Next year, the Drama Book Shop in Manhattan plans to celebrate its centennial, "but the exact anniversary is anything but precise," Backstage reported.
"It's a little hard to pick an actual year the store started, because it started not as a store but as a bookshelf in the offices of the Drama League of New York," said Allen Hubby, the shop's v-p and co-owner, adding that in either 1916 or 1917 the books were separated into their own office space. Nevertheless, the shop will hold "a big campaign in October of next year, a big party, and lots of events."
In addition to its extensive collection of plays, the Drama Book Shop "stocks plenty of industry publications, memoirs and literature full of up-to-date information.... The shop's crucial role in the New York theater scene was recognized in 2011 with an honor for Excellence in Theatre at the 65th annual Tony Awards," Backstage wrote.
Describing his staff as "walking libraries," Hubby said, "We have a very low turnover, which tells me people must like working here.... The staff is very good at helping actors. They know plays by type, age, gender, if you're looking for comedy or even a dialect monologue."
