Abstract
ABSTRACTWhile the major theatre collections of universities and libraries in the UK, Europe and the USA have been long established, and companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company or Ballet Rambert hold their own extensive archives, the past decade has seen increasing attention paid to the need to support smaller theatres in preserving their own records. At the same time, new collaborative practices have emerged in the curation of heritage, often drawing on digital media and technologies: community archives, heritage crowdsourcing and community-university partnerships evidence this participatory turn.This article reflects on an ongoing collaboration with the Theatre Royal Nottingham, UK, and volunteer researchers from the city, to preserve, order and digitally curate the theatre’s 150-plus year history. The project builds on the potential of digital technologies – both to enhance participation and engagement and to most effectively capture and represent the interlinked stories and memories mobilised in the making and reception of theatrical performance. In reflecting on the successes and challenges of the project, we develop a model of what we term ‘citizen scholarship’ in arts and humanities research, which has enabled and supported meaningful and sustained engagement with the theatre’s archive and heritage by community volunteers.
Highlights
While the major theatre collections of universities and libraries in the UK, Europe and the USA have been long established, and companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company or Ballet Rambert hold their own extensive archives, the past decade has seen increasing attention paid to the need to support smaller theatres in preserving their own records
In the USA, the American Theatre Archive Project (ATAP) was established in 2010 in response to theatre scholars’ concerns that the archives of twentieth-century theatres would be lost to the future because they had not been acquired by manuscript repositories or had not been processed or catalogued; or they were not accessible through the theatre because staff members were unprepared to make them available; or records had been destroyed due to accidents, natural disasters, or the theatre’s inability to maintain them when the theatre closed or moved (Brady and Koffler 2015, 105-6)
We outline our development of citizen scholarship as a model of co-curation and co-creation which enabled the Theatre Royal, if not to ‘let go’ completely, certainly to share the burden – and the excitement – of understanding and sharing the venue’s history: preserving and organising its physical archive and researching and creating a rich digital collection of stories and objects to share with the public in Nottingham and beyond
Summary
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects: history, archaeology, digital content, philosophy, languages, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts, and much more. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98 million to fund research and postgraduate training, in collaboration with a number of partners. In reflecting on the successes and challenges of the project, we develop a model of what we term ‘citizen scholarship’ in arts and humanities research, which has enabled and supported meaningful and sustained engagement with the theatre’s archive and heritage by community volunteers
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