Following is a list of the Theatre Archives and study centres which offer services of online consultation or a description of the materials found within them. Each link leads to a precise description of each collection as well as information about its current physical location.


Italy

www.theatrelibrary.org
Burcardo Library and Theatre Collection (an office of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers - SIAE) was formally established in 1932.

www.piccoloteatro.org
Information about the archives located at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan, with details about its history and collections.

http://80.16.162.234/h3/h3.exe/aBF2000
The Library and Study Centre of the Turin Theatre with an online catalogue containing all of the acquisitions since 1990 which comprise about 50% (about 12,000 vol.) of the library collection

http://www.scuolecivichemilano.it/on-line/teatro/Home.html
The "Paolo Grassi" School of Dramatic Arts Library was created as a library resource of didactic purposes and was directed in the first few years by Paolo Grassi himself.
There are nearly 10,000 volumes in the Library, including theatre manuscripts and essays about the theatre and performances.
The Video Archives of the Theatre and the Actor was founded in 1990 under the collaboration with the City of Milan, the Paolo Grassi School and RAI television.

www.museoattore.it/
The Actor's Museum Library, established in 1966 by the Theatre of Genoa. The objectives of the organization are to acquire and organise documents and theatre properties regarding the actors in particular, in order to preserve, study and promote public exhibitions, and to maintain a specialized theatre library regarding acting and scenography. Italian language only.

www.incotecnet.it/centrostudi/login.asp
The Documentation and Studies Centre at the "Teatro Stabile" of Rome, established in 1996, possesses and preserves the documentation that reconstructs the history of the Rome Theatre productions as well as visiting productions since the first season at the "teatro stabile" in the city of Rome from 1964/65 to today. Italian language only.

www.muspe.unibo.it/biblio/biblio.htm
The library of the Department of Music and Performing Arts was opened to the public in 1987. The collection consists in the fusion of the Libraries from the Music Institute, the Performing Arts Institute and the Music History Department. Near the end of the 1980s the library merged with the collection of the Institute for Musical and Theatrical Studies, which had been closed. Italian language only.

www.pergola.firenze.it/biblioteca/biblioteca.html
The Alfonso Spadoni Theatre Library possesses an immense collection, estimated to be about 30.000 periodicals and monographs, archival material (several tens of thousands of documents such as invitations, postcards, letters written by great artists, programmes, etc.) as well as inconographical material, with a collection of nearly 4,000 programmes and posters, some in digital format, and may stage photographs. The information relative to 7796 monographs are already available via Internet. The objectives of the library are not only to catalogue and make their collection available to the public, but also to promote the culture of the theatre, through specialised publication for the theatre. Italian language only.

www.sanpietroamajella.it
The Naples Music Conservatory with an online catalogue of its valuable library.

www.teatroallascala.org
Site of Teatro alla Scala in Milan with online archives and a link to the Theatre Museum.

www.retecivica.trieste.it/triestecultura/musei/civicimusei/schmidl/schmiframe.htm
Established upon the inheritance from the Musical Publisher Carlo Schmidl (Trieste 1859 - 1943) and enlarged by the Verdi Theatre and other Theatre Archives from Trieste in the 1800s and 1900s, the museum is second only to La Scala in Milan for its wealth of documents and publications. Italian language only.

www.enteteatrale.it
The Italian Theatre Organisation site contains information regarding its national and international events. Italian language only.

http://w3.uniroma1.it/cta/index.asp
This site was produced and edited by the Department of History of Theatre and Performing Arts, with online catalogues. Italian language only.

www.eduardoscarpetta.it
The official site of the Scarpetta family of actors. Italian language only.

www.teatro.unisa.it
A window on Neapolitan Theatre produced and edited by the Department of Theatre History at the University of Salerno. Italian language only.

www.romaeuropa.net
Site of the Romaeuropa Festival, featuring a web magazine.

www.hystrio.it
Theatre magazine directed by Siro Ferrone.

www.drammaturgia.it
Rivista teatrale diretta da Siro Ferrone.

www.ateatro.it
Theatre Culture Webzine edited by Oliviero Ponte di Pino, in collaboration with Anna Maria Monteverdi.

 

Austria

www.theatermuseum.at
Vienna. Erstmals ermöglicht das Österreichische Theatermuseum mit einer grossen Schausammlung seinen Besuchern Einblick in seine reichhaltigen Sammlungen: aus den über 1,6 Millionen Objekten aus den Bereichen der Kostüme, Bühnenbildmodelle, Fotografien, Plakate, Handzeichnungen, Requisiten und sonstigen Objekten aus der Welt des Theaters wurden die schönsten und interessantesten ausgewählt.


