The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 24.0319 Monday, 8 July 2013
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Monday, July 8, 2013
Subject: Folger Shakespeare Library Picks BMC English Professor’s App for Its Digital Editions
The following appeared in the Bryn Mawr College electronic newsletter:
Folger Shakespeare Library Picks BMC English Professor’s App for Its Digital Editions
Posted June 17th, 2013 at 1:54 pm.
Luminary Digital Media, the mobile software company co-founded by Bryn Mawr English Professor Katherine Rowe, has been chosen by the Folger Shakespeare Library to create apps for each one of Shakespeare’s plays. The selection is based on the success of Luminary’s first app, “The Tempest for iPad.” The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the leading Shakespeare texts used in secondary schools in the United States.
“Our goal is to make modern editions of Shakespeare’s work that will help these plays come alive not just for high school students but for everyone,” says Rowe. “We’ve had great success with the Tempest app and are incredibly excited to have this opportunity to develop the remainder of the collection.”
Like the Tempest app, these apps will supplement the written plays with newly commissioned audio performances produced at the Folger Theatre, expert commentaries from the world’s leading Shakespeare scholars and teachers, image galleries, video performances and interviews, audio recordings, classroom resources, and learning modules.
The app has unique social reading, private network and content-creation tools that allow readers to customize their own experience and connect instantly with friends, classmates, and colleagues worldwide.
The first new apps will publish in November 2013 and will include Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The remaining plays will be released on a regular basis until the entire collection is complete.
“The Luminary platform is the perfect digital environment in which to engage with the richness of Shakespeare’s works. In addition to immersing readers in the riches of the Folger Editions and Folger Theatre, it also allows students, teachers, and the reading public to share their ideas about the plays, making Shakespeare’s works accessible in an entirely new way,” said Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in a press release announcing the partnership.
For more on Rowe’s work with Luminary, see this April 2012 Bryn Mawr Now article.