Staging the Archive explores how academic, archival and theatre practices have contributed to the historic invisibility of early 20th century Black theatre-makers and asks what would look different if the next generation of educators and theatre artists had access to the historical work of Black theatre makers working in Britain. It involves a collaboration between researchers and theatre makers Kate Dossett, Dermot Daly, Eleanor Manners, Lorna French and Pauline Walker in partnership with the British Library, Leeds Playhouse and Wikimedia U.K. 

Initially funded by Dossett’s Independent Social Research Foundation Fellowship (2021) and a British Library, Eccles Institute Fellowship (2021), the Staging the Archive team has worked to identify and stage work by Black theatre-makers working in early 20th century Britain held in the British Library’s largest single manuscript collection, the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays Collection. 

Together with our partners, we have developed a series of projects designed to make these plays and the histories of Black British theatre makers accessible to educators and theatre makers and everyone interested in the history and future of British theatre. This has included: 

• a playreading group for young people at Leeds Playhouse (2020–21); performances at Leeds Playhouse  (2022);  

• a Wikithon series (2022);  

• an Archive Workshop Series at the British Library (2022–24); 

• a toolkit to support archive users as they encounter sometimes difficult historical texts within archives (Emotionally Engaged: A Toolkit for your Archive Journey).

  
  

Black Theatre Makers from the Archive to the Classroom 

Our latest project, Black Theatre Makers from the Archive to the Classroom, funded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (Research England), addresses the lack of access to plays and resources for teaching new texts by Black theatre makers. Such factors have been identified as a key barrier in the diversification of school curricula (Penguin & Runnymede Trust Report, Lit in Colour, 2021) and how what is studied at schools influences who makes and teaches theatre tomorrow (Daly, 2024). 

The project has involved a partnership with teachers, theatre-makers and the British Library’s Learning and Participation team to co-create digital learning resources to support the study and teaching of plays in classrooms by Black theatre makers working in Britain in the first half of the 20th century. The project features six plays, digitised as part of an earlier project collaboration with the British Library, which showcase the rich diversity of work written, adapted, developed and performed by Black theatre makers working in Britain. Some have been credited to the Black artists who made them, others have not. The historical context in which each of these plays was written, developed and performed is explored in rich detail in six newly commissioned articles written by leading researchers and practitioners in the field. These articles help us to both understand how easily certain plays and theatre makers slip out of history and make a compelling case for why we should study and stage these plays today. 

The materials for the teachers’ resources have been authored by Samantha Wharton and Lynette Carr Armstrong and the introductory articles by Dr Dermot Daly, Professor Alison Donnell, Professor Kate Dossett, Lorna French, Dr David Linton and Dr Michael Pearce. 

The learning resources were coordinated by the British Library Learning and Participation and curatorial teams: Katie Adams, Noha Choudhury, Alex Lock, Anna Lobbenberg. With thanks also to Sandra A Agard from the Learning and Participation team, and to the support of British Library colleagues from Copyright, Conservation and Imaging Services.

With thanks to Leeds for Learning’s network of English teachers for valuable feedback and to Dr. Brigid Power for evaluation support in developing these resources and to Dr. Joanna Phillips and the professional services team in the School of History at the University of Leeds for supporting the project.