The Records of Early English Drama (REED) is a performance history research project, based at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1976 by a group of international scholars interested in understanding “the native tradition of English playmaking that apparently flourished in late medieval provincial towns”[1] and formed the context for the development of the English Renaissance theatre, including the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. REED's primary focus is to locate, transcribe, edit, and publish historical documents from England, Wales, and Scotland containing evidence of drama, secular music, and other communal entertainment and mimetic ceremony from the late Middle Ages until 1642, when the Puritans closed the London public theatres.
From its inception in 1976 to 2016, REED published twenty-seven print collections of records edited by over thirty international scholars. REED is also engaged in creating a collection of free digital resources for research and education including Patrons and Performances[2][3] (2003) and Early Modern London Theatres[4] (2011). In March 2017, REED moved to digital publication of records with the launch of REED Online,[5] a publication site where records will be freely available.