Performing Arts

Our most significant resource relating to film, theatre and television is the Scottish Theatre Archive. This is an extensive collection, containing material dating from the 19th century onwards, to which contemporary theatre companies continue to donate material. There is a dedicated website and search facility. For more information, see:

• Scottish Theatre Archive website (includes overview and collection descriptions)
• Scottish Theatre Archive search (direct link to searching by name, keyword, event etc)

The following collections may also be of interest:

• Eleonora Duse Papers: over 1,000 items relating to the Italian actress Eleanora Duse (1858-1924)
• Farmer Papers: including material on variety theatre in Scotland, late 19th to 20th centuries 
• Scarfe-La Trobe: over 1000 Spanish plays dating from the 17th to the end of the 19th century

Other relevant material may be found across our collections. For example, we hold many texts of plays dating from the Renaissance period onwards: these may be found by using the rare books search. Use the manuscripts search to find unpublished material (including notebooks, papers, photographs and drawings).

See also the subject page for Music.

Web exhibitions featuring items relating to the performing arts:

• Slideshow of material from the Scottish Theatre Archive (Library virtual display)
• 20th century Scottish theatre (resource guide to relevant collections and texts)
• Seaside entertainment: features postcards and information about Scottish summers by the sea in the early 20th century
• Dr Henry Farmer's Scrapbook (Book of the Month: July 2007)
• Henry Farmer Papers (Book of the Month: December 2005)
• Scottish Playbills (Book of the Month: August 2003)
• Scarfe collection of Spanish plays (Book of the Month: April 2003)
• Recollections of Old Christmas: a masque (Book of the Month: December 2002)
• Shakespeare's First Folio (Book of the Month: July 2001)