This digital library consists of four main parts:
- •Genres: the style of theatre that a production is presented in.
- •Plays: The original story or text from which productions are created.
- •Productions: A particular company’s run of a play.
- •Performances: Individual performances from a production.
The relationship between these four parts is shown in the following chart and these four parts can be linked to each other through hyperlinks.
We suggest that viewers start with ‘Plays’, here you can see the introduction to a specific play and find a specific production or productions of it. In ‘Productions’, viewers can click ‘Genre’ to get information about the particular genre that a specific production employs, as well as other information including play texts, reviews and more. In Chinese theatre a play may be presented by a number of different genres; The Orphan of Zhao, (one of the four main works featured in this Pilot), is a good example of this. At the end of this hierarchical system, there are performance video(s) or images that a production contains. They offer viewers audio/visual or at least a visual impression of how a play is actually presented on the stage and the features of a specific genre.