Byte By Byte, Putting It Together: Electronic Editions of Musical Theatre Texts

While many humanities scholars have explored how computers might assist them in their work, there have been very few attempts to use electronic tools to study the musical. Musical theatre seems particularly well-suited, though, to the multimedia capabilities of the modern PC. This presentation will explore the ways in which electronic editions of musicals would not only be of use to musical theatre scholars, but might also help to develop a wider audience for artistically-minded (as opposed to commercially-driven) musicals. This talk outlines the benefits offered by electronic editions and describes the steps taken by the author to develop an AJAX-based electronic edition of the 1998 musical Parade.