Theatre History
Facilities
Our facilities include a studio theatre and a large flexible-stage theatre seating over 200 spectators, alongside a 140 seat cinema. University of Glasgow is also home to the Scottish Theatre Archive.
Scottish Theatre Archive
The Scottish Theatre Archive forms part of the Special Collections Department of the University of Glasgow Library. The Archive was founded in 1981 and its coverage of Scottish theatre is very broad, including both traditional and contemporary aspects. Among the largest collections are the archives of the Citizens' Theatre and Scottish Ballet, the BBC Radio Scotland script collection, and the Jimmy Logan collection of music-hall material. Other collections include material relating to the Scottish Repertory Theatre, the Scottish National Players , the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, Glasgow Unity, Molly Urquhart and her theatre, the Scottish Theatre Company, and the Dundee Repertory Theatre, Wilson Barrett Company, Mayfest and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The contents of the different collections vary, but in general include programmes, scripts, production notes, photographs, posters, and presscuttings. Some of the collections also include business papers and correspondence. The Archive has extensive holdings of playscripts, totalling over 7,000 titles. As well as scripts relating to productions by companies for which there are major holdings, and large collections of published play texts, there are several separate script collections, including those of John Cairney, Michael Elder, Robert Kemp, and the Scottish Society of Playwrights.
James Arnott Theatre
The Theatre, named in memory of the founding Head of Drama, has a capacity of 182 in studio-theatre format. It has a large wire-mesh 'trampoline' lighting grid installed, the only example of its kind in Scotland and one of only three in the UK. Lighting and sound are fully computerised.
Performance Studio
This space is equipped with lighting and sound facilities and may be used as a rehearsal room or where practical work such as video production, theatre direction, playwriting, design or stage management can take place.
Theatre Design Room
The Design room is used by Theatre Studies students to carry out practical project work relating to courses in theatre design and theatre space. The room is equipped with model-making, drawing and some computer imaging facilities.
Andrew Stewart Cinema
The Cinema is used for lectures and screenings. The following media can be projected:
- 35mm film
- 16mm film
- Blu-ray
- DVD
- VHS
- Mini DV
- Computer data
Video Editing
We have 2 non-linear digital video edit suites installed in the building in recognition of the fact that TFTS have been developing a need for high-quality, digital editing facilities to be accessible on-demand by students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, working on Video Production Projects or on Multimedia Production and moving-image digitisation assignments of various kinds.
Suite number 1 consists of:
- Matrox RT.X100 with Adobe Production Studio Standard special bundle (includes Premiere Pro 2, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe After Effects Standard 7)
- 3.20 Ghz 800FSB Intel Pentium® 4 "640" LGA 775 CPU HT 2MB Cache with Intel® EM64T
- 300GB Maxtor SATA hard drive
- 120GB Seagate EIDE 7200RPM UDMA hard drive
- 2 x 512MB DDR2 533 RAM
- Gainward 256MB nvidia 6600 PCI Express graphic card
- 2 x 17" TFT Samtron black and silver SM74v monitor
- Pioneer 110 Beige DVD Writer Dual layer 4 x +/-, Single layer DVD +/- 16 speed
Suite number 2 is an older Matrox RT2000 system with dual monitors running Adobe Premiere 6.0
Resources Room
The Resources Room (RR) is an indispensable part of our teaching, learning and research environment. It provides a suitable environment, encouraging student users to take increased responsibility for their own learning while supporting them in the development of approaches to independent study and the acquisition of 'transferable' skills. It also provides a flexible infrastructure within which methods of teaching and assessment related to information technology can be introduced.
The RR consists of 19 fully networked PCs, 12 TV/VHS workstations with DVD and digital satellite viewing also available, and an extensive, fully computerised video library (VHS/DVD) of over 6000 items including feature films, television programmes, cinema shorts, recorded theatrical performances, extracts and documentaries relating to a wide range of cinema, broadcasting and theatre activity.