ed. Julianne Nyhan, Geoffrey Rockwell, Stéfan Sinclair and Alexandra Ortolja-Baird (UCL Press, 2023), 66-77.
‘The Sixth Earl of Derby’s Touring Players,’ Shakespeare Bulletin, Special issue on The Earls of Derby and the Early Modern Performance Culture of North-West England, ed. Elspeth Graham, vol 38.3 (2020), 443-64.
‘How to Track a Bear in Southwark: a learning module,’ with Tanya Hagen, The Best Pairt of our Play: Essays presented to John J. McGavin, ed. Sarah Carpenter, Pamela M. King, Meg Twycross, and Greg Walker, MeTH 38 (Boydell & Brewer, 2016), 232-46.
‘Moving Early Modern Theatre Online: The Records of Early English Drama introduces the Early Modern London Theatres Website,’ essay with Tanya Hagen and Michele Pasin, New Technologies in the Renaissance volume 2, ed. Tassie Gniady, Kristina McAbee, and Jessica Murphy (Iter Inc./ACMRS, 2014), 91-114.
‘Adult Playing Companies 1583-1593,’ Handbook on Early Modern Theatre, ed. Richard Dutton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 39-55.
‘In Search of Lord Strange: Dynamic Patronage in the North-West,’ According to the Ancient Custom: Essays Presented to David Mills, ed. Phil Butterworth, Pamela M. King and Meg Twycross, Part One, Medieval Theatre 29 (2007), 42-59.
‘Birthing the Concept: the First Nine Years,’ REED in Review: Essays in Celebration of the First Twenty-Five Years, ed. with Audrey Douglas, SEED (Toronto, 2006), 39-51.
‘A Family Tradition: Dramatic Patronage by the Earls of Derby,’ Region, Religion, and Patronage: Lancastrian Shakespeare, ed. Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay and Richard Wilson (Manchester, 2003), 205--26.
‘Tracking Leicester’s Men: the Patronage of a Performance Troupe,’ Theatrical Patronage in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Whitfield White and Suzanne Westfall (Cambridge, 2002), 246-71.
'The Politics of Patronage: Dramatic Records in Robert Dudley's Household Books', Shakespeare Quarterly 44 (1993), 175-82.