Theatre Collection Theatre Collection Projects
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Medieval Plays in Modern Performance: Capturing the Archives
Professor of Medieval Studies, Pamela King, in partnership with the Bristol University
Theatre Collection, has secured funding from the Worldwide Universities Network for an
international archival project on the modern performance of medieval plays.
The religious drama of medieval England languished unperformed for almost 300 years.
One of the legacies of the mid-seventeenth-century Puritan regime that closed all theatres as
ungodly, was the much more long-lasting scrupulousness which forbade the impersonation of the
deity on stage. Although ‘playing God’ was not, as is commonly believed, prohibited by law,
generations of Lords Chamberlain customarily vetoed the performance of subject matter based
on the New Testament, with the full backing of Lambeth Palace.
The lifting of state censorship from the British theatre in the 1960s finally made possible
the reconstruction and re-interpretation of medieval biblical plays for modern audiences.
This, however, followed a succession of campaigns, pressure groups, and theatrical experiments
with these plays during the preceding decades of the twentieth century. In 1901, William Poel's
production of Everyman had sparked a new popularity for the play and the 1951 Festival of Britain
saw an explosion of interest in such works when the Mystery Plays were revived in York and Chester.
Bristol University Drama Department, the first of its kind in the UK, helped drive this forward
with such seminal productions as the Cornish Ordinalia in 1969.
The WUN funding will enable an international team of theatre scholars, led by Bristol, to link
all known archival traces of twentieth-century revivals, reconstructions, and adaptations of
English drama from the Middle Ages.
The project seeks to ensure that these unique archives are preserved for, and made accessible to,
future generations. Owners and custodians of relevant material are invited to contact the
project partners about what they hold.
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The Medieval Players Archive Project
The Medieval Players Archive was donated to the Theatre Collection in early 2009 and funding from the
Glynne WIckham bequest to the Theatre Collection has enabled its sorting, re-boxing and cataloguing.
The Medieval Players were a professional touring theatre company throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.
Their artistic policy realised an eclectic style which drew on research into medieval
principles of production, including juggling, fire-eating, dancing and music and their
archive is a comprehensive and substantial collection covering both the performing and
business aspects of the company.
The material in the collection relating to performance includes: posters; programmes;
press-cuttings and reviews; correspondence, including with critics, fan (and hate) mail;
videos of performances and workshops; and tour logs. On the business side, there are:
account books and other financial papers; Arts Council applications; and the Memorandum
and Articles of Association.
This collection will form an invaluable resource for the Worldwide Universities Network
supported project 2MP - Medieval Plays in modern performance: an international archive project.
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Visualising Theatre Project
The Visualising Theatre digitisation project was implemented in 2006.
It was generously funded by MLA South West Programme Development Fund,
the University of Bristol Alumni Foundation,
the Vice Chancellor's Strategic Fund and the Faculty of Arts Research Director's Fund.
The project was carried out as an Arts and Business
skills bank scheme.
Thanks are also due to our project partners: Institute of Physics Publishing, Kerry Hopkins'
contribution to the skills bank scheme, TASI
(the Technical Advisory Service for Images) for technical and professional advice regarding
digitisation and
University of Bristol Information Services for implementation.
TASI (the Technical Advisory Service for Images)
have created a case study
of this digitisation project.
View a selection of the available images,
or search the online catalogue. |
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Teaching Theatre: Unlocking the Potential of the Professor Glynne Wickham Bequest Project
The Teaching Theatre cataloguing project was implemented in 2005.
It was generously funded by the
University of Bristol Alumni Foundation. |
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The Berta Freistadt Archive
The Berta Freistadt Archive cataloguing project was implemented in 2004.
It was generously funded by a donation by Berta Freistadt. |
For further information about the Theatre Collection please tel. 0117 331 5086 (daytime) or email theatre-collection@bristol.ac.uk.
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