Archives

Our archive material includes production records, photographs, costume designs, prints, paintings, programmes, playbills, objects, videos, audiotapes, and other unique material from our holdings. These items are held in our strong-rooms at our Park Row and Langford sites and can only be accessed through Theatre Collection staff.

The collections are being catalogued and are available to search online. Please ask if you are unable to find what you are looking for.

Please contact us before your visit if you wish to consult archive material to ensure that items are available: this is particularly important as our holdings are split across two sites. Staff are on hand to assist with your enquiries.

Library

The Theatre Collection has a reference library of over 20,000 books and over 300 journal titles to support our archival and museum holdings. The majority of our books are available on open access at our Park Row site, but our Rare Book Collection is held in the strong-rooms and items need to be requested from staff.

Reading room 1

The reading room is a quiet study area, adjacent to the Theatre Collection library, for students of the University of Bristol and other visiting researchers. Researchers are welcome to use their own computers. In addition, there are computers available for searching the Theatre Collection archive database and library catalogue and scanning facilities. We require all researchers to follow our Reading Room Rules and Guidelines.

Reading room 2

Reading room 2 is a smaller reading room, connected to reading room 1, for students of the University of Bristol and other visiting researchers. As with reading room 1, researchers are welcome to use their own computers. In addition, there are computers available for searching the Theatre Collection archive database and library catalogue and scanning facilities. We require all researchers to follow our Reading Room Rules and Guidelines. This room also contains the Theatre Collection reference library of plays, all on open access.

Viewing room

The Theatre Collection has a viewing room for consultation of archival audio-visual material, which can be booked through staff. Please contact us for details. A microfiche reader is available on request.