When the play ends what remains?

Theatre is an ephemeral art; but the material collected in a theatre archive can help one to re-imagine a production and gain an insight into the working methods of the performers and the production team. The links below and to the right will lead you to further information and images from series in the collection.

Photography	Costumes	Music
Programmes	Prompt Scripts	Posters

Collecting Policy

The National Theatre Archive has a broader collecting policy than most theatre archives: it is our constant effort to document the history of both the administrative and creative aspects of the institution. By reference to the various series of records held at the Archive one can trace the lifecycle of any NT production from conception to design to marketing to Stage Manager's reports. The collection covers the period from the inception of the company in 1963 to the present day and also reaches back to the late 19th century to document the movement to establish a national theatre. The major research series in the collection are programmes, posters, photographs, videos, sound recordings of Platform events, press cuttings, prompt scripts, production drawings, costume, lighting, and sound information. At the end of a production's run, the Archivist arranges the transfer of material from the various creative departments in the National Theatre to the Archive.

Deposited Collections

The Archive also holds papers relating to early 20th century attempts to establish a 'national theatre' including records of the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Trust; the Sidney Bernstein Collection; the Israel Gollancz collection; and Sir Edwin Lutyens designs for the National Theatre (1938). The Archive has also benefited from private deposits and has recently received the papers of Theatre Projects Consultants concerning the build of the National Theatre, and a bequest by Tanya Moiseiwitch of her designs for NT shows.

How was the archive collected?

Reporting on the appointment of Kenneth Tynan as Literary Manager at the National Theatre The Stage (15 August 1963) expressed the hope that his duties would extend to maintaining an archive:

"A log-book and a library are essential attributes to an organisation as important as the National Theatre, where businesslike records should be kept and maintained from the very first production onwards...few theatres in this country bother about keeping records. It is no one's specific job and consequently no one bothers about it. A number of leading West End theatres recently celebrated their jubilee, but journalists who wished to write features on these events found it very difficult to get material. No one seemed to keep programmes, press cuttings or any pictorial records of distinguished productions seen during the past half-century. Managements come and go without leaving a trace behind them."

Though lampooned in Private Eye as the new "librarian for an obscure south London repertory company", Tynan acheived no such permanent repository. At the set-up of the Archive in 1993 historical material was gathered from departments of the National Theatre (see An Invaluable Collection); remarkably, the combined efforts of concerned members of staff had ensured that the collection deposited and arranged in the Archive was near complete.