Blog
Celebrating Our Fortieth Anniversary!
Posted: Wednesday, December 18th, 2019
To round off our blogs for 2019 we look back at the year that saw us celebrate our fortieth birthday. Founded in 1979 as the Theatre Information Group London (TIG), APAC is now a registered charity and membership organisation for professionals, specialists, and other individuals working with or interested in performing arts heritage in the […]
Heads Will Roll: An NT Archive Spooktacular that’ll have you saying #OhMyGourd!
Posted: Friday, November 1st, 2019
WARNING: Contains gory photographs! For all you ghosts and goblins, we’re creepin’ it real with this blood curdling blog, not for the faint-hearted. Fran Horner, Archive Assistant at the National Theatre Archive, explores a slightly #Unboolievable object held in their collections. I have worked in the Archive at the National Theatre for just over a […]
‘Someone Inspirational’: Sam Wanamaker’s Centenary
Posted: Monday, September 30th, 2019
This month we hear from Victoria Lane, Library & Archive Manager at Shakespeare’s Globe about celebrating visionary actor & director Sam Wanamaker, in the year he would have turned 100. The reconstruction of the Globe Theatre is due to the determination and persistence of one man, Sam Wanamaker. This year sees his centenary and the […]
Albert Speaks! Capturing 150 Years of Performance
Posted: Tuesday, June 18th, 2019
Our June blog comes from Alex Duthie, Project Officer for the Albert Speaks! Oral History Project at the Royal Albert Hall Archive. Here Alex shares the aims of the project and some of the many memories of performance at the Hall he has captured. In 2017 the Royal Albert Hall Archive launched a unique oral […]
THEATRE TREASURES: NATIONAL THEATRE ARCHIVE UNBOXED
Posted: Tuesday, February 19th, 2019
In our February blog, Erin Lee, Head of Archive, National Theatre, explains how a new exhibition being staged at the London theatre, is celebrating the 25th birthday of its archive and responses to the treasures held within. In 2019, the National Theatre Archive turns 25. Established in 1994, the Archive aims to document, preserve and […]
The Contribution of the Popular Entertainment Sector to the First World War
Posted: Tuesday, November 20th, 2018
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the National Fairground and Circus Archive, at the University of Sheffield, have mounted an exhibition on the role of popular entertainment during the Great War. Arantza Barrutia, Collections Manager, tells us more in this month’s blog… In 1914 escalating political tensions and power […]
Shakespeare Uncut: Talking to Strangers
Posted: Monday, June 18th, 2018
This month we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Refugee Week with a blog from Rossella Black – Librarian at Shakespeare’s Globe – who explains how Shakespeare’s ‘Strangers’ Speech’, from The Book of Sir Thomas More, is as relevant today as it was in the Elizabethan era. ‘..the right to travel, is not a privilege […]
200 Years of The Old Vic in London
Posted: Monday, May 21st, 2018
May 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of The Old Vic in London. The National Theatre and University of Bristol Theatre Collection are both marking this anniversary with exhibitions. Erin Lee – Head of Archives at the National Theatre, and Jill Sullivan – Archives Assistant at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection tell us more. The […]
THE CINEMA YEARS – TYNE THEATRE AND OPERA HOUSE, NEWCASTLE
Posted: Monday, March 19th, 2018
Last December the APAC Newsletter included an article by Alan Butland, Trustee of the Tyne Theatre and Opera House Preservation Trust, about the three day film festival organised as part of the Theatre’s 150th anniversary celebrations. This month’s blog expands on that article and describes the challenge researchers’ face when archives become “distributed”. Clear-outs […]
250th Anniversary of the Birth of Circus
Posted: Tuesday, December 19th, 2017
For our final blog post of 2017 Arantza Barrutia-Wood, Collections Manager at the National Fairground and Circus Archive (NFCA), looks forward to 2018 and marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of modern circus in England as developed by Philip Astley in 1768. Philip Astley, was a Sergeant Major of the 15th Light Dragoons, who […]