Blog
Shakespeare Uncut: Talking to Strangers
Posted: Monday, June 18th, 2018
This month we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Refugee Week with a blog from Rossella Black – Librarian at Shakespeare’s Globe – who explains how Shakespeare’s ‘Strangers’ Speech’, from The Book of Sir Thomas More, is as relevant today as it was in the Elizabethan era. ‘..the right to travel, is not a privilege […]
200 Years of The Old Vic in London
Posted: Monday, May 21st, 2018
May 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of The Old Vic in London. The National Theatre and University of Bristol Theatre Collection are both marking this anniversary with exhibitions. Erin Lee – Head of Archives at the National Theatre, and Jill Sullivan – Archives Assistant at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection tell us more. The […]
The Perception and Reception of Early Dance
Posted: Thursday, April 19th, 2018
Sharon Butler is Secretary for the Early Dance Circle (EDC) and in this month’s blog she shares with us some thoughts on the ‘Perception and Reception of Early Dance’ – the topic of the EDC Biennial Conference taking place from 18-20 May 2018 at St Katherine’s, Parmoor, Frieth, RG9 6NN (near High Wycombe). The National […]
THE CINEMA YEARS – TYNE THEATRE AND OPERA HOUSE, NEWCASTLE
Posted: Monday, March 19th, 2018
Last December the APAC Newsletter included an article by Alan Butland, Trustee of the Tyne Theatre and Opera House Preservation Trust, about the three day film festival organised as part of the Theatre’s 150th anniversary celebrations. This month’s blog expands on that article and describes the challenge researchers’ face when archives become “distributed”. Clear-outs […]
Helpful Hashtags to Promote Your Collections in 2018
Posted: Tuesday, February 20th, 2018
This month Liz Harper, Archive Manager at the Royal Albert Hall and APAC Ex Com Officer without portfolio, has compiled a list of Twitter hashtags to help members identify forthcoming social media campaigns relevant to performing arts collections. The use of social media to create greater awareness and access to the collections we care for has […]
An Amateur Archivist
Posted: Thursday, January 18th, 2018
Our first post of 2018 comes from Rexton S Bunnett of the Bunnet-Muir Musical Theatre Archive Trust, who explains how he became ‘hooked’ on collection development! My Collins Dictionary’s definition of an archivist is ’a person in charge of archives’. So I’m not an amateur in the strict sense as I’m in charge of an […]
250th Anniversary of the Birth of Circus
Posted: Tuesday, December 19th, 2017
For our final blog post of 2017 Arantza Barrutia-Wood, Collections Manager at the National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA), looks forward to 2018 and marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of modern circus in England as developed by Philip Astley in 1768. Philip Astley, was a Sergeant Major of the 15th Light Dragoons, who […]
“Oh yes it is!” and “Oh yes we do!”: pantomime collections at the University of Kent
Posted: Monday, November 20th, 2017
Joanna Baines is Senior Library Assistant at the Templeman Library, University of Kent, Canterbury, and this month she gets us in the festive spirit with a focus on two new exhibitions exploring the fascinating history of pantomime. What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘pantomime’? Is it a memory of childhood winter visits […]
The Great War Theatre Project
Posted: Thursday, October 19th, 2017
This month Dr Helen Brooks, Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Kent, explains how the Great War Theatre Project is recovering many long-forgotten plays and changing our perception of theatre entertainment during the First World War. Try to think of plays about the First World War. Perhaps Journey’s End comes to mind, or […]
Digitising the Gate Theatre Archive
Posted: Wednesday, September 20th, 2017
In February 2016 the James Hardiman Library at the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, commenced a project to digitise the significant archives of Dublin’s famous Gate Theatre. In this month’s blog post, archivist Barry Houlihan and digitisation archivists Conor Dent and Nicola Gray take us through the process and explain how the archives will […]