Records of Early English Drama

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The Records of Early English Drama (REED), also known as the Centre for Research in Early English Drama, is an international scholarly project that looks at the broader context from which the great drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries grew. REED examines the historical manuscripts that provide external evidence of drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and ceremony from the Middle Ages until 1642, when the Puritans closed the London theatres.

Founded in 1975, REED has for the last 31 years worked to locate, transcribe, and edit all surviving documentary evidence of drama, minstrelsy, and public ceremonial in England before 1642. As well, two collections go beyond the original boundaries of our research to cover other parts of the British Isles, RED (Records of Early Drama): Scotland and Wales. Twenty-four collections of records have been completed since the first REED collection, York, appeared in 1979; the most recent one, REED: Cheshire (including a republication of the earlier Chester volume), comes out in 2007. Over 30 editors are at work on future collections.

The project is based at Victoria University in the University of Toronto, an institution renowned for its scholarship in medieval and early modern culture, and has close ties to the English Department, the Centre for Medieval Studies, and the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. REED's internal governance is provided by an Executive Board of senior scholars in early drama and related fields, with advisors and collections editors drawn from Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

For many years, REED also published a twice-yearly newsletter (REEDN), now superseded by a refereed journal, Early Theatre (ET/REED).

The co-directors of REED are Alexandra Johnston and Sally-Beth MacLean.