France

http://www.bnf.fr/
Paris. Le département des arts du spectacle a été créé en 1976 autour des collections léguées en 1925 par Auguste Rondel. Son fonds s'accroît par dépôt légal, acquisitions, dons provenant de collectionneurs, d'organismes de production ou de personnalités du monde du spectacle.
Le département des arts du spectacle est un département de la Bibliothèque nationale de France. Il est également le siège de la Société internationale des bibliothèques-musées des arts du spectacle.

www.comedie-francaise.fr
Programmation, réservation, boutique, publications... mais aussi l'histoire de la plus ancienne troupe du monde occidental, les biographies de chacun des comédiens, l'emploi du temps, heure par heure, dans les différents lieux où se préparent les 35 spectacles présentés chaque saison.

www.theatre-odeon.fr
Fonds documentaire et archives de la bibliothèque du Théâtre de l'Odéon. Base Malraux, choix du centre de documentation "ODEON"


Germany

http://www.stmwfk.bayern.de/kunst/museen/theatermuseum.html
Munich. The collection contains c. 40.000 stage portraits and private portraits of performers, producers, etc. since the Renaissance, 50.000 stage designs and costume designs illustrating all the most important styles and movements, past and present with special regard to the history of Munich, Bavaria, and Germany. Theatre photography has a special importance in the collection. From the beginning of theatre photography - Nadar in Paris - onwards, the museum possesses more than 3 million negatives and positives, and this collection continues to be extended by the systematic purchase of 40.000 photographs each year. The heart of the archive is the collection of some 70.000 manuscripts. These range from letters, autobiographical writings, and diaries (e.g. diaries of Max Reinhardt's) to autograph manuscripts of plays, prompt books, cast-lists, and notes by choreographers (including Heinrich Kröller and Heinz Rosen), and are supplemented by nearly 300.000 programmes and theatre bills from German theatres and at least a million theatre reviews (post-war press cuttings), and approximately 11.000 sound recordings. New material is added continuously. The museum also possesses the biggest Richard Wagner collection outside Bayreuth, including not only original scenery and costume designs but also stage models from the Munich premieres of Wagner's operas.


England

http://www.bl.uk/projects/theatrearchive/homepage.html
This website accompanies a five-year project (2003-2008) to reinvestigate British theatre history 1945-1968, from the perspectives of both the theatregoer and the practitioner. The Project Team includes staff from both the British Library and the University of Sheffield.

www.vam.ac.uk
London. Britain's National Museum of the Performing Arts.The Theatre Museum collects a wide range of documents, artefacts and works of art which record the history of the performing arts in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present. Costumes, designs, manuscripts, books, video recordings, including the National Video Archive of Stage Performance , posters and paintings all play their part in helping to reconstruct the details of past performances and the lives of performers, past and contemporary. All the live performing arts are represented, including drama, dance, opera, musical theatre, circus, puppetry, music hall and live art.


Portugal

http://www.museudoteatro-ipmuseus.pt
Em 4 de Fevereiro de 1985, o Museu foi inaugurado, ficando instalado num edifício do século XVIII, o antigo Palàcio do Monteiro Mor, que, para esse fim, fora rigorosamente recuperado e adaptado.
As colecções do Museu, cuja constituição começou, a partir do zero, em 1979, têm actualmente cerca de 300 000 espécies, englobando a totalidade das artes do espectáculo, e incluem trajos e adereços de cena, maquetes de cenário, figurinos, desenhos, caricaturas, pinturas, esculturas, programas, cartazes, recortes de jornal, manuscritos, discos, partituras, até um conjunto de cerca de 120 000 fotografias.


Russia

http://all-moscow.ru/culture/museum/teatral/teatral.en.html
Moscow. The A. A. Bakhrushin. State Central Theatre Museum (the former Literary-Theatre Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences) keeps a unique collection of theatre relics of Russia.Almost 1 500 000 exhibits are kept in the reserves of the museum: those are archives of theatre personalities, portraits of eminent actors, singers, producers, dramatists, ballet-masters, dancers, composers, painters; costumes, personal belongings and properties; set designs and sketches made by great masters of scenery; posters and programmes, photographs of artists and performances, rare books devoted to theatre art, video- and cine-documents, articles of the theatre daily life - all that keeps the memory of the theatre performance.


Spain

http://museoteatro.mcu.es
Madrid. An important collection of scene designs and models, drawings, paintings, playbills and programmes, personal papers and manuscripts. Photo archive (more than 30 thousand photographs) and music archive (more than 10 thousand musical scores).


USA

www.nypl.org/research/lpa/lpa.html
The world's most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts - whether professional or amateur - the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters and photographs.


Sweden

www.dtm.se
Stockholm. With its app. 70,000 volumes is one of the largest specialist libraries in Europe and contains books from 1499 to the present day. It covers art history and musicology, costume- and cultural history, dance, mime, pantomime, shadow plays, puppet theatre, circus, scenography, theatre machinery and architecture. The theatre history collections include almost 30,000 objects from the sixteenth century to the present day in the form of stage sets, stage models, costumes, properties, scenery and costume sketches, scenes and portraits (graphics, drawings, paintings and busts), puppet theatres, shadow play theatres, technical theatre items, and the court theatre itself, as well as the Manuscript Collections, the Archives of the Royal Theatres (KTA), the Photographic Archive, the Press Cuttings Archive.