Student Blog: A Love Letter To The Drama Bookshop

I honestly couldn’t tell you the first time I went to the Drama Bookshop. I know it was during the first month of my freshmen year of college but aside from that, I have no clue.  

The Drama Bookshop acted as a sanctuary for so long. Having come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be taking acting classes in colleges and not knowing when I’d be able to afford outside-of-school ones, I found refugee in their collection of Acting books. I would go, sit down with Uta Hagen’s Respect for Acting, and take notes, trying to soak up as much as I could. 

The Drama Bookshop (DBS)  was originally established in 1917 through the Drama League before becoming an independent bookstore in 1923. It’s currently located on West 39th Street, with a spiral of books on the ceiling designed by David Korins, Hamilton’s scenic designer, and under the ownership of Lin Manuel Miranda. The YouTube channel Wait In the Wings has a wonderful video about the history of the DBS. 

As someone with a background more familiar with musical theatre, having this archive of plays I could explore and live in my own time was a gift. There are so many stories that I never imagined could be entertaining in that format that would have me on the edge of my seat (Witch by Jen Silverman, cough). Although stressful, I loved, and still love, looking through plays for monologues, although I still have yet to find a monologue that’s the perfect mix of female rage and perfectionist craze, if that makes any sense. 

Time seems to stop here. Even if I don’t feel motivated to do work when I first walk in, the second I sit down, something takes over, and I’ll be locked in for the next 2-3 hours. Sometimes, a friend will join me, and other times, they won’t. Either way, it’s okay. As someone who isn’t a morning person, I surprise myself with how often I get up early when I have no classes just to get a seat at the DBS so I can properly do my work. I will say, I do miss not having work to do and just getting to read plays all day, but the grind never stops. It also sometimes feels wrong to do non-theatre-related homework in the DBS, but I’ve been steadily getting over that strange discomfort. 

I was lucky enough that this past birthday, I got multiple DBS gift cards which works well for expanding my collection of plays and allowing me to get the WiFi for ‘free’. In case you aren’t familiar with it, the DBS changes the WiFi password every day, always being something theatre-related, and you can only get it at the bottom of a receipt from purchasing a play or something from their cafe. I’m a big fan of their chocolate chip cookies, but I’m always a fan of chocolate chip cookies. 

There was one day I went to the Drama Bookshop and met Kirsten Chenoweth. Shortly after that, I engaged in a conversation with a recent NYU Tisch alumni, which as a freshman in college was such a wonderful experience. It was here that I learned about the different Casting announcements for NYU projects that anyone could audition for, and little did I know that one of these casting calls would lead to me working with some wonderful people this past summer. 

It’s a great place because it can be somewhere as simple as a study spot to a place to form genuine connections. Writing this just makes me want to count down the days until I can go back for my next studying session… which with the upcoming end of the semester, it will definitely be needed ;) 

Signed, 

J.F