De Nieuwe Toneelbibliotheek (‘The New Theatre Library’, Amsterdam 2009) is not a publishing company in the traditional sense: it issues only texts for theatre, aiming to stimulate and preserve contemporary Dutch drama, provide new and existing translations of foreign plays and accommodate the general discourse on the subject in both Belgium and The Netherlands. DNTB does not function like a traditional publisher. Its primary goal is to enable the distribution and availability of plays and texts on contemporary drama; either digital or in print; thus bringing both author and play to the attention of an interested public of writers, performers, readers, theatre professionals and theatre audiences. DNTB realizes this by publishing small sized books through print-on-demand; and offering an online theatre library in which plays can be read and kept digitally (but not downloaded in any printable format). DTNB does not receive any state subsidy.
Graphic design
To ensure DNTB’s publications are easily recognizable as such, our books appear in a uniform design and typography and they come in one size only that is small enough to fit in pockets (14.5 x 9.5 cm). One prominent variety however is the use of colour on the cover: Dutch texts appear in (various shades of) green, texts that are translated into Dutch appear in (various shades of) orange, texts in other languages than Dutch appear in (various shades of) purple, bilingual translations in brown and secondary texts on drama appear in blue cover. For texts that do not fit into any of these categories, we developed the white series (carte blanche).
Selection
DNTB decides whether a text, or an author, is suitable for publication in the series. DNTB’s views on this are broad, but also subjective; especially in the case of starting authors, judgement can be strict, protective and possibly quite unfair.
Credits
Starters: Alexandra Koch, Connie Nijman, Ditte Pelgrom en Sandra Tromp Meesters.
Instigator: Marian Boyer.
Organisation
DNTB is: Mara Aronson, Connie Nijman en Ditte Pelgrom.
Editors: Ricky Schouten, Vera Hoogstad, Sonja Pauw, Joanne Mensert, Joris van der Meer, Dionne Hendriks, Aletta Becker and Yorick Stam
Working board
Sanneke van Hassel, Anne Baltus, Margreet Huising en Jeannette Smit
