Digital Archive Project Guidance

The National Theatre has created guidance aimed at theatre-makers, collectives, and organisations wanting to remember and catalogue performance online.

Read the Guidance

This guidance aims to create a bridge between practitioners and archives. It serves as an introduction to sharing information about performance online and uses the Black Plays Archive as a case study. This guidance focuses on the ways that an individual, group, or organisation might choose to do this work. We term these projects as digital archive projects. This guidance is also designed to be scalable, ranging from individuals to larger organisations.

The guidance also uses examples from a a variety of archive collections, including:

• Monstrous Regiment Theatre Company Archive
• Future Histories Archive for African, Asian, and Caribbean Performing Arts
• Royal Court Theatre’s Living Archive Project
• Tower Theatre Archive
• Unfinished Histories Project
• Stages of Half Moon (Half Moon Theatre Archive)

This guidance also uses the BPA as a specific case study. An evaluation of the project was written in tandem with this guidance. Read the evaluation.

Please contact the National Theatre Archive (archive@nationaltheatre.org.uk) for any questions or enquiries about this guidance.

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Unlike traditional archives, which are primarily focused on the safekeeping and long-term preservation of records, digital archive projects aim to share data and information. This is to display information that might otherwise be difficult to access (for example by sharing the synopsis, cast, artistic and technical teams behind a play).

Digital archive projects can lead to an increase in knowledge sharing, both for new users and those already familiar with an individual or organisation’s practice. They also enable information to be shared quickly and easily.

This guidance makes the case for pursuing digital archive projects and creating archives for performance using primary records.

Archiving performance matters

Without archives, performances are staged and then forgotten. Archives can create permanence.

Digital archive projects can make performance visible, quickly sharing detailed information that might otherwise be unknown or inaccessible. This is useful to not only practitioners, but to researchers, organisations, historians, students, and those hoping to learn more about past work. Digital archive projects can establish performances taking place, creating records of their existence and sharing further information about performance.

Have networks of support

Projects of this kind can grow very quickly. Having a network around the project can help keep it on track.

Whether your project is run by volunteers, friends, or employees, it should include a group of likeminded people all working towards the same vision. A network can influence how and where the project is made in addition to directing what areas of focus become priority. This helps projects succeed by creating a network of accountability.

Do what you can

Digital archive projects can include many elements. Focus on what matters to you and your network.

Digital archive projects can incorporate websites, production records, oral histories, interviews, exhibitions, blogs, events, and more. Projects of this kind primarily aim to share information about performances so they aren’t forgotten. This guidance focuses on the research and sharing of information, which is at the heart of these projects.

Who are these projects for?

Digital archive projects can provide information that might otherwise be inaccessible.

They can be excellent resources for those wanting to explore the history of a theatre-maker or organisation and be great starting off points for people wanting to know more about past work. Projects like this often bring new information to light, which can sometimes aid in a better understanding of performances, practitioners, or organisations. Digital archive projects benefit:

• Playwrights, theatre-makers, and practitioners
• Students and young people
• Local communities and community groups
• Academics, historians, and researchers
• Departments working within organisations
• New employees and volunteers
• Organisations with long histories of performance

What work goes into these projects? 

A lot of time, dedication, and resource is be necessary to build and develop digital archive projects.

This is particularly relevant if the scope of performances is not widely known and if the information being gathered for the project lies in a variety of different places. Some of the activities required to run a digital archive project might include:

• Cataloguing performance (making records of performance)
• Organising and hosting events
• Reading play scripts (if available)
• Designing, building, and testing the digital platform or website
• Hosting and supporting the digital platform or website
• Planning and creating resources, podcasts, and other public-facing content
• Writing educational and contextual resources
• Publicising and marketing the archive
• Clearing rights and licenses for images and other media

Learn how to remember and catalogue performance online.

Read the Guidance

Please contact the National Theatre Archive (archive@nationaltheatre.org.uk) for any questions or enquiries about this guidance.

This guidance also uses the BPA as a specific case study. An evaluation of the project was written in tandem with this guidance. Read the evaluation.

The National Theatre Archive would like to thank the following people for their time in discussing their practice and work, and for sharing their perspectives to help in the creation of this guidance: Suman Bhuchar, Sudha Bhuchar, Alastair Curtis, Jerri Daboo, Kate Dorney, Sula Douglas-Folkes, and Hannah Jones.