Overview

The Women's Theatre Collection has created a record of women's contribution to theatre, including information on female Playwrights, Directors, Actors, Characters, Administrators and Theatre groups.

What the collection holds

The Women's Theatre Collection was established in 1990 to provide a centre for playscripts by women of performed, but not necessarily published, plays.  Such writings are often lost as companies move onto new projects or cease to operate, and the Theatre Collection offers a site to save them as well as make them available to visiting scholars.  The 400+ typescripts are supplemented by a reference library of published texts and supporting critical, historical and biographical books which together form an invaluable resource, the first of its kind in the world. 

Scripts have been donated by, among others: April de Angelis, Michelene Wandor, Jean Nelson, Julia Pascal, Sarah Kane, Pat West, Tash Fairbanks and Bryony Lavery. A growing number of texts are in languages other than English, enabling us to offer an international resource.

The online catalogue for this collection can be viewed here: 
WTC - Women's Theatre Collection.

Further information

We also hold material related to a range of female Actors, Writers, Directors and Designers. These include a wide range of ephemeral material - fliers, programmes, some correspondence, photographs.

Examples of our archive collections which offer an insight into the involvement of women and female-led theatre companies are:

• MXM - Margaret Macnamara (playwright)
• MS - Marie Scharning (actress)
• EB - Ella Burra (playwright)
• SR - Sylvia Rayman (playwright)
• CWTDA - The Conference of Women Theatre Directors and Administrators
• MT - Moving Target Theatre Company

You can explore our wider online catalogue here.

Useful External Sites:

• The Feminist Archive South, based at the University of Bristol Special Collections.
• The Women's Library, based at the London School of Economics.
• Glasgow Women's Library