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3,000 British Theatre Images to go Online
posted by
CinemAFuchs
on
August 10, 2005 at 5:22 am
Auditoria news reports on August 4th 2005:
Historic theatre archive to go online
Theatres Trust awarded grant
An image database of up to 3,000 British theatres is to be made available to the public for the first time through an online archive being created by the Theatres Trust.
The organisation has been awarded a GBP50,000 (USD89,000) grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and hopes to upload some 8,000 images on to its website by the end of 2006. These include engravings going back to the early 19th century and photographs and posters from the turn of the 20th. There are also pictures of lost buildings, original plans of existing theatres and up-to-date photographs.
“We have this huge resource, probably the biggest source of information about theatre buildings in the country, but up until now no one has really known about it,” says Peter Longman, Theatres Trust director.
Comments (2)
Mr. Roe – did you have something to do with this?
Can’t wait to see the photos.
This is wonderful news, not just for our ‘cousins’ across the Atlantic, but also for all lovers of theatre architecture around the world who cannot hope to get to England to see these images. I, for one, can only hope that someday such a comprehensive Image Database can be created here in the USA, though the task may be a bit more expensive with an estimated 30,000 movie palaces and an additional 50,000 other forms of theatres to catalog —though many of them were never photographed, sad to say. Sites such as both CTs as well as several societies and universities and the Library of Congress have made goodly starts, but I am not sure if they will ever find the funds to be as complete as this British effort seems to be. We can only hope that in time, other nations will follow the British lead. I’m sure that everyone looks forward to the announcement of the URL of the site.