The following review appeared in the August 2007 issue of CHOICE:

44-6775

Black Drama.  Alexander Street.  Annual subscription price is $4,195.00, one-time purchase ranges from $12,500.00 to $40,000.00; contact vendor for detailed info.

URL: http://alexanderstreet.com/products.bldr.htm

[Revisited May ‘07]
Written for performance rather than publication, plays are the most ephemeral of literary texts.  Only the most noteworthy are published, and those only rarely in enough quantity and with effective enough distribution to ensure a perpetual literary presence in libraries and the critical memory.  The rest are consigned to obscure archives at best, oblivion at worst.  Remedying this lamentable situation for black drama, this extraordinarily valuable Web site provides full texts of approximately 1,200 plays by some 200 playwrights.  Included along with the plays are detailed biographic, bibliographic, and production notes and replications of playbills, photos, and other production ephemera drawn from the important Hatch-Billops collection of black America artistic production and from private author holdings.  Included are major contemporary figures (August Wilson, Ed Bullins, Amiri Baraka), earlier canonized writers (Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston), and a host of obscure figures.  Though dominated by American writers, the site also presents contemporary African authors and African diaspora writers from the Caribbean and elsewhere.  Most of the published plays are unavailable in print, and about 500 were never published at all, making the site as much a true archive as a publishing portal.  All of the plays were selected to correspond to major academic bibliographies. 

Beyond its textual contact, this site is noteworthy for its flexible, detailed, and comprehensive search features, indexing, and cross-links.  Virtually every conceivable element or aspect of each play and its associated ephemera is indexed (in addition to the expected, such things as the occupation and sexual orientation of the characters, the geographic location and theater style of the productions, and the religion and education of the authors).  Combined with elegantly simple yet powerful search templates, this detailed indexing permits one to accomplish marvels.  Equally impressive is the sensible placement of the cross-links throughout and the eventual availability of MARC records for the texts that will make them directly accessible from online library catalogs. 

Summing Up:  Essential.  All users; all levels. –R.J. Cirasa, Kean University