![London Theatre Museum stage door 2007](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/London_Theatre_Museum_stage_door_2007.jpg)
The Theatre Museum in the
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
district of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, was the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's national museum of the
performing arts
The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...
. It was a branch of the UK's national museum of applied arts, the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
. It opened in 1974 and closed in 2007, being replaced by new galleries at the V&A's main site in South Kensington.
The Theatre Museum told the story of the performing arts in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present. It covered all the live performing arts including
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
,
dance
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...
,
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
,
musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...
,
circus
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...
,
puppet
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods ...
ry,
music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
and live art. It claimed to have the largest collections of documents and artefacts on these subjects in the world. Costumes, designs, manuscripts, books, video recordings, including the
National Video Archive of Performance The National Video Archive of Performance is a film and video archive in London, England which holds recordings of stage performances.
In 1992 the Theatre Museum, a branch museum of the Victoria & Albert Museum, began recording stage performance in ...
, posters and paintings were used to reconstruct the details of past performances and the lives of performers, past and contemporary.
The museum received its main funding from the British government via the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
, type = Department
, logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg
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, seal =
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, and admission was free.
History
![Gabrielle Enthoven by George Charles Beresford 1904](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Gabrielle_Enthoven_by_George_Charles_Beresford_1904.jpg)
The origins of the museum can be traced back to 1911 when collector
Gabrielle Enthoven
Gabrielle Enthoven (born Augusta Gabrielle Eden Romaine, 12 January 1868 – 18 August 1950) was an English playwright, amateur actress, theatre archivist, and prolific collector of theatrical ephemera relating to the London stage. In 1911, En ...
began a campaign for the creation of a "National Museum of Theatre Arts". The Victoria & Albert Museum accepted custodianship of Enthoven's collection in 1924, and she continued to add to it until her death in 1950.
In 1971 Harry R. Beard donated his collection of over 20,000 theatrical and operatic prints, texts, and programmes. The Theatre Museum was created as a separate institution in 1974 when the two collections held by the V&A were combined with those of the ''British Theatre Museum Association'', which had been founded in 1957 to collect theatrical material to increase the impetus for the creation of a separate national museum, and of the ''Friends of the Museum of Performing Arts'', another private endeavour towards the creation of a theatrical museum, which owned much
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...
material.
The new museum acquired many further collections through gift, purchase and bequest. These included the archives of the English Stage Company at the
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, Englan ...
and of the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Th ...
(relating to
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...
operas), the design collections of the
Arts Council and
British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...
, the ''Antony Hippisley Coxe Circus Collection'' and the ''British Model Theatre and Puppet Guild Collection''. In 1987 the museum moved into converted premises in Covent Garden. In the 1990s it placed renewed emphasis on the acquisition of 20th century material. In 1993 the National Video Archive of Stage Performance (later renamed National Video Archive of Performance) filmed its first production, Richard III starring Ian McKellen. The collection included over 200 productions by 2008.
Closure
On 26 September 2006, it was announced that the museum would close in January 2007 because of a lack of funds. A group called ''The Guardians of The Theatre Museum'' was formed in late Autumn 2006 by the theatre community to try to support the museum.
In December 2006, it was announced that the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
and Blackpool Council were in discussions to move the archives to
Blackpool
Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...
, where a new National Museum of Performing Arts would be located. The reasons given by the local council were that Blackpool has a strong theatre history, has one of the most diverse and thriving theatre districts in the UK and also houses the
National Theatre of Variety.
On 7 January 2007, after failing to raise £5 million for refurbishment of the premises in Covent Garden, the closure of the museum was confirmed.
Later status
The Theatre Museum was temporarily called the V&A Theatre Collections and moved permanently to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The department contributed to the exhibitions ''Collaborators: UK Design for Performance 2003–2007'' (in association with the Society of British Theatre Designers), ''
Kylie – The Exhibition'' and ''The Story of the
Supremes
The Supremes were an American girl group and a premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successful ...
