Amateur Theatre Networks in the Archive

Abstract

In ‘Amateur theatre networks in the archive’ David Coates describes how existing scholarship on pre-twentieth-century British amateur theatre consists of a series of microhistories. He explains that although these microhistories offer fascinating insights into amateur theatricals in particular environments, communities or societies, there is a lack of understanding of the relationship that each example has to one another. This, he suggests, could be because of the often-fragmentary material traces of amateur theatre in the archive. The result has been an assumption that participants in pre-twentieth-century amateur theatre were unaware of other amateur theatrical endeavours and of the heritage of their practices, instead having only the professional theatre as a reference point.Coates explains how his discovery of the collection of the elite amateur dramatic company the Canterbury Old Stagers, in the Canterbury Cathedral Archives in 2012, changed all of this. Despite the collection containing extensive documentation relating to the activities of the company itself, of even greater significance is the vast array of materials to account for its members taking part in amateur performances across the length and breadth of Britain. Coates uses the collection to make visible the connectedness of pre-twentieth-century amateur theatre. In addition, he proposes that amateur theatre had a role to play in forging and maintaining upper-class social networks and consequently in upholding the power structures of British society.