''. From March 2009, to coincide with the opening of new Performance Galleries within the V&A, it became th
Theatre & Performance Department The reading room remained open to researchers at
Blythe House
Blythe House is a listed building located at 23 Blythe Road, West Kensington, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, UK. Originally built as the headquarters of the Post Office Savings Bank, it is now used as a store and archive by the Vi ...
,
Kensington Olympia
Kensington (Olympia) is a combined rail and tube station in Kensington, on the edge of Central London. Services are provided by London Overground, who manage the station, along with Southern and London Underground. It is in Travelcard Zone 2. ...
. The department also owned TheatreVoice.
The Theatre & Performance department strengthened its work in many areas following its relocation to the V&A. Its successful exhibition programme included ''Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes'' (2011), ''
David Bowie Is'' (2013), ''Hollywood Costume'' (2013), ''You Say You Want a Revolution'' (2016), and ''Opera: Passion, Power and Politics'' (2017). Several of these toured internationally, with ''David Bowie Is'' attracting two million visitors by the end of its tour.
Over the same period the department continued to make major acquisitions, some supported by the National Lottery and other funders, and these involved outreach and engagement project. Notable examples are the acquisition of the
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shak ...
Archive and the Glastonbury Archive. The Theatre & Performance department continued to maintain ongoing, active relationships with several key performing arts companies, in effect acting as company archives by preserving vital records of contemporary work in theatre. Examples include the
Royal Court
A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word "court" may also be appl ...
,
Talawa Theatre Company,
Akram Khan Company,
the Young Vic
The Young Vic Theatre is a performing arts venue located on The Cut (London), The Cut, near the South Bank, in the London Borough of Lambeth.
The Young Vic was established by Frank Dunlop (director), Frank Dunlop in 1970. Kwame Kwei-Armah has b ...
and the
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325-seat producing house with an international reputation, which takes its name from the street on which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diver ...
.
Other major acquisitions focused on the work of individuals such as
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
,
P J Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.
Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined loca ...
,
June Whitfield
Dame June Rosemary Whitfield (11 November 1925 – 29 December 2018) was an English radio, television, and film actress.
Her big break was a lead in the radio comedy ''Take It from Here'', which aired on the BBC Light Programme in 1953. ...
,
Ronnie Barker
Ronald William George Barker (25 September 1929 – 3 October 2005) was an English actor, comedian and writer. He was known for roles in British comedy television series such as '' Porridge'', ''The Two Ronnies'', and ''Open All Hours''.
...
and
Bronislava Nijinska
Bronislava Nijinska (; pl, Bronisława Niżyńska ; russian: Бронисла́ва Фоми́нична Нижи́нская, Bronisláva Fomínična Nižínskaja; be, Браніслава Ніжынская, Branislava Nižynskaja; – Febr ...
.
In 2021 the department faced discontinuation under a major
V&A restructuring plan brought about by the museum's COVID-related financial deficits.
This restructuring would cut Theatre and Performance staffing disproportionately and distribute its remaining curators across several departments, thus abolishing it as a distinct entity and a focus for performing arts documentation and research. A campaign and petition to save the department was initiated by
SIBMAS
The SIBMAS is a Belgian amphibious infantry fighting vehicle. It was engineered from the same prototype as the South African Ratel. In appearance the vehicle is also similar to the Chinese WZ-523 armoured personnel carrier. The SIBMAS was dev ...
(the International Association for Performing Arts Libraries and Museums).
See also
*
List of museums in London
file:A flow chart of London museums by Matt Brown.jpg, A flow chart of London's museums
This is a list of museums in London, the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. It also includes university and non-profit art galleries. As of 201 ...
*
West End theatre
West End theatre is mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres in and near the West End of London.Christopher Innes, "West End" in ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1 ...
Notes
External links
Theatre and Performance Collection at the V&ALink to archive collections held at the V&A Theatre and Performance Department "London’s Theatre Museum – Something Worth Saving" Website of the "''Guardians'' of The Theatre Museum". Accessed 1 May 2008.
{{authority control
Defunct museums in London
Museums sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Theatre in London
Theatre in the United Kingdom
Museums disestablished in 2007
Performing arts